Eric Miller Animation: 2016 Year in Review

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

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 Aug 2016 Company Update

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.

The Sounds of Bink

This will be a short post, since my time has been extremely limited lately.  I wanted to take a moment to talk about my experience with creating the sounds of Bink.

While I love music I have never really had a lot of experience with it in regards to production.  Which made these recent experiences very interesting to me.  I was very lucky to get to work with some extremely talented people who could make beautiful sounds from my unclear thoughts.

Carl Johnson is a composer and did the underscore for this episode of Bink.  I met him at the Animation and VFX World Summit at the end of last year.  He has worked on some really great projects over his career, and you can check out what he has done on his website.

I wanted the music to have themes which would hint at Bink’s backstory of him being from a seafaring species who travel around the oceans and deserted islands.  So I was imagining more tropical type of music themes, but at the same time the short take place in a colder dark environment.  I was worried tropical music might not work for the shorts environment, but I wanted to give it a try.  The other challenge is the short is only 30 seconds, so it does not give much time for the music to build up.  The different themes for each character had to come and go very quickly.

I tried to express to Carl the feelings and the different themes as best as I could, and then I had to trust in his talent to make it work.  I sent him 3 Youtube videos to give him an idea of the type of music I thought might work.

At the same time we started on the underscore we also started on the sound effects. Early last year I found Kate Finan on LinkedIn, and reached out to her about working together on future projects.  Her and her business partner Jeff Shiffman also recently started their own company, Boom Box Post.  A boutique post-production sound studio.  We setup a meeting between the three of us to discuss how we might help each other, and I was so impressed with what they had going on.  I started to look for opportunities for us to work together on, and Bink turned out to be a perfect project for a collaboration between our two companies.

A few weeks ago I met with Jeff to do a spotting session for the first episode of Bink.  I thought I had a pretty good idea of the sound effects I wanted, but Jeff asked a lot of great questions to really get me thinking deeper about what I wanted.  He also brought up suggestions of things to add I did not even think of, but I felt would really add to the short. After the session it was left in Jeff’s hands to craft the sound effects for the world Bink was in.

The timing worked out perfectly because in a few days Carl finished the underscore which allowed Jeff to mix it in for the first preview.  It was great to finally start to hear everything come together.  Once I gave my final approval of the preview we were ready for the final meeting to review the mix, and this meeting took place this last Monday.  Jared White, the editor working on Bink, and I met at Boom Box Post to give our feedback while Jeff played with the audio levels to make everything perfect.

This process really gave me a better understanding and appreciation of how music and sound come together. I’m really excited for what the team was able to do with my unclear thoughts and hopes.  I’m looking forward to hear what all of you think of it when I release the first episode(aiming for end of March or early April).

Bink Mixing Session at Boom Box Post

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

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.

Experiencing The 43rd Annual Annie Awards for Animation

Eric Karen going to AnnieThis last Saturday evening my wife and I attended the 43rd Annual Annie Awards which was in Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. I could tell you about who won what awards, but you can find that out in many other places like here.  Instead I want to share my experience of attending to the Annie Award show.

I have never been to the Annie Awards, so I figured I would get general admission tickets to check it out before investing in the VIP tickets another year.  Before I was able to get tickets the attorney for Eric Miller Animation Studios, or as he calls it EMAS, said he had two extra VIP tickets and wanted to know if I wanted them.  Free VIP tickets are always a better option, so I quickly said yes.

We had really great seats on the main floor very close to the stage.  I felt a little special since we were closer then most of the people who were actually winning awards.  I kept seeing myself on the video screen as the winners walked by us on their way to accept their awards.  This was a different experience then at the Producers Guild Awards where we are put in the far back corner.

At the Annie Awards

Overall it was a really nice event.  The Champaign reception before the award show was on a really nice outdoor patio.  The hors d’oeuvres were amazing, and my pregnant wife ate at least 5 sliders among other things.  She said the baby was really hungry, and I would not dare argue with her.

The award show was very interesting and I did not feel like it dragged on like we were warned about.  All the acceptance speeches were kept very brief, and it moved along very nicely.  I think it helped they had the presenters presenting several categories instead of introducing new presenters for each category.  This with the short speeches made it go much quicker then years past.

Eric-Karen-Annie-AwardsWhile the average person probably never heard of the people who won at the Annie Awards like the more celebrity winners of the Producers Guild Awards or Academy Awards, I found the Annie’s to be much more interesting since I actually knew some of the people who were nominated.  Many of them included people I have worked with on different movies during my time at DreamWorks Animation.

There also felt to be more excitement in the air, and the people seemed more down to earth.  I might be bias because I love my industry, and the people who are in it.  There are some really awesome, and amazing people in animation.  If you take one of the most talented people at the Annie’s and walk up to them and say hello, I bet they would actually talk to you.  I don’t feel that is the case with all the other people in other areas of entertainment.  I might be wrong, but at least this is the vibe I get.  Animation has really nice, down to earth, and fun loving people.

After the awards show we then got to go to the VIP Dinner and Party.  This was a great opportunity to congratulate the winners, and eat some delicious food.  My one complaint would be they only had a few tables and seats, so majority of the people were left hunting for a ledge to set their plates down on to quickly eat.  Luckily, my attorney was able to score one of the tables, so he invited us to join them.  We spent most of the after party sitting and talking with him and his wife.  I’m extremely impressed with my wife for being able to make it through the entire evening wearing heals while pregnant.

We had a really great time, and I’m looking forward to going again next year.  I plan to try and attend all the award shows in the future.

 

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

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

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.

Eric Miller Animation November 2015 Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bink Poses

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

The World Animation and VFX Summit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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