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Eric Miller Animation: 2016 Year in Review

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As this will be my last blog post in 2016 I wanted to do a Year in Review of how this year has been. Many of these things we have gone into greater detail in past posts, so this will just be a quick overview of the year. Overall it has been a great year.  We got to work on some great projects, and I got to attend some really exciting events.  The business was profitable, and we did a lot better then we did last year.  I’m very excited, and looking forward to what we will achieve in 2017.

Events & Projects:

MagicMeeMees:

mmm_1to4
You may have seen the web series we have been working on called MagicMeeMee which is based on the toys by the same name.  Our client, Future of Play, asked us to create this web series to help get people aware of their new toy-line. We started working on the series at the beginning of this year, and ended up working on the episodes most of the year.  We released the first episode on July 11th, and the 4th episode earlier this month.  Currently the four episodes have a 173,173 combined view count on the client’s YouTube pages.  Creating this web series was such a great learning experience, and I felt each episode was better then the last.  I hope we get to work on more of these episodes in the future.  Click here to watch the series.

 

Producer Guild Awards:

pga_awards
On Jan. 23rd of this year I attended my second Producers Guild Awards. I was also able to talk my wife, who was pregnant, into being my date.  I’m not sure how she was able to wear high-heels while pregnant, but she somehow pulled it off.  I think one of the awards should have gone to her for that.  It is always fun to dress up, and go to these awards to mingle with all the talented people in the industry.  It is also fun to see the movie stars who make an appearance.

 

Annie Awards:

annie_awards
In February I attended the Annie awards for the first time, and it was such a fun event.  This event is very different from the Producers Guild Awards, because it is all about animation.  There is an added excitement to these award shows when you actually know the people getting the awards.  I already have my tickets for both of these events for next year, so I will be sure to let you know how it goes.

 

Launched our Online Store:

store
In April I was really excited the company launched its online store.  I don’t expect to make millions off the merchandise, but I wanted to offer company related shirts for anyone who might want them.

 

Logo Updated

logo
We also made an update to our company’s logo this year.  I wanted something which was a cleaner and simpler read, since I felt the more detailed logo did not print well.

 

My Daughter was Born:

ayla
My wife and I were really excited to welcome our daughter Ayla into the world on May 1st.  She has been such a joy, and I love watching both her and her older brother starting to play together. Even when most of the time it is her brother taking toys away from her. She is already crawling, and trying to walk.

 

UT Alumni Magazine & UT Home Page:

utnews
Bink got a lot of love this year from my Alma mater, the University of Toledo.  He ended up making an appearance in the UT Alumni Magazine, UT News, and the University’s Website’s Home page on a few occasions this year.

 

3D World Magazine:

3dworld
Bink also made an appearance in 2 issues of 3D World Magazine.  Once before the release of the teaser short in June, and another after.

 

Bink’s Friends & Family Screening and Wrap Party:

binkparty
How often do you get to create something new and exciting?  I figured we might as well go big with the release of the first episode of Bink, and throw a screening and wrap party to thank all the crew for all their hard work. Even with twisting my ankle really bad hours before people showed up I still had a great time.  As a side note: My ankle is still recovering from this incident.

 

Bink’s Debut:

This might have been one of the biggest things coming out of the company this year.  After working on the short for over a year we finally finished it in time to release it on June 28th. We got a fair amount of attention, and even some clients from the work we did on Bink.  While I consider it a success I still feel there is more to come from Bink.  We are actively working on a longer episode, and hopefully will be releasing it in 2017.

 

University of Toledo – University College: Alumni of the Year:

utalumniyear
I was honored to be selected by my university as the Alumni of the year.  They flew me back to the university in Toledo, Ohio for the Homecoming game, and the award gala where they presented me with the award. It had been a long time since I was in Toledo, so it was really awesome getting to go back and relive some of my college experiences.

 

DreamWorks Animation Presentation:

dwapres
After the release of Bink, DreamWorks Animation invited me to do a presentation for their employees about my company and the projects we have been working on.  It was exciting to get to go back to the DWA campus, and do a talk about what I have been working on.  I also really enjoyed reconnecting with some of my former co-workers.

 

2016 ShowReel:

After we finished all the MagicMeeMee episodes we updated our showreel to showcase all of our new work.  Jared White, who also wrote and directed the MagicMeeMees web series, edited this company showreel together.  You can check it out below.

 

The World Animation & VFX Summit:

wavs
In October I attended the World Animation & VFX Summit, which was my second time attending this event.  I went last year, and got a lot out of it.  This event is geared to producers, and studio heads so all the presentations on very relevant to what I’m doing.  I had a great time at this at this year’s event, and looking forward to going again next year.  I only hope they don’t schedule it on Halloween again.  Check out our blog post about this year’s event.

 

CTNX:

ctnx
In November I attended my 3rd CTNX animation expo which is held each year in Burbank, CA.  This is always a great event, and is much more artist focused then the World Animation & VFX Summit.  I always meet so many great artists and animators as well as learn a lot from the panels and presentations.  Check out our blog post about this year’s CTNX.

 

Honda Project:
The last project we worked on was 2 videos we did for Honda.  One was used at the Los Angeles Auto Show, and the other will be used at CES next month.  Unfortunately we do not have permission to share them online.  If you are going to CES let me know if you see our video.

 

UPDATES:

Blog Post Data:
I actually have two blogs.  This one which I use more as a personal journal of my journey in starting an animation company, and they we also have one for the company. Here is some information on both of them.

blog.milleranimation(this one):
Total 2016 Views: 6,657
Top 2016 Blog Post: Building An Animation Company’s Leadership Team (961 views)
Total Subscribers: 54

milleranimation.com/blog(the company blog):
Total 2016 Views: 5,195
Top 2016 Blog Post: Talent Spotlight: Introducing Violette Sacre (494 views)
Total Subscribers: 42

Website Data:
Total 2016 Views: 32,645
Top 2016 Page: Bink (2,632 views)

Social Media & Marketing:
This year we created a Social Media Marketing Coordinator position, and we have had a few people in this role. They are responsible for daily posts on all our social media accounts, weekly blog posts, quarterly newsletters, and a few other tasks.  This has helped us stay active on all our social media accounts, and create some amazing content for our website.

Facebook:
Network Size: 4,833 Likes
2016 Growth: +407 Likes

Twitter:
Network Size: 1,044 Followers
2016 Growth: +522 Followers

Instagram:
Network Size: 707 Followers
2016 Growth: +466 Followers

YouTube:
Network Size: 287 Subscribers
2016 Growth: +278 Subscribers
Most Popular Video: Bink: New Arrival – Teaser (5,881 views)
Total Channel Views: 10,005

Vimeo:
Network Size: 27 Followers
2016 Growth: +15 Followers
Most Popular Video: Bink – Teaser (514 views)

Google+:
Network Size: 20 Followers
2016 Growth: 4 Followers

Society of Creative Professionals:
While technically the Society of Creative Professionals is not part of the company, and is only hosted by me I still wanted to include it in this update.  We ended up having one mixer each month this year with a range in the number of attendees.  Our biggest mixer this year was our April mixer which was held at the Robin Hood British Pub in Sherman Oaks.  We had over 35 people show up at this event.  If you are interested in coming to our mixers please join the groups Facebook page.

In Conclusion:
Overall I think this was a great year.  I was able to attend a lot of great events, and meet a lot of new people.  These connections will help me to continue to grow the company.  I look forward to the coming years.  I wish all of you a very happy and successful new year!

 

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 Dec 2016 Company Update

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OK, so I know my last post on this blog was the end of September, and I have not been doing a great job at finding the time to write my posts.  This makes me sad, because I was doing so well for such a long time at keeping up with my weekly posting.  I kind of expected as things got busier with the business it would be harder to prioritize the time to write in my blog.  I know, these are all excuses.  I have been working on a new project which has been taking a lot more of my time then I expected.  I thought since I have not posted in a while we are about due for a Company Update post.

Bink:
Progress on Bink has been extremely slow, and we are still working on two different parts.  We are still slowly working on getting the fur to work better in lighting, and currently testing the changes we have made.  We are also working on the story.  Awhile back we changed from the idea of creating multiple 30 second shorts to a longer more thought out short.  I wanted a short with a powerful message, and want to make sure it is great before moving it into production.  We have had a lot of ideas, but we are doing a lot of massaging of those ideas trying to find the best version.  Jared White is doing most of the writing, and Charlie Petrek is helping more as a consultant.  When we can we have our story brainstorming sessions as we move the story along.

MagicMeeMees:
We were commissioned to do 4 episodes, and we have completed the 4th and final episode.  We will be sharing this episode tomorrow on our social media channels, so keep an eye out for it.  We had a lot of fun creating these 2 minute webisodes, and hope the client asks for more.

Honda:
We have actually been doing some work for Honda, and this is the project which has been taking up a lot more of my time then I originally expected.  It started out as 1 small little video, but that video turned into a much bigger deal which required a lot more work. The first video was shown in the Los Angeles Auto Show last month, but we don’t have permission to share it.  They also asked us to do a second video which we are currently working on, and hoping to have it finished by next week.  There was talk of a 3rd video, but I don’t know if this is still happening or not.  I was very excited to get to work with a big client like Honda, and hope we can do more work with them in the future.

Other Projects:
We have had a lot of projects I got to bid on, but for one reason or another we did not win them.  There is a lot of competition out there, so I’m often bidding against several other companies for the same project.  The more projects I bid on the more I learn about what the clients are looking for.  The good news is that I’m now getting more clients with more realistic budgets asking us to bid on their projects.

Social Media & Website:
We have recently seen a big increase with our social media followers, and myself and our Marketing and Social Media Coordinator have been trying many different approaches to build our following.  The last two months we have also seen a significant increase in our organic web traffic to the company website.  I have been seeing a lot of our keywords climbing the ranks.  We are on page 1 of Google search for the keywords “animation studios” which generates about 68.6 clicks per month to our site.  As we continue to move up in the search rankings the traffic to our site will increase. The goal is if someone is looking for animation services we will be on the first page of the search results increasing our chances of getting to bid on the projects.

Society Mixers:
I’m also still hosting our monthly animation & VFX society mixers.  Our next one will be next Tuesday for anyone in the area who might be interested in coming.  We are returning to the same place we went to last December, Tonga Hut.  We will be there from 7pm-10pm, so stop by and say hello.

Industry Events:
I have also been going to different industry events like The Animation & VFX Summit(AVFXS) and the CTN Animation Expo(CTNX).  This was my second year going to the AVFXS, and I feel I get a lot out of it each year.  We posted an article about it on the company blog which you can read here.

This was my 3rd year going to CTNX. It is geared much more to artists and animators then the AVFXS. I really enjoy going to the different panels, and meeting all the artists.  Majority of the people I meet are students, and I always enjoy talking with them to see what they want to do after school.  You can also read more about my time there on our company’s blog CTNX Recap.

Business:
As far as business is going we are doing well.  The company will be profitable this year, and I will be able to take a paycheck.  I have not been taking a paycheck throughout the year, and wait until the end of the year.  If we are at a loss then I don’t take out a paycheck, and if we are profitable then I do take a paycheck.  As business continues to pick up I will be able to take a steady paycheck, but for the first few years in business I will do it this way.  Right now it is all about growing the company.

 

Well, there is a quick update on what I have been doing with the company.  Running your own company is not always as glamorous as you might think, but I really enjoy it.  I hope you enjoy following along on my story in creating my company.

 

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.

Eric Miller Animation Sept 2016 Company Update

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As much as I have tried to squeeze in time to write my blog each week, I have found it incredibly difficult to do.  The good news is I have not had time to write the blog because I have been busy with new projects I have been bidding on.  While many of them I can’t talk about in details, I wanted to quickly update you on what I have been working on.

Bink:
Yes, while the progress has been slow due to the limited amount of time we have had to put towards working on Bink it is still moving forward.  As much as I would love to spend all my time working on my own projects the truth is the company needs to bring in money in order to do that.  So this means my client projects are made a priority.

We are working on improving the fur so it works better for lighting both technically and visually.  We are also working on the story for the next episode.  I really want it to be a much bigger story with a lot of comedy, surprises, and heart.

MagicMeeMees:
We have finished episode 3, and are now working on the fourth and final episode.  We have had a lot of fun creating this webisode, and we are hoping our client orders more episodes.  I will be sharing the third episode in early October, but for now here is a still from it.

screen-shot-2016-09-21-at-1-01-41-pm

Still from Episode 3: Mittens Lights Up Holidayland

 

Charity Project:
OK, so this will be the first vague project I will talk about in this post because of the Non-Disclosure Agreements I signed(NDA).  I was reaching out to different charities about the company donating money.  I wanted to find a few great charities which would specifically help children.  One of these organizations asked if we would be willing to donate VFX/Animation work on a PSA they are working on instead of donating money.  I agreed to help in anyway that I could.

I was able to put together an amazing crew of charitable people who will also give some of their time and talent to help with the project.  I’m really excited about it, and looking forward to getting started on the production.

Car Company Video:
This is a smaller project we will be doing to create a video for a large car company(I know vague).  It will be a combination of 3D modeling,  animation work, and motion graphics.  It started out as a smaller little project, but I heard from the client today that they want to talk about adding to what we will be doing.  I’m not sure what the changes are yet, but I’m excited this little project will be bigger then what I expected.  Especially with it being with a big car company which I would love to add to my client list.

Automotive Features Videos:
While we are talking about cars, this project will be 2 videos which will break down features of a new car.  I sent my bid in for this project, and now waiting to see if we get the project or not.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Healthcare Commercials:
This will be two 2D animated commercials for a healthcare company.  We don’t do a lot of 2D work, but I know a lot of really talented 2D animators.  I was approached about helping create these commercials, so I have been working on putting the right team together.  It is a mix of finding the right talent, and who’s schedule line up with the quick turn around needed.  I think I found the perfect crew for this project, and will find out more later today.

CA Government Project:
This is by far the biggest of the projects I’m currently bidding on, and it involves both 3D animation and a live-action production.  I heard from the client yesterday we are among the top 3 companies they are considering for these commercials.  I’m excited about this project for a few reason, but the main reason is it is for a great cause.  I love working on projects that have a positive impact on the community.

Other:
The last two weeks I have been getting a lot of projects, so it would seem my marketing efforts are working.  Some of them are great projects, and some are just not the right fit for one reason or another. Sometimes I turn down projects, and sometimes I just don’t win them.  So while I have less time to write my blog I’m still excited about being able to grow my company.

 

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.

 

Eric Miller Animation Aug 2016 Company Update

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Lately I have found it rather difficult to keep up with these weekly blog posts, but I wanted to at least give the monthly Eric Miller Animation Aug 2016 Company Update.

Bink:
There are two things I’m working on with Bink, and the first is getting our writers together to work out the rest of the Bink shorts stories.  I want to take the ideas I have for Bink, and work them out with the writers to get a full script and storyboard.  I would like to do it in a way we could then break it up into smaller episodes, since I don’t think I have the money to do them all at once.

The other thing is working on the fur again.  We got the fur to work for the first episode, but it required a lot of work for the lighter getting it to work in each shot.  We are looking to get the fur to behave a little more reliably, so it will be easier going forward.  I plan to bring on a fur expert to help with this task.

MagicMeeMees:
This is our client project we have been working on since the beginning of the year.  We have completed two episodes, and are working on completing the 3rd and 4th episode.  I’m really excited about these future episodes, and think each episode ends up being better then the last.

Social Media & Marketing:
A few weeks ago I brought on Marta to help us as our new Social Media and Marketing Coordinator.  Brittany was handling this for us before, but she moved to New York city for another opportunity.  Marta has been doing a great job, so very excited to have someone helping out again.  She handles posting and responding to comments for all our social media accounts, writes the company’s weekly blog, sends out the quarterly newsletter, and a few other things.

Finding Clients:
This is what I spend most of my time each day doing, and sometimes I wonder if I know what I’m doing.  I have been going at this from a few different angles.

Interacting with potential clients through social media is one of the ways I’m doing this.  Basically I try and find those people I consider to be my target market and like/respond to their comments and posts.  This is a very subtle approach, and the logic behind it is to simply get them familiar with your brand.  If they like what you have to say they might follow you back, or look into finding out more about you.  The big thing though is when I reach out to them to see if they could use our services they will be more likely to respond because they know our brand.

Another way I have been looking for clients is by getting on different websites for finding freelance/production work.  I have a profile on a lot of sites now, so hopefully someone looking for animation services might come across my profile.  I also look through these sites to find postings of projects we might be interested in.

Networking is always a big one for me for finding clients.  I have been reaching out to people in my target market, and trying to set up face to face meetings.  I also try and attend different networking events where I can find potential clients.

I also do some paid marketing, but this is one I don’t do a lot of at the moment.  I need to find the right places to do this kind of marketing, because sometimes it backfires.  I’m offering high end 3D animation services, and this normally requires larger budgets then most companies have.  Marketing in the wrong place gets me a lot of leads, but I end up wasting a lot of time bidding projects to clients without a realistic budget.

There are a few other things I do, but I’m always trying new approaches.  If any of you have any suggestions I would love to hear them.

 

Well this about sums everything up of what I have been working on lately.  I will try and do a better job of keeping up with my weekly blog posts.

 

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 February 2016 Animation Company Update

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It is time for our February 2016 Animation Company Update! It has been a busy month, and I feel like I’m juggling as much as I can to keep the company moving forward.  I don’t want to bore you with every detail, so below you will find updates on the bigger projects and activities I have been working on.

Bink:
The major activity with Bink the last couple weeks is we have been doing a lot of work with the music and sound effects.  On Monday I received the final music underscore from our composer, Carl Johnson.  He did an amazing job of creating different themes, and music for such a short animation.  This episode is only 30 seconds, so introducing the different characters has to happen very quickly.  I’m excited to see how it will work with the other sound effects.

The sound effects are being done by our good friends over at Boom Box Post, and I had a spotting session with the Co-founder Jeff Shiffman last week.  This gave us a chance to look at the short, and talk about what I expect to hear at different parts.  He ask a lot of really great questions, and brought up things I did not even think about before.  This is the awesome part about working with different talented people, they each bring something unique to the project which adds unique layers to the project making it that much better.  I can’t wait to see what he does with the SFX when we meet for final remix on Monday. As a side note, we made it onto their website with their other amazing clients! 😀

I have also started to reach out to the press about writing articles on Bink.  I have heard back from 2 different industry magazines who are interested in doing write-ups about the short.  One actually wants to do a few articles about different aspects of the production process.  I think getting these articles will help in getting the word out to as many people as possible.

We are working on problem solving a few more things in regards to Bink’s fur, but otherwise we are ready to start lighting and rendering the shots.  We are in the final stretch, and I’m very excited about getting to share this short animation and all the hard work of everyone involved.

Project-MMM:
Our client project we are working on is also going really well.  All the models are built and surfaced, and all the characters are rigged.  We are currently finishing up rough layout where we are taking all the assets and composing the different shots with virtual cameras.  This is all done on the computer using software called Maya.  We plan to start animation tomorrow, and hope to have it done in a few weeks.  The quality of this short is more in line with a web-series while with Bink we are aiming more towards feature quality.  This is why we are able to move much quicker on this project then with Bink.  Once we finish the first episode of Project-MMM we plan to move on to the 2nd episode.  I’m hoping we can streamline the process and deliver each subsequent episode quicker then the previous.

LA Society of Creative Professionals:
Last night we had our 8th Society Mixer, and we had a great turn out.  I’m still having a lot of fun with putting these mixers on, and I have met a lot of really amazing people.  I know several people who came to the mixers which through the people they met there lead to them getting jobs, and I have even hired a few people from the mixers.  Last night I witnessed something I would have never imagined I would see.  Someone who has never come to one of the mixers might have got themselves an interview, because someone at the mixer was saying how this person was looking for a job and how amazing this person is to an executive who has been looking to hire someone with skills this mystery person has.  I see this as a sign the mixers are making a real difference in the creative community when people who have not even come to any of the events are benefiting.

Feb_2016_mixer

Marketing & Social Media:
Our Social Media Marketing Coordinator, Brittany Potter has been doing a great job with all of our social media accounts and marketing efforts.  If you follow the company on our different social media sites you may have seen some of her posts.  We have also been doing Talent Spotlights where every other week we highlight one of the extremely talented people we get to work with.  If you want to check them out as well as the other blog posts you can find them on the company’s blog here.

We are preparing for the launch of the first episode of Bink, and as mentioned above the first part involves reaching out to the press.  Once we have the first episode of Bink it will help in our marketing efforts because we can actually show potential clients the quality of work we can do.  I have been holding back a lot of my sales and marketing efforts waiting for the completion of the short.  In July the first episode of Project-MMM will be out, and this will give us another style of animation to showcase on our portfolio.

While the language on my website has been about how we offer animation, VFX, and motion graphics I plan to change it to be more specific.  My focus is high quality 3D animation, so I want my website and marketing to reflect this.  We will still offer those other services to our clients, but it will not be a major part of our brand.  Focusing on our specialty will help us find the clients we can help the most.

Oscar Week: Animated Features:
This evening I’m attending an event to celebrate the nominees for Best Animated Feature Film.  They will be showing clips of each animated movie followed by an onstage discussion with each group of nominated filmmakers. This year’s films are, Anomalies, Boy and the World, Inside Out, Shaun the Sheep Movie, and When Marnie Was There. For more information and trailers, visit: http://oscar.go.com/nominees/animated-feature-film.  I have never been to this event before, so I’m excited to check it out.  I will be sure to share how it goes in next week’s blog post.
This about covers all the major things I have been working on.  I hope you enjoyed reading about all I have going on with the company.  Please feel free to leave a comment below if you ever have any topics you are interested in hearing about.

 

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 January 2016 Animation Company Update

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I think now is a good time for our animation company update for this month.  I have been crazy busy, and it seems like we have had a lot happen since last month.

Bink
Work on Bink slowed down during the holidays, but we are now moving along nicely.  We are still testing fur on Bink, and trying to figure out how to solve all the technical difficulties involved in getting it to look right.  We are finishing up the surfacing on the lab environment, and moving quickly on the animation.  We are now at a point where we can record all final dialogue, and start working on sound design and the underscore.

I wanted to share with all of you the first 6 seconds of the short as a little animation teaser.  A little perk for reading my blog.  Everything is still in progress, so temp SFX, no surfacing or lighting, and animation is only blocking.  We are getting closer every day, and I can’t wait to share more with you.

 

Project-MMM
We started a project for a client at the end of last month, and we have been busy working on it.  I can’t share details about the project, so for now I will call it “Project-MMM”.  Jared White wrote the script for us which the client loved, so he is now working on storyboarding the first episode.  We have also been working on the character assets, and the first character is almost done in modeling, surfacing, and rigging.  Animation is already starting to do test poses with the character, and we hope to show storyboards and character model to the client on Tuesday.

Our crew includes:
Jared White – Writing/Storyboarding/Editing
Linda Kurgpold – Modeling/Surfacing
Nico Sanghrajka – Rigging
Jim Richardson – Layout/Animation
Benjamin Liska – Lighting/Compositing/Rendering

Project-HIWB
Another project I can’t talk about details is what I will call “Project-HIWB”.  It is a project I recently bid on which sounds like it would be a really fun and interesting project.   I sent my bid to them yesterday, so I’m waiting to hear if we will get to work on it or not. Please keep your fingers crossed for us!

Social Media Marketing Coordinator:
In a previous post I mentioned I was looking to bring on a Social Media Marketing Coordinator.  Well I was able to find someone who I’m very excited to have onboard, Brittany Potter.  You might have noticed more activity on my social media sites, and that is due to Brittany’s work.  She will be helping with growing my social media network, reaching out to potential clients through social media, writing weekly blog posts(on the company blog), and sending out quarterly Newsletters.  She only started with me last Friday, so she is just getting warmed up.  I have to admit it is a little odd to see posts from my company which I did not personally write.  Her first blog post will be coming out tomorrow, and it will be about her joining the company as the Social Media Marketing Coordinator.  To subscribe to the company blog head over to milleranimation.com and find the “Newsletter Signup” button at the bottom of the page.

Society Mixer
This last Tuesday we had our 7th monthly networking mixer, and this was one of the biggest ones so far.  We had around 25 people sign in, but I feel like there was a good number of people who never signed in.  We had a good mix of people who ranged from those who have been in the industry for many years to people who are still in school.  One of my favorite parts of this last mixer was seeing an animator who has over 20 years experience giving priceless feedback to a student who was sharing his work.

Keep an eye out for the mixers each month, and try and make it out if you are in the LA area.  Join our Facebook Group to be invited to the mixers each month.

Producers Guild Awards:
This Saturday my wife and I are going to the 27th Annual Producer Guild Awards.  I attended the award show last year by myself, so I’m excited to get all dressed up and go with my wife this year.  What is everyone’s predictions on who the winners will be?

 

Well, I believe that about covers everything I have going on.  It seems like things are getting busier every month.

 

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.

My Sales Hat: Read what I learned about Animation Sales

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I often talk about how you wear multiple hats when starting a company.  Well, today I wanted to talk about a hat I have been wearing a lot lately, and this is my Sales Hat.

Have you ever thought you knew a decent amount about a topic only to have an eye opening experience which completely blows your mind?  I kind of had this happen to me recently when it came to sales.  I have always thought I was pretty good with sales, and had a good understanding of it.  Even when I worked at Apple selling computers I was always one of the top in sales at the store.  It was often me and Max who would always be competing for the #1 sales person spot.

When I started my own company I saw sales as the task I did when someone called me about a project.  I relied very heavily on my marketing to bring those potential clients to me.  Unfortunately my marketing only consisted of my website, so I did not receive many calls.  Thinking about it I’m actually surprised I got as many calls as I did.  Many of them were people who wanted a 30 minute Pixar quality animated video, and their budget was $1,000.  While I got to meet and talk to a lot of really interesting people it was from a business point of view, a waste of time.

I kept focusing on my marketing thinking the sales part was not the problem.  The truth was both were not working as well as they could have been, but it took me awhile to figure this out(I’m still figuring it out).  I also had potential clients interested in my animation services emailing me, but after I responded I would forget about them until they emailed me back.  This worked fine as long as they responded, but when they did not I lost track of them.

By now any experienced sales person reading this could see many things wrong with my sales process.  I also realize there was something not working right, and I set out to find a better way.  I started searching for a way to keep track of these potential clients, and actually had a hard time finding anything.  I obviously had been searching with the wrong keywords, since I was not finding anything.  One day I stumbled across three letters which lead to my mind blowing experience, CRM.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and is a term which refers to practices, strategies, and technologies companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data.  This is what I was looking for, and it turns out I was not the first person to think of it.  Actually as it appeared I might have been the very last person to think about it.  CRM is nothing unique, and has been around for a while.  I felt a little silly because I have not heard of it earlier.  There are also many online software tools to help companies with their CRM.

I started playing around with 2 of them to see how they might be able to help me.  The ones I have been looking at are Salesforce and Zoho, and this is where the lights really turned on for me.  They setup the whole sales process as a pipeline with different steps along the way.  This pipeline concept is something I’m very familiar with, because 3D animation is all about the pipeline.  You have different tasks which need to be done, and having a pipeline helps you keep it organized and flowing in the right direction.  I never thought to look at sales in this way, and I’m surprised it did not occur to me earlier.  I’m still learning about sales strategy, but let me share with you what I have learned so far.

What is a lead?  I normally called a lead a potential clients which is about as far as I went with any type of structure.  In a CRM they look at Leads as the first step in the pipeline.  Leads can be people who contact you directly through your website,  referred to you, brought in by marketing, or were on a client list you purchased.  There is a whole process which you take the leads through which includes stages like discovery, nurturing, and converting.  You start off by trying to find out as much as you can about the lead and qualifying if they are a good lead or not.  Then you make first contact to find out about what their needs are, and how your services can help them.

Once you know what they are looking for you start to build a relationship with them.  I read a study which says on average it takes 7 times of reaching out to a client before making a deal.  Most people reach out to a potential customer 2-3 times before giving up.  My thought is 7 times would be annoying, but I heard this multiple times.  So when I hear it a 7th time I guess I will have to believe it.  The idea is people are more likely to do business with someone they are familiar with.  You want to build trust with your clients, so they are willing to take a chance with you.

After nurturing the relationship you continually move closer to close the deal, and turning this lead into a client.  In these programs they have leads, clients, accounts, competitors, and a much more organized way of looking at your client data. I found this all to be extremely interesting.  While I don’t plan to turn my company into a sales powerhouse, since I feel the whole process could easily start to feel robotic.  There is still a lot which I can take away from this.  I think a sign of a good sales person is someone who has a good structure, strategy, and process, but at the same time can be very personable and natural.  I would not want my clients to feel like they are just another number in the pipe.

Learning about this pointed out I not only need a better system closing deals with potential clients, but also I could do a better job at generating leads.  I can take a more proactive approach then sitting back waiting for people to visit my website and call me.  I have looked into brining on sales reps, but I have heard from other animation studios who have had mixed experiences.  It seems like the general consensus is doing it yourself is always best, but if you have to bring someone in then commission-only is the way to go.  Otherwise you risk spending money with little or no results, and the sales reps are more motivated when they only earning money if they are making sales.

I realize I still have a lot to learn about sales, but the more I wear this hat the better it fits.  I would love to hear from all of you about your sales secrets, and let me know if you have anything to add to what I mentioned.

 

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.

Eric Miller Animation’s New Year’s Resolutions

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Happy New Year! 2016 will be our second full year in business, and I wanted to share my New Year’s resolutions for the company.   I recently posted how we did with the goals I set at the beginning of last year, and I’m hoping we can accomplish more of our goals this time.  Last year I was a little zealous in what I thought we could accomplish in our first full year of business, so this year I wanted to set more realistic goals.

Animated Short:
We are getting really close to finishing our first 30 second episode for Bink, and I would love to be able to make at least 2 more this year.  So my goal is to have 3 episodes of Bink online by the end of this year.

New Clients:
Last year I had the goal of 3 new clients with large projects, but I realized the difficulties in attracting clients if I did not have an animation portfolio to show.  I ended up shifting my efforts away from finding clients to creating our own animated short which we could use to show potential clients the quality of work we can produce.  With us finishing the first episode of Bink early this year I hope it will help in brining in more clients.  I will also be increasing my marketing efforts, so with the combination of the two I feel we will be in much better shape to find more clients.  So the goal this year is again to get 3 new projects this year.  While it be nice if they are large accounts I will take any profitable projects.

Learn Something New:
This is a pretty easy goal to accomplish, since I feel I’m learning something every day.  The reason I put it down is because I feel it is extremely important to always be learning, and growing.

Grow Social Network:
There are two parts to this goal which are both important for my hybrid company.  The company is hybrid because it is both an animation studio, and an animation service company.  The goal is we do service work to bring in money, so we have the money to create our own projects.  The way I want to use social media is in two ways.  First to build our fan base, so when we post our own content it can reach more people. Second is to use social media to connect with potential clients by reaching out to them by commenting, liking, and sharing their posts.  Basically anything to get them to notice us, and build a relationship with them.  Social media is a great way for clients to learn about your brand, and be more open to work with you.  I will be hiring a Social Media Marketing coordinator this month, and hopefully they can help me accomplish this goal.  My goal is to increase our network by 100% on all our social media networks.

Increasing each network by 100% will be as follows.
Facebook: 4,427 –> 8,854
Twitter: 513 –> 1,026
LinkedIn: 146 –> 292
Google+: 11 –> 22
InstaGram: 235 –> 470
YouTube: 5 –> 10

Profitable 2016:
I always expect the first few years to be a loss.  I started the company in July of 2014, and surprised myself when the first 6 months were profitable.  Then last year I ended up spending more money then I brought in, but we were only slightly in the red.  If you look at the entire life of the business we are still profitable even with the loss last year.  I also have not been taking a salary myself, and have been keeping the money in the business.  This year my goal is to make enough where I can actually take a salary(even a small salary), and still have the business be profitable. I do enjoy growing the business, but making some money would be nice especially with our growing family.

 

I will keep my the list of my main goals pretty short.  I will always be setting other goals throughout the year, but these are the big ones I’m hoping to accomplish.

 

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.

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.