Independence

Our March 2016 Animation Company Update

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Another month, and another animation company update!  These months are flying by, and it feels like the year will be over in a blink!  Here is what we have been working since my last update.

Bink:
I get excited at every stage of the animation process, but lighting is one of my favorites.  It is like putting the final puzzle piece revealing the complete picture.  You start to see how beautiful everything you have been working on is when it all comes together.  We have started to light the shots, and will soon start seeing final renders.  Up to this point we have only seen work in progress renders of still images, but soon we will be seeing fully lite animation.  On top of that we now have fur working on bink, so getting to see him in his final form is very exciting.

MMM-Project:
This is our client project we have been working on in addition to the “Bink” short.  This project has had a lot of challenges, but I have been learning a great deal from the experience.  Even more then what I learned from working on Bink.  Working on our own short we don’t have the added pressure of a deadline, but with a client project there are milestones, and a deadline I need to make sure I hit.  This means when you have a setback there is a lot more stress to make sure you get back on schedule.  This short has a very different look and feel then what Bink has, but it is really starting to come together.  I can’t wait until we finish the first episode, and can share it with you in July.

LA Society of Creative Professionals:
Last night we had our 9th society mixer at the Riverside Restaurant in Toluca Lake.  We have been getting a really great turn out for the last few mixers.  We have had a nice mix of regulars, and new people coming.

There are always great conversations, but last night I had a conversation with a few people which highlights a lot of the concerns artists in Los Angeles have.  We were discussing how an artist used to make much more money then what they make now for the same kind of work.  There is so much more competition then what there used to be, and people are willing to work for less to get the work.  It was mentioned how anytime someone takes a job for less then what it normally goes for then it drops the price industry wide.  Really this is simply basic economics of supply and demand, but it is having a real impact on these artists.

My experience is that often a client has a fixed budget, and are trying to get a project made.  It is a situation of you wither find a way to make their budget work, or you pass.  While a lot of senior artists want you to pass on the work forcing the client to raise their budget, but the reality is they will most likely find someone to do the work for what they have to offer.  These clients tell their friends and next thing you know no one wants to pay $1 for a service when they know it can be done for $0.90.

These are all valid concerns, but unfortunately this is the way things are going.  While it might seem to only be about money if what you have to offer is a higher quality you can still charge more for your service.  If communication is easier, or you provide better customer service you might also be able to ask for more.  As technology makes it easier to work with anyone anywhere the supply is increased.  As long as there are people willing and able to meet the demand at a lower price it is going to lower the rates industry wide.  There will always be a breaking point.  People can’t provide work without enough pay to cover their bills for to long.  They will either find a way to make it work, or go out of business.

I’m kind of stuck in the middle.  I have clients who want to get their project made, but have extremely low budgets.  If I want to try and make it work, then I need to find artists who are willing to work for less then their rate.  This often means looking for talent outside the US.  It really comes down to who can offer the best service at the most competitive price.  The hope is as I grow my company I can offer a higher quality, outstanding communication, and the best customer service, so I can ask for higher rates.

Business:
While running my own business has been challenging I’m still happy I made the decision to follow my dream.  I have learned something new every day, and I’m always working to improve the business. I spend a lot of my time in the evenings reading a lot of business related posts and articles.  If any of you have any suggestions for great business reading material I would love to hear about it. I enjoy reading Entrepreneur Magazine, and other similar publications.

I think it is fair to call EMAS an international company, since we have clients and artists outside the United States.  While most of our artists our in the US we do have a decent amount of artists outside the country.  Mostly in Southeast Asia as you can see on the map below.  It is interesting to think we have work being done on projects 24 hours a day.  This is also why I’m often responding to emails late into the evening, and as soon as I wake up in the morning.

EMAS-International

 

 

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.

The Challenges In Starting An Animation Company

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In my blog posts I often give updates on what my company is working on, and things I’m doing to try and grow it.  It might seem like starting an animation company is easy, so I wanted to share with you the challenges I face.

Building a Brand:
You might ask why building a brand is important, but as a service company it is very important.  Making animation is extremely expensive, and for my clients is a huge investment.  They want to make sure they can trust the company they are investing in to create their commercial, web series, or other animated video.  This has been a huge challenge for me, because I don’t have much of a reputation yet.  I have talked to a lot of other owners of animation or VFX companies, and many of them said it took awhile(around 10 years) before they started getting steady work.  I’m sure some of this had to do with them figuring out their business and target market, but they tell me a huge part was simply building their brand’s reputation. Sure they might have had enough smaller projects to keep the lights on, but it took awhile until the bigger opportunities started to reveal themselves.

Competition:
As you might have guessed there is a lot of competition in this space.  I’m competing against well established companies who are in a much better position to win jobs.  They already have their feet firmly through the doors of the bigger clients.

The other competition is from companies outside the US.  First, there is Canada with their amazing tax credits, and then you have areas like India, Korea, China, and South America to name a few with much less expensive labor costs.  The talent there is also getting better and better all the time.  I often get emails from foreign companies offering their animation and VFX services if I want to outsource any of my work to them.  I always ask them for what their rates are to see how they compare to US rates.  If I tried to match their rates with US workers I would not only not be able to pay the artists what they are asking for, but also not be making any kind of a profit.

Rendering:
This might seem odd to anyone who is not in animation, but this is a big hurdle for me.  For those of you who don’t know what rendering is it is the process of the computer figuring out what each pixel will look like to create an image based on the settings you put into the software.  It calculates the models, where the camera is, what kind of lens, how many lights, where they are coming from, their color, intensity, how they interact with the different materials on the objects in frame, and many other things.  For a more detailed explanation go here.

This requires very powerful processors to figure all of this out.  I remember when I was in college, and working on my animation project ChessMate(see image below).  I would work on the project late at night, and before I left I would setup 5 or more computers to work on rendering my project.  I would leave signs begging people not to touch the computers.  After rendering all night I would come back in the morning to check on them.   I did this every night for months until I finally finished.  It would take over 16 hours to render one 2 second shot, and often there would be errors requiring me to start the whole process over again.  Computers are now faster, but the graphics are much more intense.  We also now render in HD at resolutions of 1920 x 1080 if not much higher, and ChessMate was only 728 x 414.

ChessMate Scene 1

 

I’m getting a little off topic, but my point is it takes a lot of computer power and/or time to render animation. So far what I have been doing is having the lighting artist handle the rendering.  This should work for small projects, but as I get more clients I will need to figure out other options.

There are online render services, but they can get very expensive.  The other challenging part is you don’t know how long something will take to render until you can do test renders.  This makes it extremely difficult to bid out a project for a client when there is a big unknown of how much your render costs are going to be.  One frame might take a few hours to render, or it might take a few weeks to render.  Your 5 minute animation will have 9,000 frames, so you can see how those costs could add up very quickly.

If you want to try and control those costs a bit more then you are going to have to build your own render farm.  Now you are buying thousands of dollars worth of hardware which will be outdated, lets be honest, as soon as you buy it.  Not to mention you are going to have to have enough space to keep all this hardware. Have you seen pictures of Pixar’s render farm?  Here is an image I found online.

Data Storage and Transferring:
Now you know all about the rendering challenges, so what will you do with all these images these computers are creating?  One of the 3 second shots for the client project I’m working on is 12GB, and this could have been a lot larger.  Not to mention all the files needed to create these projects.  Anything from photoshop documents, Maya files, Final Cut files, and all the other files needed to make these projects before we even start rendering.

With a remote team I also have to have a way to transfer these files between the different people on the team.  I have been using Dropbox, but I’m quickly outgrowing this.  I had to get a Dropbox Pro which gives me 1TB(1,000 GB) of storage, but found each member of the team who is synced to the project folder also has to have this much storage space.  I need to find a better option, but regardless of what option I go with it is going to be another costly expense.

Staff vs Freelance:
Currently I’m the only full time staff at the company, and everyone else is freelance who is hired based on the work we have.  This works well to keep costs down, but it makes it difficult to build a company.  It is challenging to line up project schedules with freelancers.  You might have a great artist for a project, but you might have to find someone else for your next project because the last one is unavailable.

Freelancers also provide their own workstations and software which can be a good thing, but can also cause issues.  For example one of your artists might be using Maya 2014, and another is using Maya 2016.  Now you have the issue where they can’t open each others files.  Software version incompatibility has been a huge challenge for me. On the Toys’R’Us project we had to have extra versions of After Effects to open and save the files in order for another artist to be able to open the file on a different version of the same software.

Physical Studio Location:
Having an actual studio location would help in many respects.  For starters it would speed up the production of our projects.  Being able to lean over to the person sitting next to you and ask a question or get approval is much more efficient then sending an email, and waiting for a response.  It would also solve some of the other issues I mentioned above.  We could control the workstations, and make sure they are all using the same versions of the software.  There would be less data transferring, and we could actually store the data on our own servers instead of online storage options. This would all be great, but it would be an additional overhead cost.  I would need to make sure the business was bringing in enough projects, and enough income to cover the monthly office expense. Add to this having to buy all the workstations and software licenses, and you can see how quickly it would all add up.

The Unknown:
It is easy to plan for the challenges you are aware of, but what really scares me are the things I’m not aware of.  Running your own company you have to wear many hats, but in no way am I an expert in all these different areas.  I try and reach out to others for help when I can, but you know some things will slip through the cracks.  Anyone of these unknowns could be what brings down the company.

 

As you can see there is plenty to keep me awake at night, and you might think I’m crazy for taking on all these challenges.  Well, I might agree with you, but I also see a lot of opportunities in these challenges.  I have to be creative, and look for other ways to overcome the challenges.  I’m glad it is not easy, because otherwise everyone would be starting their own animation company.  The challenges take out all the people who are not really passionate about this industry.  I only hope the challenges do not also take me out.

 

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.

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.

Staying Healthy While Starting a Business

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When I worked at DreamWorks Animation my co-workers would often joked about the DreamWorks 50.  Similar to the Freshman 15, it is the idea that new employees often would gain weight after starting working at the company.  DreamWorks Animation is known for its free food they provide for their employees.  With copious amounts of food for breakfast, lunch, soft served ice-cream machines, cookie day, and snack kitchens all around campus it is hard to resist the urge to fully take advantage of your new employee benefits. Many new employees inevitably pack on a few extra pounds.  Eventually the excitement of free food wears off, and they learn to be more reserved with their eating.

When I left DWA to start my own company one of the things I knew I would miss would be the free food.  I joked with my DWA friends that the next time they saw me I was going to be nothing more then skin and bones.  The reality is that I actually gained weight since leaving my job at DWA.

You might ask “How could this be?”.  Do I have my own person chief?  Do we have a lot more food in my house then we had at DWA?  I can assure you that none of those are true.  There are several things that I’m sure played into me gaining weight, and not being as healthy as I once was.

While at DWA I would walk a lot more.  It was a big campus, so even walking to lunch was more exercise then what I get now.  Walking to and from the parking garage, going up and down stairs on my way to meetings.  I actually walked a lot while I was working there.  Now I sit in my office and the most walking I do is the 5 steps to the kitchen for lunch.  One of the things I have tried to get me to walk more is going on a daily walk around the neighborhood.  I’m really good at coming up with excuses not to do it including I’m to busy, or it is way to hot out, but I’m working on keeping it a priority.

Since I started working from home lunch is often something I forget about until the last minute.  With the busy entrepreneur schedule I have it never fails that at some point normally around 2pm I start feeling light headed, and my stomach starts yelling at me.  At this point I’m far beyond planning a meal, or even thinking clearly.  I want the quickest and easiest meal possible.  I had regressed to eating like a college student which often included Ramen Noodles and Mac & Cheese on the menu.  When I got sick of those tasty treats I would run to the nearest fast food place.  I realized this was not ideal, and I have been taking steps to eat healthier.

There are other things that could have contributed to my weight gain, and loss of energy.  Things such as a newborn that had a goal of keeping my wife and I from getting more then 3 hours of sleep at a time.  Even the best of us can’t function without a good nights rest.  Lucky for us our son is sleeping much better, so in turn we are finally starting to get more sleep at night.

I’m sure I could go on all day about reasons, but I’m more concerned about making changes.  In addition to the above mentioned changes I have been trying to find other ways to stay fit.  It is not just about losing weight, but also being healthier mentally and physically.  I have started doing a workout routine 3 days a week in the morning before I start working.  I set a bedtime for myself although I’m still really bad at sticking to this. I also became proactive about looking for ways to be healthier.

I found I’m not alone, and it is pretty common for people in my situation to put living a healthy life style on the back burner while starting their businesses.   I have read multiple articles that are directed on this very subject.  I’m sure some of you might be in a similar situation, so I thought I share some of the articles I have found.

Top 5 Methods To Stay Fit For An Entrepreneur

3 Ways to Stay Healthy and Sane as an Entrepreneur

12 Tips to Stay Healthy While Working From Home

STAYING HEALTHY AS AN ENTREPRENEUR

10 Things Every Young Entrepreneur Should Do to Stay Healthy, Fit And Productive

3 Simple Tips for Elevated Health in Less Than 15 Minutes a Day

The last article I read last night, and I started doing the 10-10-10 rule today.  Every hour do 10 pushups, 10 sit-ups, and 10 jumping jacks or squats.  I feel this will help me keep my energy up, since normally around 4pm I start getting sluggish.

Anyways, I hope some of this can help you, since staying healthy is extremely important.  I know this is not the typical topic I write about, but this is a huge part in starting and running your own company.  I want to be able to share all of my challenges, and this has been a big one for me lately. No pun intended.

 

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 Studios Incorporated

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Eric Miller Animation Studios Incorporated!  That is right, as of July 24, 2015 my company has been reborn as its own entity.  I thought I talk a little about what this means without getting to technical and boring.

So now what?  You might be wondering what this means.  When I started my company it was a Sole Proprietorship, and basically myself and the company was one and the same. By incorporating it separates my personal assets from my business’ assets, and this basically gives me some legal protection and tax savings.

Currently the corporation is what they call a single-owner corporation, since I’m the only owner.  This makes for some interesting things to happen when operating as a corporation.  I’m now required by law to form a board of directors and have at least one meeting a year.  Since I’m a single-owned corporation the board can be one person… me.  This means I’m the chairman of the board, and the board of directors all at the same time.

If that is not crazy enough, the board also has to name the executive officers to run the company.  The 3 positions that have to be named are president, secretary, and treasurer.  I’m excited to announce who the board(me) has named for each of these positions.

President: Eric M. Miller
Secretary: Eric M. Miller
Treasurer: Eric M. Miller

I know, big surprise.  So yeah, how silly is that?  As long as I’m the only shareholder I have to have a meeting with myself, take notes, and vote myself in to all the above positions.  As the company grows, and if I take on investors this will all change, but for now this is how it is.  I mean I’m already wearing all those hats, but now I have to be officially named, and notes need to be recorded.

I’m also no longer considered self-employed, since I’m now technically an employee of Eric Miller Animation Studios.  I even have to start taking a paycheck.  The IRS says officers of a corporation have to take a “Reasonable Salary”, and give no real explanation of what that means.  If anyone can tell me what that means please let me know in the comments below.  This is a newer requirement to prevent officers of corporations from taking low salaries, and then get paid in dividends.  Dividends are taxed at a much lower rate, so this was being abused to save corporate officers a lot of money in taxes.  I remember hearing about Steve Jobs and Jeffery Katzenberg only getting paid $1 a year, and originally thinking they were doing it because they were cool guys.  I later started to think it was for tax savings, and it turns out I was right.  This new law is why Mr. Katzenberg now takes a $3 million salary, instead of his one dollar salary.  I sure hope that is not what the IRS considers “Reasonable”, or my company will be in debt within the first month.

The take away from all of this is that nothing really is changing for my business other then being a little more official in the eyes of the government.  There will be some tax savings, and added legal protection to me and my family, but that is really it for right now.  There are some other advantages, but I won’t bore you with all the details.

 

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.

A Decade Living in California, the Struggles & Success

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Tomorrow will mark a decade for me of living in California, so I thought it be appropriate to look back on my struggles & successes which brought me to where I am today.  On occasion I have been known to write in a journal, and when I first moved out here I did not have many people to talk to.  I ended up writing in my journal every night, and I read over it to help in writing this post.  I’m really glad that I wrote down what I was going through, since it was an eventful part of my life. I don’t write in my journal as much as I used to, but this blog has taken the place of documenting my life’s journeys.

Grand Canyon- Eric tapingMy California adventure began in Ohio on Monday, July 25th, 2005 as I drove away from my childhood home to head out to the west coast.  I packed my car with everything I could fit in it, and took a 5 day sight seeing trip across the country.  On Friday, July 29, 2005 I crossed into California from Nevada, and I remember thinking to myself that I finally made it.  Little did I know how challenging the next few years would be.  I drove to Redondo Beach where a high school classmate was living.  Ryan Smith agreed to letting me stay a month at his place until I was able to find my own place.  It was only a corner in his room, but that is all I needed.  It was thanks to him that I actually left Ohio to come to California.  I had been wanting to move out here, but had no idea how I was going to do it.  I was trying to find an apartment to rent from Ohio, but without seeing them it made it almost impossible.  There was also the fact that they were so expensive that I would need to find a roommate.  By him offering me a place to stay it gave me a destination, and a home base to operate from.  This gave me the opportunity I needed, and I took it.

Apple- Eric & Thomas at POS

Working at Apple with Thomas Orona

I only ended up staying with Ryan through the weekend, since on Monday I moved in to an extra bedroom a friend’s sister had in her apartment up in Newhall.  This gave me my own room, and inexpensive rent, so I upgraded my living situation.  While living there I was able to get a part time job as a sales specialist working at an Apple Store in Northridge, which is not far from where I’m living now.  This apartment was a great stepping stone, but I felt more like a guest then an equal roommate.  I also knew I needed to move closer to Los Angeles, but was not making enough money to pay the higher LA rents.  Instead of playing it safe I made the move anyways.

On October 30th, about 3 months after moving into the place in Newhall, I moved to an apartment in Sherman Oaks.  It was a 3 bedroom apartment that I got with a guy named John whom I met on roommate.com.  He was originally from Ohio, and also went to the same college as I did.  I did not know him, but knew he must be a good guy(at least I hoped) since he was from Ohio.  It also worked out that Ben, a friend of mine from college, was planning on moving out here, so we asked him if he wanted to be our 3rd roommate.

Kester-Apartment

Kester Apartment

We had everything in place, and this was a much better living situation for me then the previous apartment.  In 3 months, I have moved 3 times, and each time was an improvement.  The only problem was the ticking time bomb(aka my bank account), since I was now spending more money then I was making.  Based on my calculations I had enough money to make it until Christmas.

As the holiday approached, and my savings were almost completely gone I feared I would have to move back to Ohio in defeat.  It was in mid December when Thomas Orona, one of my co-workers at Apple, got me an interview at B1 Media.  It was a DVD menu design company, and the opportunity came at exactly the right time.  The interview went well, and I got the job which started when I returned from my holiday in Ohio.  I don’t know if Thomas knew what he did saved me from having to leave California, but it was an act of kindness I will never forget.  He now is a partner of a Technology consulting company called Band of Techs.  I highly recommend him and his company if you are looking for Technology consulting services.

B1Media

B1 Media

I started my job at B1 Media in January, and this also ended that thing called “a day off”, since I worked my days off at Apple.  I had very little free time, but all the working helped get some savings back into my bank account.  My position at B1 Media was for DVD menu quality control.  I spent hours going through all the menus on a DVD looking for errors.  I would also QC tape transfers, and would watch hours of footage from shows like Amazing Race and the Girls Next Door.  The latter being a bit embarrassing to be watching in a work environment.  I found myself constantly explaining to people walking by that it was for work that I was watching these completely uncensored shows about the playmates living in the Playboy mansion.  Luckily I worked the late shift(3pm-midnight) so after the first couple hours everyone in the office went home except me.

By mid June that freelance job ended, and I was once again without work living on my savings.  I could have picked up more hours at Apple, but felt embarrassed to do so, and kept working there on the weekends only.  I started to go on some interviews, but was not as motivated as I should have been.  I went on 3 interviews for AAA selling insurance, but after being offered the position I decided it was not the best fit for me.  I had an interview at Bunim/Murray Productions who did Real World, but it was for a tape logger.  At that time I had no idea what a tape logger did, but soon found out.  A tape logger is someone that watches hours of uncut footage from the reality show, and type what is going on every second with a description of the shot, and cataloging everything for the editor to be able to find what they are looking for when assembling an episode.  The interview process was them sitting me at a monitor with a keyboard, and headphones and actually logging shots for 15 minutes.  After a minute I took my headphones off, and told them “No thank you”.

I went on a lot of interviews, but was not having any luck with anything.  I was once again getting desperate, and was getting low on my savings.  I knew I had to start being less picky, and by September I was working as an assistant store manager at Walgreens.  This may have been one of the worst jobs I ever had, and less then 2 months later I quit.  The good news was that I made a decent amount of money in those two months, but was once again on the job hunt.

A few weeks later I had another job cold-calling people and trying and persuade them to refinance their mortgage with the company I was working for. If it is in your control try not to do a job that people hate you for doing it.  Yes, there was a lot of people(not including me) in that office that made a ton of money, but people hated us.  I was hung up on, screamed at, and called some really nasty names.  I knew I did not want to stay there long, so I started working with a temp agency that worked exclusively in the entertainment industry.  Through that company I was able to get some interesting temp jobs. At this time in my life I was working at 3 different companies at the same time.  I was still at Apple on the weekends, World Trade Lending(the mortgage sales company), and now at Friedman Temp agency.

Through the temp agency I got several different jobs, but some of the more interesting ones were Porchlight Entertainment, and Innovative Artist Agency. Porchlight was a neat little animation company that made shows like Jay Jay the Jet Plane, and Tutenstein.  It was mostly direct to DVD, or episodic TV shows that they worked on.  Innovative Artist I was in the mailroom of a talent agency for Christmas help to cover people on holiday.  It was one of the most cut-throat places I have ever worked at.  The people in the mailroom would wait for an assistant to mess up, and do their best to get them fired.  When an assistant got fired they would promote someone from the mailroom.  I was glad I was only there for the holiday, and did not get caught up in the politics of that place.

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DreamWorks Studios Co-workers at LA Dodgers Game

I went home again for Christmas, and when I returned I was not hearing anything from the temp agency.  I was getting nervous, because before leaving on holiday I requested the temp agency to only give me temp jobs that paid a higher rate.  I was scared that this might be the reason I was not getting any new jobs.  Finally a call from the agency came in, and I was given a temp assignment at DreamWorks Studios.  I instantly fell in love with the job, and wanted them to hire me on full time.  If DWS wanted to hire me on full time they had to pay a large penalty to the temp agency for a finders fee, and it was not clear to me if DWS would be willing to do that.  I eventually received the good news that DWS was hiring me on as a full time production assistant.  I feel this was a turning point for my career, and the instability of the last couple years was behind me.

I still was working at Apple on the weekends, and DreamWorks Studios full time during the week.  After working as a PA for around 3 months I was promoted to head PA, and was taken out of the field, and put behind a desk.  I worked at DWS until the end of September, and on October 1st I started my career at DreamWorks Animation.  I was at DreamWorks for almost 7 years until I left last July to start my own company.  If you don’t already know the rest of the story, and interested to find out I suggest you go back to the beginning of this blog.

Some of the more noteworthy milestones that happened during my time at DWA are meeting my wife Karen, buying a house, and having our son Kelton.  My time at DWA brought all kinds of great things into my life, and would not trade my time there for anything.  Looking back at how far I have come I’m very proud of my accomplishments.  There has been a lot of struggle in these last 10 years, but a great deal more success.

I have noticed two reoccurring themes in my adventures this last decade.  The first is that there has been so many people willing to help others, which kept me from failing to severely.  I owe a great debt of gratitude to so many people who reached out a hand to offer me support when I needed it the most. The other theme is that I tend to leap into situations before I feel that I’m ready.  It is important to point out that things are not always going to line up perfectly, and sometimes you have to get as close as you can, take a leap of faith, and hope for the best.  Chances are you will find a way to make it all work out.

“When you get to the end of all the light you know and it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.”
― Edward Teller

 

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 Independence Day!

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Happy Independence Day!  Although not nearly as amazing, inspiring, and requiring as much courageous sacrifice that the men and woman of our country paid for the independence the United States won from Great Britain, this July 4th is also the anniversary of the official start of Eric Miller Animation Studios.  While the majority of my celebrations today will be in honor of our country’s independence, a small part of my celebrating will be for the independence of the company I started a year ago today.

I have learned a great deal in this first year of independence.  I have made mistakes, but I have also made a great deal of progress.  Our country at 239 years old is still making mistakes, learning, and working to correct mistakes it has made.  There is a lot to celebrate this year for The United States.  I’m proud of the country we live in, and grateful that it has allowed me to have this opportunity to follow my dreams.

I hope you all have a safe, fun, and happy Independence Day! I have not forgot about you Canada, happy belated Independence Day to you as well!

 

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.

Independence

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Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July

I’m now officially independent from DreamWorks Animation. So not only will I be celebrating the United States’ Independence today, but also my own.  This week has been great because for the first time I have been able to be open to tell people what my plans are, and I have been getting some interesting reactions.  Some people look at me like I’m crazy, and you can see the eye roll and thought bubble saying “never going to happen!”.  On the other extreme are the people that get really excited, and start talking about exchanging contact information so that they can come work with me.  Most people seem to fall somewhere in-between these two extremes.  I guess these reactions are to be expected, since most people do not try and start their own animation company.  I also ran into some people that opened up to me about their own entrepreneurial efforts that they are secretly working on.

I have been working on saying “I’m planning on starting my own animation company” more confidently.  For so long now I have been keeping it a secret, and it is now surprisingly difficult to say it out loud.  It does feel good to say it, and it makes my dream seem more tangible.  This has also put me on an emotional roller-coaster.   One minute I’m very confident in my dream thinking this will be easier then I thought, and then the next minute asking myself if I’m making a huge mistake.  I know the shaking of my confidence is only temporary caused by the reactions of my peers, and the more people I talk to the more confident I become no matter what their reaction is.  I have to remind myself that majority of people are going to tell me that it can’t be done, but I have to follow my own heart.  I will take what people say as advice, and recommendations, but in the end I have to make my own decisions.

The question I keep getting from people when I tell them about me starting an animation company is how am I going to actually start it?  My response is simply, “one step at a time”.  I plan to relax this holiday weekend, but starting early Monday morning I will hit the ground running.  Since my wife does not go into work until 10am she will be able to watch our son in the morning until then.  I will be waking up at 6am each morning and have a dedicated 4 hours each morning to work exclusively on the business.  At 10am I will take over watching my son so my wife can go to work.  This might not be a permanent solution, but it will help get me started.  I’m excited about this because in addition to having time to work on my company I will also get to be there for my son, and watch him grow.  I will also be able to work when my son is taking his naps, but any parent knows you can’t rely on having that free time consistently.  If I need to leave the house for meetings with clients, or networking events we will get a babysitter for those times.

It will be really tight living on just one income, and we will have to stick to our very strict budget to make this work.  I really appreciate my wife for supporting me, and giving me the opportunity to take such a huge risk to follow this dream.  She knows we will have to make a lot of sacrifices, and she has been nothing but positive and supportive.  She is the best partner I could have asked for.

Eric IndependenceYesterday was my last day at DreamWorks Animation, and I felt very inspired and energized with my decision to leave, and go off on this adventure.  Packing up my office and saying my farewells to friends and co-workers was bittersweet, since I walked those halls, and been with those people for so long.  In a way it became my second home.  It felt like the end of an era for me, and the start of one grand adventure.  I hope I’m able to keep in touch with many of my co-workers, but I realize that yesterday was the last time I would see some of them.  Before picking up the cliche final box of my belongings with the plant sticking out the top,  I paused for a moment, and looked around my office to reflect on my time at DreamWorks. I have some really amazing memories from the last 6+ years, and that made me happy and sad at the same time.  I picked up my box, and closed the door to my office metaphorically closing that chapter of my life.

 

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.