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.

Award Shows and Shareholder Meetings: The Joys of Animation

On Saturday, January 23rd my wife and I attended the Producers Guild Awards show.  We had a really great time, and I’m glad she was able to come with me this year.  The award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Picture went to Inside Out producer Jonas Rivera.  The other nominees included; Anomalisa Producers: Rosa Tran, Duke Johnson, Charlie Kaufman, The Good Dinosaur Producer: Denise Ream, Minions Producers: Chris Meledandri, Janet Healy, and The Peanuts Movie Producers: Craig Schulz, Michael J. Travers.

Eric and Steve MartinoI had a chance before the award show started to talk with Steve Martino the director of The Peanuts Movie.  I have seen him at several other events I have attended in the past, but never had a chance to talk with him.  I found out he is also a fellow Ohioan.  He was born in Dayton, Ohio and went to school at Ohio State University.  He also directed Horton Hears a Who! and Ice Age: Continental Drift which I’m sure you have all heard of. He is a really nice guy, and we had a nice little chat.

Last week we made a lot of progress with both Bink and Project-MMM.  I’m very excited to see them coming together.  I started to work on getting post sound effects, and music underscore started for Bink. With Project-MMM we have all the character models done, and storyboard animatics which I will be presenting to the client either today or tomorrow.  If approved we will be ready to start on animation.

According to my corporation’s By-laws my annual shareholder and director meeting has to fall on Jan 30th each year.  If the date falls on a weekend or holiday it is to be scheduled the next business day.  Well, that happens to be today! Being the founder, Sole Director, President, Secretary, and Treasurer of the corporation it makes for a very “interesting” meeting of talking to myself. The meeting minutes are even stranger to read.  You might ask why I would even have these meetings?  Well, if the IRS ever does an audit they often ask for the minutes to see if the corporation is actually being run like a corporation instead of Sole Proprietorship.  If they can show the company is not being run correctly then the status as an S-corp can have effects on taxes.  I don’t completely understand the details, but what I do know is I have to have these meetings at least once a year.

EMAS Shareholder Meeting

This weekend my wife and I are going to another award show, but this time it is specific to animation.  The Annie Awards is put on by ASIFA which I’m a member of.  This will be my first year going to this award show, so I’m really excited to see what it is about.  Maybe one year I can be a nominee instead of just an attendee.

Well, it is time for me to get back to work.

 

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

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.

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.

Produced by Conference 2015

This weekend was the Producers Guild of America’s annual Produced by Conference.  This is a conference for producers, and has a lot of really great panels, mentoring, and networking opportunities for members of the guild.  This was my second time going to the conference, and I wanted to share my experience with all of you.  If you are interested in reading about last year’s conference you can do it here.

Paramount-fountain-pga-pbcLast year’s conference was held at Warner Bros. Studios, but this year’s was held at Paramount Pictures.  It was nice to get back on the Paramount lot, and it reminded me of when I worked at DreamWorks Studios(DWS).  At the time DWS was owned by Paramount, so I had my new hire orientation on the Paramount lot.  They also had free weekly movie screenings at the huge 500+ seat theatre that I often took advantage of since I never had the money to pay for movies.

The conference opened on Friday night with a general meeting for the members followed by a really nice Hollywood style party.  The meeting was interesting, but of course it went longer then expected.  They had every committee get up and talk about what their committees where about, and what they were working on.  I think they could have done abbreviated updates instead of each of them taking 10-15 minutes each.  I also did not eat dinner, so I was ready to get out to the party.  When we finally got out of the meeting, and to the party I spent the first half hour just stuffing my face with all the delicious foods they had.

I did not attend the conference on Saturday, and only went to the conference on Sunday.  If you are interested to see what sessions they had you can check out the list here. The conference is open to non-Producer Guild Members, but you have to pay for it.  A member gets one day free, or they can buy both days at discounted rates.  Let me know if you are interested in going next year, and I can get you the information on it.

The sessions that I went to on Sunday were “The art and craft of pitching for television”, “Conversations with: Kevin Smith”, “Creating Meaningful Brand Partnerships to enhance your content”, and “Everything you wanted to know about games, but were afraid to ask”.

The pitching for TV was very interesting, and entertaining.  They had a panel of executives, and 5 producer/writers that took turns pitching their ideas to the executives.  The executives had fun with it, and did things like interrupt them, walk away, talk to people during the pitch, and so on.  The goal was to show you what you might expect to see when pitching to these executives, and how to keep your cool during your pitch.  After each pitch they would give pointers at how to make their pitch stronger.  It actually was very educational.  It was neat to see what worked, and what did not work.  It gave me a lot of great insight on ways to improve my pitches.

Kevin-SmithI signed up for the session with Kevin Smith more for the fun of it.  If you don’t know who he is he is the director/writer for movies “Clerks”, “Jay and Silent Bob”, and “Dogma”.  They had John Horn as the moderator, but I don’t think he got a word in after they started.  Kevin just talked about one story after another, and barely stopped to take a breath.  It was a fun time, and I think I laughed through the entire session.

The session on creating brand partnerships was interesting, but I was expecting something different.  When I signed up for it I thought it was more about creating meaning for brands from your intellectual properties.  Instead it was about partnering with Brands to have them in your TV show, or movies.  Things like product placements where you actor is drinking a coke, or driving a GM car in the movie Transformers.  It was interesting to hear about how much money can be made for adding in these products.  I think they were saying $100,000 for a product in a TV show, and millions of dollars for movies.

The last session I went to ended up being the one I got the most out of.  It is always interesting to hear about the $90 billion game industry.  It is such a rapidly growing industry, and there are so many different platforms for them. There are PC, console, mobile, tablet, and social/Facebook games.  You have the Pay-to-play, In-App purchases, free-to-play, and many other types of games.  Virtual reality is also an up and coming platform that I feel will continue to grow.  I wish this session was longer, because you could tell they were only scratching the surface.  I hope to reach out to some of the people on the panel to continue the conversations.

In addition to the sessions I also met a lot of really great people, and heard some very interesting stories.  The main reason I go to these conferences is to network, and create new relationships, and this year there was no shortage of that.  I will spend most of today reaching out to the people I met this weekend, and finding ways we can work together.

I hope you enjoyed hearing about the conference, and if you have any questions about the conference please let me know.

paramount_PGA_PBC

 

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.

26th Annual Producers Guild Awards

This weekend I attended my first Hollywood awards show.  It was the 26th Annual Producers Guild Awards at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel.  I imagined it would be an unforgettable night of hanging with celebrities, and dressed impress.  It was an unforgettable night, but I would throw it more in the learning experience category.

Eric PGA Tux

I have a lot to learn before I can consider myself a veteran awards show attendee, but overall I was still glad that I went. Let me share with you some of my experiences, and what I have learned.

I think it all started from the moment I got the invitation.  It said that it was a “creative” black tie event.  I knew what a black tie event was, but it was that word creative that stumped me.  So I did what anyone of our generation would do… I asked the mighty Google.  I found as I expected that it is a black tie event with a sense a whimsy.  Think of the red carpet on oscar night, and all the variety of outfits you see there.

I headed to the mall to find a tux for the event, but one that would not break the bank.  Luckily I was not worried about anyone asking me “who are you wearing”, since I’m not a big time movie star. After looking around I finally found myself in JCPenny’s looking around.  With someone of my limited expertise on fashion I found it very difficult to be creative.  I have a new appreciation for stylists, since everything I tried looked horrible.  I decided to play it safe and go with the standard black tie.

After finding a jacket and pants in my size I was halfway done.  Then I found this cool box that had a white shirt, black clip-on bowtie, and black cummerbund.  All this was a great price, and it made everything a lot easier.  I think this is where things took a fashion downturn.

Everything was in a sealed box, but I thought what could go wrong? When I got home I tried everything on expecting to feel debonair, and sexy.  Instead it reminded me of when I worked at Glenmoor Country Club as a food runner. The collar was the wingtip style, and one side was bent down, and the other was bent up.  The french cuffs were to large and did not fit nicely through the sleeve of the tux jacket without some squeezing.  The shirt was a little big, and the clip-on bowtie looked like it was deflated, and would only face the ground.  I convinced myself that after washing the shirt it would shrink a little, and I could iron the wingtips into shape.  And that was my second major fashion mistake.

I washed everything and ironed it, and although it was a little better it still was not perfect.  I was limited on time, and I decided it was good enough.  On the night of the event I got all dressed, and I was not feeling very confident.  I decided that my biggest issue was this clip-on bowtie.  With this style of collar there was no hiding the clip, and it looked embarrassingly bad to me.  I left a little early so that I would have the time to run to a store on the way to buy a real bowtie.  Luckily across the street from the event was a mall, so dressed in my tux I setoff on a mission to find a bowtie.  This proved to be more difficult then I expected, but was only the start of my difficulties.  Finding a store that sold bowties in the appropriate style for the event was challenging, but was easy in comparison to what came next.  I found myself sitting in my car in the mall’s parking garage watching YouTube videos on how to tie a bowtie.  They made it look so simple, but it was IMPOSSIBLE!!!  I tried for over a 1/2 hour trying to fold the elephant ears and take the fish through the hole before I finally gave up in a fit of rage.  I was now late to the event, and I thought to myself “maybe some there can help me”.

I pulled up to valet and it was a mad house of people arriving to the event.  Of course everyone was perfectly dressed, and here I was looking like a monkey in a cheap tux.  I jump out of my car and headed straight to the bathroom to continue my battle against my archenemy… the bowtie.  Many guys come in and after seeing me wished me luck.  None of them actually tied the bowtie themselves, and could offer me no assistance.

I was finally about to give up when a guy walked in, and said he might be able to help.  He gave his best effort, but was not able to tie it on someone else.  At this point my self-esteem was exhausted, and I completely gave up on the bowtie. I left the clip-on in the car that valet took, so I did not even have a backup.  I decided to go without any bowtie, so into my pocket it went. Luckily this was an acceptable option, since it was a “creative” black tie event.  I undid the top button on my shirt, and walked out into the lobby.

I took a quick look at the red carpet before continuing to the ballroom where I found my seat at the table.  After we finished eating the awards show started with the category I was most interested in… Best Animated Feature.  The Lego Movie won, and the producer Dan Lin came up to accept the award.  I never met Dan, but as he got up on stage I recognized him.  He was the guy that tried to help me with my bowtie in the bathroom.  I think I sank a little in my seat in embarrassment.

The rest of the night was better after I accepted my defeat against the bowtie.  I went to this event by myself, since my wife had prior engagements that she committed too.  Which worked out since I wanted to check it out first to see if it was worth going to again.  Besides my fashion folly I think it would be worth coming again.

IMG_0174It was interesting to see all the big celebrities, and the excitement that they bring.  I think this was the most movie stars that I have seen in-person at one place.  I saw Brad Pit, Reese Witherspoon, Bryan Cranston, Adrien Brody, Matt Bomer, Kit Harington, Eddie Redmayne, and Felicity Jones to name a few.  My favorite of course was Jennifer Lawrence.  She stole the show when she got up on stage.  She was very entertaining, captivating, genuine and of course looked amazing.  She has a great personality and a presence that people gravitate towards.  I’m now a bigger fan.

Normally I thrive in these kind of social events, but with my confidence shaken I was much more reserved.  It reminded me of the first cast and crew party I went to at DreamWorks Animation.  It was before I knew many people, and I walked around feeling more like a spectator then a participant.  In a odd way I found comfort in this.  There has been many times in my life where I have had to start at the bottom, and work my way up.  Where you have to meet new people, and build relationships.  Life is full of these moments from your first day at school to the first day at a new job.  I may have had more of these moments then the average person, since I constantly pushing myself beyond my comfort zone.  When I first got to Los Angeles I felt like an outsider, but I have come a long way since then.  The last DreamWorks party I attended was a completely different experience then the first.  Instead of feeling like a spectator I felt at home surrounded by all my friends.  I feel like this is my next new beginning, and as in the past I will find my place.  It is not a bad circle to be at the ground floor of, and I look forward to making it my home.  I think my first step is learning how to master the bowtie.

I know this post has already gone longer then I planned, but I still have one thing I wanted to touch on.  Last week was a sad time for both DreamWorks Animation, and the animation community.  The closing of the DreamWorks/PDI studio was shocking, and I feel for all my friends that have considered it home.  Many of them have been there for years, and are now being asked to leave.  It is a reminder of the challenges of our industry.  I hope after all the dust settles that all my DWA friends will find themselves in better places.  Maybe one day that place will be Eric Miller Animation Studios.

 

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.

Shooting Week Done, Now We Add The Magic

The week of shooting is now over, and I think it went really well besides my feet being a little sore from standing all day.  We shot Monday thru Friday, and the hours were roughly 7am to 7pm each day.  So that is a lot more standing then I’m used to, since lately I have spent a lot of time on my butt in my office chair.  My office now looks like a toy store from the toys we brought back to use for the VFX work, and I have a lot of paperwork to sort through.

Although it was very tiring, being on set was a lot of fun, and I learned a great deal more about the live action side of things.  It was also a very productive week, and from what was shot they will be able to make somewhere around 40 different commercials using different combinations of the vignettes we will be making.  We are now waiting for edit to finish the first few vignettes for us to get started on with the VFX work.  Hopefully we will have something as early as the end of day Monday to jump on.

We have some pretty intense deadlines this time around, and I have been working all weekend trying to rough out a schedule.  There will be a lot of moving pieces, and they all have to fall into place to make sure we deliver everything on time.

I’m excited to see how this round of commercials go, and I expect they will turn out even better then the last round.

In addition to shooting all week I was also able to make it to the Producers Guild networking event that was on Thursday evening.  With being tired from the week, and between babysitter drama, and having to wake up early the next morning for the final day of shoot I did not stay very long.  It was still nice to get out for a little, and meet some new people.

This week will start our post work, that we are expecting to last until December.  I’m excited to get a start on everything, and still a little stressed from the tight deadlines.  I just want to do the best job we can, so everyone is happy, and proud of the work.

 

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.

A quick update on this week

This week has been a pretty busy, so I was not able to finish the article I was working on, so instead I thought I would give a quick update on this week.

Last night I went to a Producers Guild networking event in Hollywood that was hosted at the Den on Sunset.  As always I met a lot of really great producers, but I also met a guy from the U. S. Coast Guard Motion Picture and Television Office.  We were talking about the services the different military branches offer to production companies at no cost.  Some of the stuff does have a cost but mostly if it is going to be additional expense to the military.  If you want solders running around or doing military stuff it is free, and they calk it up to training.  He said he can even get helicopters and tanks, and I would only have to pay for fuel…  Who wants to get a helicopter with me?  I’m sure the fuel is not cheap, but really awesome the military offers these things to production companies.

Tomorrow I’m attending another Producers Guild event that is an Associate Producer Council Master Class: “Comps: How Comparable Films’ Financial Info Can Make You a Better Producer”.  It will go over how to get people to invest in your projects by making your numbers look good to potential investors by using comps.  I will let you know if I learn anything interesting.

This week I also registered for the Creative Talent Network 3-day Animation Expo in November, so I’m looking forward to that.  Has anyone gone to this expo before?  What is it like, and any suggestions on what panels to see?

I wanted to give a big congratulations to my friend Hashi for his Streamy Award win for “Best Visual and Special Effects” for his YouTube channel Action Movie Kid.  And a even bigger congratulations to him and his wife who are welcoming their daughter into the world today.

Well, that is all I have time for today, but keep following for future updates.  If you are interested to hear about anything specific please feel free to leave comments below.

 

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.

Produced by Conference

photo 1This Sunday I attended day 2 of the Produced by Conference that was held at the Warner Bros. Studio lot.  It was a great experience, and I’m very glad I was able to attend.  The Produced by Conference is a conference for producers by producers, and is put on each year by the Producers guild of America.  This is the 6th year of the conference, but only my first year going.  It is made up of different guest speakers and panels of industry experts, and I signed up for 4 panel discussions that I would like to share with you.

Conversation with Norman Lear:
Norman Lear & Steven LevitanI’m embarrassed to say that I did not know who Norman Lear was before signing up for this session.  I still did not know the impact he had on the industry even after looking him up online in advance and finding out about the shows that he wrote and produced.  I have heard of the shows he made, but never actually seen any of them.  All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Maude, and Sanford and Son to name some of the big ones.  So having this chance to hear his stories was very fascinating. He was so influential that the Producers Guild’s comedy series award is actually named after him.  The person that won the Norman Lear Award the most times was Steven Levitan, and he was the one moderating for this conversation. Steven Levitan created such TV series as Just Shoot Me!, Stark Raving Mad, Stacked, Back to You, and Modern Family. This paring of the two made this conversation even more rewarding. Norman talked about how he felt like he never did anything that was that earth shattering, but was just telling stories.  He said when he was first getting into the industry the biggest issues in TV shows was that the boss was coming over for dinner and they burned the roast.  He wanted to tackle the most controversial issues of the time.  His shows touched on racism, abortion, and sexism.  He had to fight to get the networks to be OK with many of the shows’ subject matter.  His hard work paid off, and paved the way for many shows that have controversial subject matter in them.  Including Steven Levitan’s show Modern Family which has a homosexual couple in it. He also talked about how he is still working on projects, and he is not having any luck on getting his most recent project made.  It is a comedy that’s set in a retirement village, and is called Guess Who’s Dead.  He said “They don’t want to touch the demographic”.  It sounded like it would be pretty funny, and I would be interested to see it made.  When asked what advice he had for producers today, he said the greatest lesson he could pass on came from Jean Stapleton, the late co-star of All in the Family. He said,

“She’s always where she is, always be where you are.”

The Emerging Majors: New Possibilities for Scripted Storytelling:
photo 2This was a panel of four executives moderated by Chris Thomes, VP Digital Media Studio at Disney/ABC Television Group.  The four panelist were; Laura Allen, Head of Production for Yahoo!, Michael Klein, EVP Programming and Content Strategy for Conde Nast Entertainment, Erick Opeka EVP Digital Networks for Cinedigm, and John P. Roberts, SVP Digital Media and Commercial Affairs for Endemol USA.  None of these people were lacking in overly long titles.  It was interesting to hear that 3 of the 4 panelists have cut the cable cord.  They felt cable TV did not provide them with anything they could not get from online.  This was really interesting to me since it was further evidence on the changing landscape of the cable industry. They also talked a lot about packaging scripts and stories from a business point of view.  They want that ideal Youtube star that “writes”, directs, creates, and produces their own content for practically nothing.  They also wanted to find talent that helped with their brand.  “Brand integration” is the key, said John P. Roberts.  It was good to hear what they were looking for, and what was of interest to their companies.  This panel was helpful in the fact it gave me an insight on what was important to them.  If I was ever to pitch an idea to them I would have a better understanding on how to approach each one.

Financing Independent Film: New Business Models:
photo 3This was one of those panels that highlights all that you don’t know about raising financing for movie.  You go into it thinking you know a little about the subject, and walk thinking you know nothing.  Instead of listing out all the panelists I included a picture of the title card with all their names and positions.  It was made up of producers, agents, attorney, and other experts in film financing.  There was a lot of very intelligent, and experienced people on this panel, and they are the kind of people you want on your team when you are trying to raise money.  They talked a lot about crowd funding which is something I have already thought about doing to make my first project, but know I need to get a little more credibility first.  Sky Moore(attorney) talked about other ways that I had not thought of before.  These were; Advertise private offerings, Money from advertisers, and retailers.  Honestly I’m not real sure what he meant about the first one, but it had something to do with talent going out and raising money on their own.  If someone knows more about this please comment below.  The second one, money from advertisers, he used the example of the Lego Movie.  Working with advertisers to fund the project if you put their product in the film.  You have to be careful with this method, since you don’t want your movie to turn into a hour long commercial.  The last one, Retailers, could be money for showcasing products, or products to use in the film for free.  It could be clothing, cars, food, or other products.  He mentioned Netflix, and Walmart being good examples. Stephan Paternot, Co-Founder and CEO of Slated talked about his company, and how it can also help you raise money.  He explained it by talking about a tail, and at one end you have the studios, and the other you have crowd funding.  His company is in the middle of the two.  It is a network that helps connect creators with investors.  While sites like Kickstarter can be for anyone including people with no experience, Slated is for more experianced film makers.  It helps investors filter down all the people wanting to make a project to people with more of a proven track record.  Slated provides tools for investors to see who is involved in the project, and give an idea of the market value of each project.  For example the director could be inexperienced which would lower the value, but it might have other experienced key people and talent that would increase the value.  They also talk about domestic and international options, but many of this was over my head.

Indie City: Finding Your Niche in the Digital Eco-System:
photo 4I attended this panel instead of the conversation with Francis Ford Coppola.  Although it would have been amazing to see him I felt this panel would be more beneficial to my goals.  This ended up being the most interesting session of the day, and I felt justified with my decision.  I have been very intrigued with the power of YouTube lately.  I have seen first hand how quickly a video or channel can go viral, and quickly bring the creator into the spotlight.  This panel talked a lot about YouTube, and YouTube success strategies.  Panelist Tim Street kept making the point that you just need to get started, and that is the best way to learn.  Most people already have everything they need to make a video for YouTube, and you add that with a great idea, and you might have something.  I think the reason I liked this session the most was that it was inspiring.  As mentioned before I plan to get my animation studio started by doing commercial work, but this inspired me to think I could start making movies.  It got me thinking about ways to make fun short animated videos to start building my YouTube audience.  The fact that animation is expensive is still there, but it got me exploring other ways to make inexpensive animated videos.  I always wanted to have highly polished animation, but maybe there is value in making rougher animations to start.  On the other side it kind of depressed me on what kids made popular these days.  YouTube channels like Fred and Annoying Orange in my opinion are horrible, and can’t understand why they are so popular.  If this is what kids are watching then I really don’t understand my target audience.  I have to hold onto the belief that quality animation is still of value.

I had a great day in these sessions, and met a lot of very interesting people.  I look forward to next year’s conference.

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