Eric Miller Animation

2015 Year-End Review: Animation Studio

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As this will be my last post this year I thought I should do a 2015 Year-End Review of how the year went.  This year was the first full year in business, since 2014 I was only in business for half the year.  I would like to take a look at where I was at this time last year, and compare it to where I’m at now to see what I have accomplished.

Business:
At this time last year the business was still setup as a Sole Proprietorship, but as of July 24 my business is now an S-Corp.  This was a big change for me, and the business.  It has been a slow process transitioning everything over, especially all of the accounting and bank accounts, but now the company is setup and ready to go.

Financially speaking 2015 was a loss simply because we did not work on enough client projects to counter what I’m paying to have the animated short produced.  I expected this year to be a loss financially since I wanted to work on building our portfolio, and spent less time marketing and looking for service work.  The company still has money in the bank from last year, so the business is still in good shape and I’m not worried yet.  Next year my focus will be on finding more client projects to work on.  It is a balance between working on our own IP, and doing service work to bring in money.  I will also be looking into how we can make money off our own projects we are working on.

Bink – Animated Short:
Although the short is the main reason we are in the red for this year I’m really excited we are working on it.  I have learned a great deal from the process, and what we have learned will only my make company stronger.  Plus when we finish we will have a really awesome animation to show off for the hard work, and financial investment.

Networking:
This was a big year for networking for me, and I have made a lot of new connections with people in my industry.  I have attended several industry conferences, and Producer Guild events.  I still have stacks of business cards sitting on my desk I’m hoping to reach out to.  If only I had more time in the day to get things done.

I have also been reaching out to other animation studio founders, and comparing notes.  It is really great to hear about what others in a similar position as me are doing, and what advice they might have.  While we may be considered competitors I have found we are all willing to help each other out.

Social Media:
The company had a lot of growth this year in our social media, and while I might not have all the numbers for how much growth I know it was a decent amount.  I will be putting a lot of information down here partly so I have someplace to look to each year for comparison.  Not all the social networks have tools for seeing what your numbers where a year ago.

Facebook is by far my largest network, and also the network I put the most effort into.  I will bring on someone to help with social media and marketing for next year, so hopefully I will see growth in all areas in 2016.  At the beginning of the year I had 1,659 Likes, and currently we have 4,425 Likes.

In July of this year I started a company Instagram account, and we now have 235 Followers.

I can’t tell how many Followers I had at the beginning of the year, but I think it was around 200.  We currently have 522 Followers, and hoping to double this number in 2016.

While I have not been doing anything with YouTube other then posting my Demo Reels I hope to see my 5 Subscribers I currently have grow significantly in 2016 as I begin to post Bink animated webisodes.

In 2015 on Vimeo I had 1,439 plays, 1,725 Loads, and 3 likes, and currently have only 4 followers.  Similar to YouTube I have not been posting much on here, but will be when we finish with Bink.

Marketing:
This year we had a marketing consultant do some market research and develop a marketing strategy for the company.  I’m now in the process of interviewing applicants for a part-time Social Media Marketing Coordinator position.  They will help in implementing the marketing strategy, and hopefully bring in more client projects.  At the beginning of this year we had no solid marketing plan, so I feel this is a big step forward.

Society:
This year I started the Society of Creative Professionals(Temp Name), and so far it has been going great.  We have had a monthly mixer since July, and I have met a lot of really great people.  I have a lot of big plans for the society, and hope to accomplish many of these goals in 2016.

Personal:
At the beginning of last year my wife and I had an almost 1 year old son, and were trying to do our best to keep on top of our personal lives.  This year I feel like we did not do the best job of keeping in touch with all of our friends, and wish we could have seen them more.  It is challenging with the little one, and with both of us working full time.  This year we also announced we were expecting a baby girl in May of 2016.  I’m sure this will make having a social life even more challenging, but we are very excited to be growing our family.

Our growing family will not only make our personal life more challenging, but will also impact the business.  I will be getting less sleep again(after we finally got our son to sleep through the night), and it will add more financial pressure to succeed.  I would imagine starting a business with less responsibilities would be less stressful, but I feel my responsibilities motivate me to succeed.

Conclusion:
I feel 2015 was a year of learning and growing.  While I don’t have a lot of work or profit to show the success we had I still feel it was a very successful first full year.  I have set things up for a very positive 2016, and can’t wait to see how the year goes.

Have a great New Year everyone, and I hope 2016 will be the best year of your life so far.

 

If you have not already, please join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog.  Also, if you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.

Our December 2015 Animation Company Update

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As this month comes to an end it is time for another Animation Company Update!  Was always, it has been a busy month, so I will keep this post short.

Bink
We have been making great progress with the short, but the crew has been busy with the holidays.  This is a busy time a year for everyone, and there has also been bugs going around. We are trying to all stay healthy, and as productive as we can.  Things will hopefully start to pick up again in January.

Client’s Web-Series
This month I have been talking with a startup toy company about producing a series of animated videos to introduce their new toy line.  They are looking for 8 CG-animated videos each around 2 minutes in length to post online.

I was able to pull together an amazing crew to work on them, and now we are just waiting to get the final details of the contract ironed out with the client before we start.  We might be getting started on the first episode as early as next week. Due to the NDA I can’t share any details about the project, but stay tuned for future updates.

Society
Last week we had our 6th society mixer, and the last one for 2015.  The previous mixers are normally 95% artists, but this last one was closer to 50% artists, and 50% producers.  I’m very excited about this, since it is more beneficial for everyone attending.  The producers can actually hire the artists looking for jobs, and it creates win win situations for all.

We also have a good mix of people earlier in their careers, and more experience people who can act as mentors.  I’m really enjoying the mixers, and I hope those who are coming are also having fun and getting something out of them.

Marketing
I mentioned in an earlier post I hired a marketing consultant to help with a marketing strategy.  She took a look at my company’s current marketing efforts, and then compared us to some of the other companies in the same space.  After analyzing the research she then created an intensive marketing plan for us.

She provided a lot of really great information, and gave me ways to improve our marketing.  I have been waiting on doing a lot of marketing until we finished the short, but as we are getting close I wanted to have a plan in place.

Now that I have a great plan the only problem is I don’t have the time in my day to actually implement her suggestions. I will be looking for a freelance junior marketing coordinator to help me implement the new strategy.  If you know of someone looking for a part-time marketing position please let me know.

 

Well, this about covers all the things we have going on.  Have a great holiday!

eric_miller_animation_holiday_card

 

If you have not already, please join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog.  Also, if you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.

Report Card for This Year’s Resolutions

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The report card for this Year’s Resolutions which I set at the beginning of the year in the post “New Year’s Resolutions for an Animation Studio” is not the best report card I have received.  While some of my priorities have changed I thought it would still be fun to look at the goals I was aiming to reach for this year as we come to the year’s end.  While I didn’t achieve as many goals as I hoped I still feel this year has been a huge success.  Just don’t show this to my parents since I might get grounded. LOL

eTMkRaAAcWork-Life Balance:
At the beginning of last year I was coming off of a busy project with Toys’R’Us, and my work-life was very much out of balance.  I feel I have done a much better good job at keeping a work-life balance this year.  If at all possible I try and only work during “working hours” on weekdays.  Yes, I might be checking and responding to work emails on my phone during my personal time I try and keep it to a minimum.  I also multi-task at night when watching TV by reading business related articles, but this is something I enjoy doing.  I guess when your “work” is also something you enjoy it is very difficult to separate them.  I could always continue to improve on this, but there is always room for improvement with everything you do.

x_mark_red_circle3 new Major Clients:
When it comes to clients this year was not as good of a year as I hoped it would be.  I set the goal for 3 new major clients, and now I realize how ambitious this goal was.  While it’s always good to set your goals high it is not a good strategy to set them so hight you will have no chance of reaching them. This one was nearly impossible for a new animation studio.  It would have been really nice though!  While I have had a lot of clients contact me the majority of them didn’t have the budgets required for me to take on the projects.  It is a very challenging and competitive time, and I’m competing against studios who have been around much longer and are more established in the industry.

x_mark_red_circleGrow Team:
I had the goal to grow my team this year, but I’m still a company of one.  The company is setup in the virtual studio model, and I’m working exclusively with freelancers.  This is mostly due to the fact I did not have the income to bring on anyone full time.  The one major change to my company’s structure was changing it from a sole proprietorship to an S-Corp.  So in away the company did grow, but not in the way I was thinking when I set my goals.  Adding others to the team is still one of my top goals, but finding out how to make that work is not easy.  At this point having an assistant would be amazing to help me get through my daily tasks, so I can focus on the more important parts of the business.  A smarter choice might be to bring on a partner who’s skills are complimentary to mine.

eTMkRaAAcDevelop my own IP:
This goal was more of a “It would be nice”, but I did not imagine I would actually be able to do it.  Not only did I develop our own IP(Intellectual Property), but we are actually making it.  In May of this year we started developing our own animated short which is currently called “Bink”, and we are planning on finishing production early in 2016.  Any of you who regularly read my blog knows it has been the main project I have been working on this year.  It came out of the need to show clients the quality of CG animation we can do, and since we currently had no fully animated content on our company’s demo reel I needed to find a way.  I knew in order to get respectable clients I would need to have something to show, and this is why creating our own shorts moved up in priority.  I’m very excited about our progress on the short, and looking forward to being able to share the first episode with everyone.

eTMkRaAAcContinue to learn:
This was an easy one for me.  I have learned so much from running a business and producing an animated short.  With the business, I have tried and failed on many things, but also have had a lot of success.  I have learned a great deal from both.  I’m learning more about marketing, corporations, taxes, financing, networking, and many more.  With the short I knew a great deal from working at DreamWorks about a very specific part of the production process, but I’m learning things I had no idea about.  I thought I knew a lot about an animation pipeline, but my understanding was only so deep.  The technical challenges to make sure assets and shots work with downstream departments is a huge eye opener.  I know I will never know everything, but I have been lucky enough to work with an extremely talented and intelligent group of people who have been a huge help.  This is only one part of what I learned during this process of producing the short.

x_mark_red_circle10,000 Facebook Likes:
Yes, another very ambitious goal I had, but did not achieve.  The week I wrote the goal I had gained over 512 likes in 1 week, and thought if I kept even half this momentum I would easily make it to 10,000.  Well there was a lot of weeks I did not gain any new likes, and none of the other weeks were even close to 500 likes.  At the beginning of this year I had 1,450 likes, and I’m currently at 4,417.  While this is still an almost 3,000 gain it is nowhere near my 10,000 goal.  The larger my social network the easier it will be to get our shorts out to more people.  The other point I should mention is it is not all about numbers, but the quality of those likes.  We want to get our content out to people who really want to follow our story, or potential clients who might send work our way.  So while I want to reach as many people as I can I also want to target my likes to be from the right people.

x_mark_red_circleDo Good:
While I like to think I did some good I feel I did not do enough, and this is why I’m considering this a miss.  While it is easy for me to use the excuse of how busy I was it is a pretty weak excuse.  I hope next year I can find ways to give back to my community, or other people in need.

x_mark_red_circleGovernment contract work:
Last year I was looking into doing government contract work.  I was going to classes about how to get government contracted projects and not only learned it is very difficult, but currently impossible for me.  They required your business to be around for at least 5 years.  This ruled me out instantly, so I put it on the back burner for a few years until I’m a more established business.

eTMkRaAAcWikipedia Approval:
This was added partially as a joke, but also out of a desire to get my business into the “history books”.  I kept trying to add Eric Miller Animation Studios to Wikipedia, but they would instantly take it down with the reason “no sign of real notability”.  It became a goal to get a Wikipedia page for my business to stay, and not be removed.  In February I was able to get an Eric Miller Animation Studios Wikipedia article up on the site.  While this was mostly a person mission of mine it turned out to be great for business. I have been receiving a good amount of traffic to my company’s website from my Wikipedia page.

While I did not achieve as many of my goals as I hoped I did make a lot of progress this year.  I hope 2016 will be our best year yet, and each year after will be better then the last.

 

If you have not already, I hope you will join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog.  If you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.

Update On Our Animated Short – Dec. 1st, 2015

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Here is a quick update on our animated short. As you can see by the banner image we are now getting some early lighting renders, and all the assets are starting to come together.

It is important for me to note none of these images are final, and it is a special treat I’m sharing the work of artists before it is complete.  With this said I have a lot of caveats about these images I’m sharing with all of you.

The character Bink is in what is often called T-pose, or neutral pose, and he looks rather lifeless.  We actually model out the expressions you see in the concept art so the rigs work better.  Animation will add expressions and cuteness back into the character later on.  The surfacing on Bink is still very early, and we are actually looking into adding fur instead of simple textures.  This adds a level of difficulty, so we are hoping it will all work.  Our surfacer who is working on Bink is Violette Sacre, and she has been putting in a lot of time to get it to all work, and make him look amazing.

The room is currently only gray, and none of the texturing, or colors have been added to it yet.  Graham Cunningham is our lighter, but will also be doing the surfacing on the room.  He has been focused on getting this lighting rig setup for the other surfacers to test their work in.  After he finishes the surfacing on the room he will start making the lighting of each shot look really great with lighting, atmosphere effects, focus, and other magic.

I had the pleasure of working with Linda Kurgpold on Home when we were both at DreamWorks Animation, and now she is helping us out on the short.  She has done some amazing work on the surfacing of the hand and the crate.  Both are also in progress, and still need work on the shaders.

bink_progress_2015_12_01

In addition to the lighting and surfacing progress we are also working on the animation.  Our animator Jacob Gardner has been hard at work, and showed me a rough animation pass last week.  It is very exciting to see Bink come to life, and I can’t wait to start combining all these different elements we are working on(surfacing, lighting, animation).

Well, there is a quick update for all of you on our progress on the first 30 second episode.  Keep reading this blog for future updates.

 

If you have not already, I hope you will join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog.  If you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.

Weekend at the CTN Animation Expo

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I had a great time this weekend at the CTN Animation Expo.  This was my second year attending and I could not believe how much it had grown since last year.  I heard in the last few years this animation expo has doubled in size.  It shows there is a desire for this type of an event, and you almost wonder if more will be springing up.

It was so crowded many of the panels, and workshops were hard to get into, and this was a little disappointing.  Often by the time you got to the line it was around the block and there was no chance you would make it in.  In addition to all the panels, and workshops there was also and exhibit floor where artists, schools, and studios had booths.  When I was not able to make any of the panels this was normally where I spent my time.  I really enjoy meeting artists, and seeing their work.  I was surprised by the number of concept artists there was this year.  Maybe artists with other disciplines did not get booths as much, but the majority of booths were of concept artists.

I thought the highlight of the event was the Rat’s Nest Reunion.  It brought together the Disney legends who all once worked together as animators.  They explained the origin of the name which came from the conflict between the old guys and the new guys.  A summarized version of the story is that after Walk Disney died the studios innovation slowed to a crawl.  According to the gentlemen in the Rat’s Nest, management was trying to think of what “Walt would do”, instead of being innovative.  As the senior A-team animators started to leave the studio the senior, but less talented B-team started to run the studio.  The Rat’s Nest was a small group of new animators that wanted to push the innovation to get things back to how it was, while the older animators did not want to rock the boat.  They continually discouraged pushing the limits, and kept creativity at an all time low, The difference in opinions was causing a divide between the two groups. As the older animators started to leave the Rat’s Nest(a name they were called by the older animators) started to have more influence in the movies Disney was making.  They are often credited for bringing the quality of Walt Disney animated movies back.  These animators included; Brad Bird, John Musker, Jerry Rees, Henry Slick, Bill Kroyer, and Dan Haskett.  Even if you don’t recognize their names you will know their work.  Click their names to link to find out more information about each.

Rat's Nets

L to R: Henry Slick, Jerry Rees, John Musker, Bill Kroyer, Dan Haskett, Brad Bird, and moderator Tony Bancroft.

It was great hearing them all tell stories about their times at Disney, and seeing old photos and sketches. It was over 30 years since they were last all together, so it made it a very special event.

There were many other great events I was excited to see.  I saw some scenes from Kung Fu Panda 3, and it was extremely funny.  It was good seeing and reconnecting with directors Jen Yuh Nelson, and Alessandro Carloni.  I have not seen them since I left DreamWorks Animation.

I was also excited to see the panel of Tonko House.  It is an animation company which was started by two guys who used to work at Pixar.  Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi is one of the co-founders, and he was the presenter. They started by creating the animated short The Dam Keeper, and decided to start the company after they released it. I first heard of them last year at CTNX when they screened their short film The Dam Keeper.

Another very interesting workshop was presented by my friends Kate Finan and Jeff Shiffman who are co-founders of Boom Box Post.  Their workshop was called The Art of Animation Sound.  They showed how they add amazing sounds to their client’s project, and also gave an in-depth history on sound used in animation.

Overall this year’s CTNX was a lot of fun, and I learned a great deal.  I also got to meet a ton of really talented people.  Now I just need to find the time to go though this huge stack of business cards to reach out to all the people I met.  I did download an app on my phone which you can take a picture of the business cards and it pulls the data out and creates a contact.  It will save me a lot of time by keeping me from manually entering them into my computer.

 

If you have not already, I hope you will join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog.  If you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.

Eric Miller Animation November 2015 Update

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It’s time for my November 2015 Update to let all of you know everything we are working on.  I’m really good at keeping myself overworked, and extremely busy.  No matter how productive I am each day I never get to a point where I feel I’m caught up.  You may have noticed from my failure to post to this blog each week that I have not been able to keep up with everything.  While continuing to write weekly posts is very important to me sometimes I’m just not able to find the time in my schedule.  So while I might not post every week please don’t give up on me and this blog.

Business:
Recently I have hired a marketing consultant to do some research, and strategizing for my business’ marketing plan.  There are two areas we are working on with this plan.  One is branding and marking the company as a whole, and the other is planning the release of the animated short we are working on.  I feel these are both things which will help grow my business, and hopefully get us more client projects.

I have also been doing a lot of research on foreign animation service companies.  One of my biggest challenges is the cost to do animation in the US is much higher then it is in other countries with cheaper labor or tax credits.  My plan is to find out how much these other companies are charging for each service, and then finding ways to lower my costs to compete with them.  I know I will not be able to get costs as low as them, but if I can get close I feel I will be able to win clients through other things we can offer.  For example being local makes it a lot easier for clients, so being in Los Angeles gives us a huge advantage.  Having amazing quality that is better then our competitors.  I hope to show this level of quality with our animated short.  Customer service, I want to make working with us as easy and comfortable as possible for our clients.  I want them to be so happy they not only return to  work with us again, but also tell other people about us.  Hopefully these other benefits will be enough to get the clients to pay a little more  in order to work with us over our remote competitors.

Short:
The short always tends to take the majority of my time each week.  So far we have had 14 people working on the short, so we have had a decent size crew.  We started working on it in May of this year, and plan to be working on the first 30-second episode until early next year.  While it is taking a long time to complete I’m very excited with how things are progressing.

All the assets for the first episode are modeled and currently being worked on in surfacing.  We have also finished character rigging, and we have started working on camera and rough animation.

Here are some rough poses done by our animator Jacob Gardner to test the rig, and get something more appealing then a t-pose for surfacing to work with.  It really gives you a sense of Bink’s personality, and where we can take it.

Bink Poses

As we continue to move forward on the short I will send more updates.

CTNX:
This weekend I will be attending The Creative Talent Network Expo in Burbank for the second time.  I went last year and had such a great time I wanted to go again.  You can read about my adventures last year at CTNX here… “An Amazing Experience at CTN Animation Expo” .

The first year I went to see what it was all about, so this year I’m hoping to take full advantage of what the expo has to offer.  It is a great place for networking with artists, animators, and anyone involved in animation.  I plan to attend some really great panels, and also hoping to learn some new things.  Next year I’m considering getting a booth for my company, and maybe even participate in the job fair to find talented artists to work with.

Facebook Network:
My Facebook network is continuing to grow, and we now have over 4,000 Facebook likes on our company page.  The larger our network the better chance we have of getting the short to be seen my the right people.  If you have not liked our page you can do so with the link below.  Also I always appreciate when you share my blog posts, or other social media sites with your own network.

Eric Miller Animation Studios

 

Paris Attacks:
I wanted to end by briefly commenting on the terrorist attacks in Paris, and other places.  It is disheartening people resort to violence towards innocent people to make their statements.  My thoughts are with all of you who have lost loved ones, or have been effected by all this violence.  The animation industry has a very large and talented French community, and I hope you and your families also stay safe.

 

If you have not already, I hope you will join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog.  If you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.

The World Animation and VFX Summit

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Last week I attended The World Animation and VFX Summit which was held at the California Yacht Club in Marina del Rey.  While it was my first time attending it was actually the 4th year the summit has been held.

I have been to a few different conferences now, and I found this one to be very interesting.  The reason I found it to be interesting was because its attendees were mostly producers, executives, and/or founders of animation companies, so all the discussions were geared towards topics I was interested in.  Most events I find are either for artists in animation, or producers in live action films, but not producers for animation.

This was a 3 day event, but I only attended the first two days.  The 3rd day was only classes, and I choose to start small this year to see if it was worth it.  It was a much smaller conference then I have attended and you did not have to choose which panel to attend since only one was going on at a time.  This was great, since you never felt like you were missing something, and you got to know the other attendees a lot better.

They had some really great panels through each day such as “The New Reality of… New Virtual Reality Revolution”, Animated Movie Spotlight: The Peanuts Movie”, “The Business of Show Business”, “Understanding the New Hybrid Studio Model”, “Understanding the Evolving Ecosystem of Global Feature Co-Productions”, “Building Your Company and Your Brand”, “Charting the Future of the Small Screen”, and others.

For breakfast and lunch each day you could sign up to eat with one of the panelists which was a great chance to talk and ask them questions you might not have asked in front of the group.

At the end of each day they had a cocktail party which gave us all another chance to meet and network with each other. I was surprised by how many people there were from all over the world.  I met people from Russia, South Africa, China, Malaysia, and all over South America to name a few.  Many of them looking for co-productions deals with US production companies.

AwardsOn Monday after the cocktail party they had the Awards Gala where they gave out 4 awards.  They were The Trailblazer of the Year Award, The Lifetime Achievement Award, The Creative Visionary Award, and Breakout Studio Award.

The Master of the Ceremonies was Candi Milo who did the voices for Dexter from Dexter’s Laboratory, Sweetie Bird from Tiny Toon Adventures, and many other characters over the years.

It was entertaining to see Danny Jacobs (voice of King Julian) present the award for Trailblazer of the Year to Head of Television for DreamWorks Animation Margie Cohn.  I recorded a quick clip of it which I included below.

The Creative Visionary award went to Charles Schulz who created the comix strip Peanuts. The award was presented to Schulz’s daughter Jill Schulz by the director of The Peanuts Movie.  While at the cocktail party before the awards I was talking to Charles Schulz granddaughter.   I was a little shocked when she mentioned who she was, and I did not know what to say.  I responded something stupid along the lines of “I’m sure you liked your grandfather”.

Besides that moment of awkwardness it was a really great event, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to attend.  I hope to attend again next year. To read more about the Awards Gala check out the Animation Magazine article.

 

If you have not already, I hope you will join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog.  If you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.

Happy Halloween from Eric Miller Animation

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Well, this was an extremely busy week, and I was not able to write a blog post.  Excuses, excuses, I know, I know.  So I will simply say have a happy and safe Halloween!

Next week on Monday & Tuesday I will be at The World Animation & VFX Summit, so I will let you know how that goes.  Be sure to follow me on Instagram as I’m sure to post photos from the event.

Instagram

Is it really almost November?

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Is it really almost November?  This year has been flying by, and will be over before we know it.  I guess that is what happens when you are having fun?  This year has been a very busy year with running the business.  I feel that I’m learning new things everyday, and there is always challenges to overcome.  To me the challenges are part of the appeal of running my own company.  There is no roadmap that will work for every company, and it requires you to constantly readjusting your strategy.  Below is a quick update on some of the things I have been working on lately.

Bink:

It is really great to see everything coming together.  All the models for the first episode are now built, and both Bink and the Hand are in-progress on the rigs. I have started to see very early surfacing work on Bink which is awesome to see.  I would share the renders, but I think it is a little early for that.  We should be able to start animation in November if everything stays on schedule.

The other big thing I have been working on is trying to line up the voice talent.  I’m looking for a female voice for a scientist that makes announcements over a PA system, things like “Ready to initiate testing”.  As well as the voice for Bink, and this has been much more challenging.  I think I have a few options for the female scientist, but nothing for the voice for Bink.  I’m looking for a unique voice that is similar to the way minions, or Stitch talks.  A unique language that you can’t really understand most of the time, but occasionally there are words you do understand.  I recorded my son “talking” to use as an example, since when he talks it is very cute and you can occasionally make out an actual word. If you are anyone you know might be interested please let me know.  Here is the link to the VO project.

LA Society of Creative Professionals:

This last Tuesday we had our 4th monthly society mixer, and it was another great turnout.  So far our attendance for our events have ranged from 10-50 people.  I have been meeting a lot of really great and talented people, and hopefully others are enjoying the events and getting something out of it themselves.  I feel that no matter what you do networking is a key to being successful.  Plus I just love meeting new people, and learning about their unique lives.  I always show up to the mixers early to get things setup, and there is always this fear that no one will show up.  So far that has not happened yet, and hopefully it never does.

Corporation:

This week I have been learning a great deal about authorized and issued shares.  I have been having a highly debated conversation with my CPA and my attorney on how many shares we should issue, and how many we should save.  According to the articles of incorporation for Eric Miller Animation Studios we are authorized to have 100,000 shares.  I learned that it is a good idea to not issue all of them, and save some for later.  For example my attorney suggested only issuing 100 shares to me.  Since there are only 100 shares issued I’m still 100% owner, but it gives me extra to bring on partners, or offer to employees.  The debate has been how many shares to issue, 100, 25,000, or some other number.  It seems my CPA and attorney had different opinions, so we had to work out each of their reasonings for me to make a decision.

Part of that discussion is also how much I should spend on those initial shares.  My attorney explained to me “The greater the capitalization, the stronger EMAS is against an attack that it should be disregarded as an alter ego. Alter ego is a judicial doctrine that says that people should not be able to hide behind a corporate form if the corporation is inadequately capitalized and fails to comply with corporate formalities. If the corporation is found to be your alter ego, then you will be personally liable for its debts. If “the corporate veil is pierced” then a creditor could get a judgment against you individually. This defeats much of the purpose of incorporating.”

So as you see I have some pretty important decisions I’m trying to make.  As I mentioned I’m learning so much each day about a variety of different things I would have never learned about if I did not start my own company.

We are having another baby:

My wife and I made the announcement yesterday on Facebook that we are expecting another baby in May of 2016. We are both very excited for the new family member, but it is also very scary.  It is very challenging to have one child so having another it will be more of a challenge.  Having a house payment, two kids and in the second year of starting my own company is enough to stress anyone out a little.  I’m positive we will find a way to make it all work as we did with our first one.

 

Well, there is a quick run down of some of the things I have going on in my life.  Thank you for reading about my journey in starting my business, and as always leave me comments below.  I love reading about what is on your minds, and your responses to my posts.

 

If you have not already, I hope you will join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog.  If you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.

Here or There: Outsourcing of Animation

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I wanted to talk about outsourcing of animation that many US companies are doing.  The main reason to outsource work and make the experience of producing animation more challenging is because of cost.  In my previous roles I had learned the Salary for one US-based artist could pay for 4-5 artists in India.  Even if it takes the overseas artist 3 times as long to complete the task it will still be a cost savings.

Outsourcing animation is by no means a new trend, and has been going on for decades.  In a 2012 interview Steve Hulett of the Animation Guild said “We instituted strikes over run-away production in 1979 and 1982, winning the first and losing the second.”  So you can see this is not a new issue.  I believe what we have seen in recent years is technology making it easier and more possible to do business in this way.  You can now easily have a video call with artists in India, Malaysia, or China which you could not do as easily a decade ago.

One of the popular arguments I would often hear is that the quality of work is not as good, and your value of production will go down.  Unfortunately, that is no longer as strong of an argument as the overseas artists get more talented and more efficient.

Outsourcing overseas is not the only worry for a US-based artist or animation/VFX company.  Our neighbors in Canada are also under bidding US animation companies. I’m sure you have heard of their amazing tax credits, and I have heard for every $1 spent on labor they get $0.60 back.  While I have not been able to find anything backing up that claim I have found the Ontario Computer animation & Special Effects Tax Credit is for 18% of eligible labor costs for a Canadian corporation that is Canadian or foreign-owned, has a permanent establishment in Ontario and files an Ontario corporate tax return. Being able to cut 18% of your costs would allow you to save a lot of money when you are talking about project budgets that are $100,000 to $500,000 or more.

The larger studios like DreamWorks Animation, and Disney are also outsourcing a lot of their animation work.  In animated TV production they will often have pre-production here in the US, but then outsource all the production work.  Many of the Disney Junior and Cartoon Network shows are done in this way.

All this really makes one wonder why anyone would open up an animation production company in the US.  These are things you have to come to terms with when we have a global market. There will always be someone that can do it faster, better and cheaper then you can.  Even with all the outsourcing the US animation industry is stronger then it has ever been.  The budgets for projects might be going down, and that is a reality we all have to come to accept.  Labor rates in other countries are increasing, and Canada’s tax credits are getting smaller.  I feel this is a natural balancing out that will take place over the next decade.  I don’t know if US rates will ever be as low as overseas, but it is not always about price.  Having an excellent business experience is a big factor.  There is a tipping point where the savings are not enough to give up working with someone next door to you, or at least in the same time zone.

While I plan to work with as many US-based artists as possible I have to be open to working with artists from all over the world. There are a lot of really talented people who live outside of the US, and it would be silly not to work with someone simply based on their location.  Hopefully the industry will change to making hiring decisions based on talent, and less about saving money. Regardless of where you are, you have to be able to offer great work, reasonable budgets, and an excellent business experience.

 

If you have not already, I hope you will join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog.  If you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.