Toys R US

Eric Miller Animation July 2016 Company Update

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We have had a lot going on these last few weeks, so I thought it be a good time for the July 2016 Company Update.

Bink: Hopefully all of you have seen the first episode of Bink by now.  Through our different postings there has been over 50,000 people who have watched our yellow and blue little creature, so I think this is pretty good for our first animated short.  I have never been an expert when it came to YouTube, so before launching Bink I did a lot of research on the best practices.  Things like the best day of the week and time to post to get the most views, or should I post it as a Facebook video, a YouTube link, or a website link.

It turns out Facebook penalizes YouTube videos, and don’t put them on as many of your friends newsfeed as it does with its own native Facebook videos.  I wanted to drive traffic to my YouTube Channel, so in order to do this I ended up sharing a link to my website which contained the embedded YouTube video as website links are ranked higher then directly linking to a YouTube link.

Many of you have been asking when the next Bink is coming, and I’m still trying to figure this out.  Producing one of these episodes(even at 30 seconds) is pretty expensive.  Before committing to another episode I need to make sure the company has the available funds to do so.  I need enough client projects to bring in money I can use to fund future Bink shorts.  I will need to take a good hard look at my current client projects, and the company’s savings to see when is the best time to produce another episode.

Bink-AmuletI have been doing a lot of thinking on the Bink shorts, and have a lot of really fun ideas of where I can take the story.  I want to explain more about who Bink is, and about his species, where he is from, and how he end up in this testing facility.  Each episode will give you a little more insight about Bink to eventually help you see the whole picture.  Some of my future plans for the short will also take us outside the testing facility, and you might even get to meet more of his species(can you imagine how cute baby Binks would be?). A lot of very exciting stories I look forward to sharing with all of you.  The animated gif of the amulet is a hint  there are more to Bink then you might have expected.

Bink Merchandise: I have had a lot of people ask for Plush toys of Bink, and I have actually started looking into it.  It seems to be a little out of my reach at the moment, but as the series grows in popularity I might be able to support the expense of making plush toys.  My brief research has shown there are companies which will make custom plush toys, but most have a minimum order of 1,000 units.  I’m not sure there are enough people who know about Bink where I could sell 1,000 plush toys to make my money back on the order.

While we don’t have plush toys yet, I did add more Bink shirts and other merchandise to our online store, so be sure to check it out.  I ordered some test prints to see how they printed, and they turned out great.

FullSizeRender

MagicMeeMees: The big thing this week is we finally got to share the first MagicMeeMee episode which we started working on in January of this year.  We are currently working on 3 additional episodes each with its very own unique worlds and characters.  This web series is for our client, Future of Play, which is a startup toy company who will be releasing the MagicMeeMees toy line next month.  Depending on how the toys sell they may decide to make more episodes, so go out and buy the toys!

You might also notice this web series is a very different style and quality then what Bink is.  We had a very tight budget with these, so we designed it in a way to keep the complexity down.  For example none of the characters have fur, and are very simplistic in design, there are limited reflections in the world, and there are no FX.  We had a very talented crew working on these episodes, and they all did an amazing job working within the budget constraints.

There were other challenges such as we needed to stay true to the toys and their worlds as much as possible, and we had to tell a story without any dialogue or narration.  We also needed to make sure we showed off the different functionalities of the toys like the glowing chests to show their emotions, and their communication through buzzing/vibrations.  Food is also really important part of the toys, and you will see this more in the future episodes.

Here are the amazing crew members who brought MagicMeeMees to life.

Jared White – Writer, Storyboard Artist, Editor, & Co-Director
Carl Johnson – Composer
Linda Kurgpõld – Modeler & Surfacer
Nico Sanghrajka – Character TD
Jim Richardson – Rough Layout
John Eric Domingo – Animator
Eric Deuel – Animator
Chris Mayne – Animator
Danny Clark – Animator
Benjamin Liska – Lighter & Compositor
Boom Box Post – Post Production Sound Services
Jeff Shiffman – Sound Supervisor
David Carfagno – Sound Editor
Jesse Drake – Re-Recording Mixer
Eric M. Miller – Producer & Co-Director

Company: So as you can see we have been pretty busy with our different projects, so you might be wondering what is next for the company?  Now that we have a nice body of work I plan to update our companies showreel to include the Toys’R’Us, Bink, and MagicMeeMees work.  I feel this gives us a nice variety of projects and styles to show clients what we can offer.  I will be spending most of my time reaching out to potential clients, and trying to bring in more projects.  The more client work we can do the more the studio can grow, and the more money we will have to do our own projects like Bink.

 

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 June Update

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I wanted to give everyone a June Update on everything I’m working on with the company.  Although I don’t currently have any client projects I’m working on I’m still pretty busy with many other tasks.  Here are some of the things I’m currently working on.

Animated Short
I mentioned in an earlier post I was working on a CG animated short.  We are making progress with it, but have been taking our time to make sure it looks great.  As I write this we are working on the design of the main character, as well as brainstorming the set location.  To keep costs down it will be in one simple set that we can reuse for the different episodes. Once we finish the character design phase we will start modeling the character, and then rig it for animation.  At the same time we work on the character rig we will also be surfacing it.

Motion Graphics Sizzle Piece
Since we are offering 3 main services, Animation, Visual Effects, and Motion Graphics, I wanted to make sure I had examples of the different styles of work we can do.  The Toys”R”Us commercials are great examples for VFX, and the Animated short will be the example of our animation work.  That leaves me needing something to show off what we can do with motion graphics.  I have been working on putting a sizzle piece together to help show clients what we can do.

I have been talking with some motion graphics artists about a piece that will show off what our crew can do with motion graphics.  We are still early in the discussions, but I’m excited about the direction that it is heading.  I will keep you updated as we move along with it.

Business Plan
I have been trying to find the time to put together a business plan, and I finally got started with it.  It seems silly that simply writing out your plan would have such an impact, but it has already helped me a great deal.  It got me thinking about things I have not thought about yet, and gave me some ideas on how to grow my business. I have not got to the mission statement section yet, but I’m looking forward to working on that.

S-Corp
My company is currently a sole proprietorship, but for some time now I have been looking into changing it into a S-Corp.  There are several reasons I’m planning on doing this, but the two main ones are limited liability, and tax savings.  It will also allow me to raise money by selling shares if I decide to go that route.  I have been talking with my CPA, and next plan to talk to an attorney about it.  As long as everything works out I should be moving forward with this in the next month.

LA Society of Creative Professionals
I mentioned in my last post about forming a society to plan monthly outings, and activities for networking and fun. Well I have setup a Facebook group for it, and plan on working on getting our first outing on the calendar.  If you are in the LA area, and in the animation, visual effects, or motion graphics fields please join the group to find out about our events.  I think this will be a lot of fun, and who knows it might help you find your next project, or new friends.  Visit the Facebook group.

Finding New Clients
Another thing that is a constant for me is looking for new clients.  This is by far the most difficult part of running your own company.  These are skills that you don’t learn while working for a large corporation, and has been a huge learning experience for me.  I have been cold-calling/emailing, but have not had much luck with that.  I have tried getting a commercial rep, but I have not found any that don’t already have a full roster of companies.  I have been doing a lot of networking, but still no leads.  The thing with networking is that you never know when someone in your network might turn into a project.

Although I will continue trying to contact clients directly I also want them to find me.  This is why I have been investing in my own projects like my animated short, and the motion graphic sizzle piece.  It seems to be a much more effective way to gain new clients.

I have also been reaching out to directors, and try and establish a relationship with them.  This way when they are working on a project that needs animation or visual effects they will hopefully reach out to me to help.  Often times directors have a lot of influence over the studios and agencies they are working for in bringing in their own people.

As you can see I have a lot of things on my plate, and a lot of work to get done.  I also always have work to do on my website, but that never really ends.  I hope you are enjoying following along with my progress, and if you ever want to know about anything specific please leave me a comment below.  I will answer to the best of my ability, and if appropriate dedicate a blog post to your question.  As always don’t forget to subscribe to get the blogs delivered directly to your email inbox.  Well, it is time for me to go back to work, so until next time.

 

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.

Starting Our First Animated Vignette!

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I’m very excited to announce that we have started pre-production on the company’s very first animated vignette.  We have brought on a very talented artist to do the character design work for the main character, and hope to move through pre-production quickly.  For now I’m going to keep the details quiet, but I will share more as we move through production.  The general idea is that we will be creating several 10-15 second cg animated vignettes that will focus on our main character’s situation.  The hope is that they will be comical, beautiful, and a lot of fun.

Not only will these vignettes be extremely entertaining they will also serve very important purpose for the company.  They will test our pipeline to see what is working and what is not. This will allow us to improve our process, and make sure everything is running smoothly.

Another purpose is to showcase what we can do as a company, and add to our body of work we can show potential clients.  Currently the only work we have to show is the VFX work we did for the Toys”R”Us commercials.  I would like to open up more cg animation opportunities for the company, and I can’t do that without showing our potential clients what we can do.

In addition to our animated vignettes I might also be joining a talented creator and director of an animated short as a co-producer.  Once again I can’t share many details at this time, but I will be able to share more soon.

I’m limited on my time to write this week, so I’m going to keep this post short.  Please keep following along to keep up with what I have going on.  If you are interested in helping out with any of our current or future projects please sign up to our career news list.

 

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.

Gaining Momentum

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I sometimes look at starting a company like trying to push a boulder from its resting position in hopes of gaining momentum.

If you have no experience in “boulder moving” then you may find it difficult to even budge it.  You’ll start off trying to push it this way and that, adjusting your stance, or maybe even recruiting some friends to help.

At first it may seem impossible, and an average person would most likely give up.  You might get “lucky” and have something slingshot the boulder without you having to do anything.  This may seem like a great thing, but the first time you run into trouble you will find yourself back at the beginning.  Without learn how to get a boulder moving then you will have to learn it the next time you loose your momentum and come to a stop.  It is best to go through the struggle of learning how to move the boulder on your own.  That does not mean you can’t get advice or help from people who have already moved a boulder, but you need to make sure you understand how it is done.

It will be a slower process, but it will give you an understanding of your boulder that is priceless. You will eventually learn how to get your boulder rocking, and by using its own momentum to rock it more and more.  Finally it begins to roll, and as you continue to push you gain more momentum.  It beings to roll faster, and faster.

Once you have that momentum it is easier to keep it moving.  Now that you don’t have to work so hard at getting it to move you can focus on what direction you want to take it.  Early on the boulder is smaller, and easier to steer in the direction you want it to go.

Congratulations! You got your boulder moving, and now the fun begins.

When I started my company I was prepared for the struggle to figure out how to get the company moving.  Before I had a chance I got our first project with Toys”R”Us, and it slingshotted the company moving full speed.  This was amazing until the project ended, and I found I was quickly loosing momentum, and did not have a clue on how to keep things moving.  I never had the chance to learn how to get the company moving, so I found myself frantically trying different approaches to keep things going.  Nothing was working, and we eventually lost all our momentum.

I took this opportunity to really learn my business, and figure out the direction I wanted to push it.  I must have changed my mind several hundred times while I tried things out.  I now have a path laid out, and I have been working to get the company moving in that direction.  I feel that these last couple weeks I have finally got things rocking.

I’m excited to help the company gain momentum as it continues to grow.  Please keep following this blog to see where we go.

 

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.

My 3 Areas of Focus

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I have been very busy working on the company, and I wanted to give an update on what takes up all my time each day.  There are 3 main areas that I’m focusing on, and everything I’m doing is connected to them.  These 3 areas are Ad Agencies, Direct to Business, and a GC Animated Project.  I will go over each of them below.

Ad Agencies:
The first area I’m working on is building the number of ad agencies I work on projects for.  Normally larger companies with with an ad agency to create their marketing campaigns, and those ad agencies will hire production companies to do the production work.  For example, the VFX work we did on the Toys”R”Us commercials was through an ad agency.  The ad agency is who hired us, and we actually had very little contact with Toys”R”Us. This is how much of the broadcast commercial work is done.

One ad agency has many clients that they work for, so getting into one ad agency you have a chance of working on multiple client projects.  The budgets for these projects are often higher, and can be very lucrative for the production companies they hire to help.  This also means that it is very competitive to win these projects.

I’m always trying to figure out how to get more agencies that will call me for any of their animation needs.  I still have not figured out the secret to winning these contracts, but I’m putting a lot of time and effort into learning.  One approach is getting a commercial rep, but that has also proven to be difficult.  There seems to be very few commercial reps that are taking on new clients, so I have mostly been trying to reach out to the ad agencies on my own.  This of course can be very time consuming, and more often ends with no positive results.

The one benefit I have is that I already have my foot in the door from the work we did with the Toys”R”Us projects.  I have heard from several people with production companies that getting your first project with an advertising agency is always the most difficult, but once you have worked for one it is much easier to get work with other ad agencies.

I also recently received this great testimonial from Kent, the Executive Producer of the ad agency I have been working with.

There very well may not have been Christmas this year if not for Eric Miller’s steady hand on the reins. Eric Miller and the team at Eric Miller Animation played an invaluable role in putting the magic in our 2014 Toys R Us Holiday campaign. With over 80 spots in 2 short months, each requiring photo real 3d and character animation to breathe life into magic imaginations, the ask was truly immense. Eric MIller’s experienced professionalism, coupled with a talented and scalable team helped us easily and responsibly manage the ongoing flux that defines a mercurial holiday retail environment. From late season offer and product changes to unplanned branding needs, the team was regularly relied on to exceed expectations, and to do so within reasonable budget parameters and under impossibly short timelines. Santa could not have delivered a better Holiday partner.
~ Kent

Direct to business:
The second area that I’m pursuing is working directly with business to make animated videos for their companies.  These could be anything from explainer videos that they can post online, or training videos that can be shown to their employees.  This is why I have been looking for artist that I can work with to make these videos.  I want to be able to offer whiteboard animated videos, motion graphics, cartoon, and CG animated videos explainer videos.  I plan to make a few of these videos to explain my company, and also show the quality of work I can offer.

My first step is adding a section to my website that markets specifically to businesses offering these types of videos. After my website is in place I plan to have a copywriter write scripts for a few minute to minute and half videos that highlight the different types of videos we offer.  Then I will pull a team of artists together that I can work with to produce these projects.

After we make a few of these videos for the company I can add them to the section on my website for small businesses, and start reaching out to businesses offering our services.  The “Selling” of these services seem a little clearer to me then the selling to ad agencies, since there are many more clients to reach out to directly.

CG Animated Project:
The final area that I’m working on is producing my own animated shorts.  I worked with a friend to come up with a basic idea for the shorts, and I have now been working on putting a team of artists together to make it happen.  The plan is to design a lovable character for the shorts, and make several 10-15 second videos that we can post on YouTube.  These will all be high quality CG animated videos to show off what our team can do, since so far I have very few examples of that kind of work.  This will give some great examples of the kind of cg work I want to do with the company.

Unlike the other two areas this one will not bring any money into the company, and will actually require a significant amount of investment to get them made.  I will be using the money I made from the Toys”R”Us project to help fund it.  I had a decision to make that I could either play it safe, and keep the money I already made for a rainy day, or take a risk and use the money to make something great.  I decided that I did not leave my “secure” job at DreamWorks to start a company so that I could play it safe.

There are a few things that I hope to achieve with these videos.

1) Build a team: Creating these videos will help me in finding talented people, and assembling a talented amazing team that works well together.

2) Animation Pipeline: I will need to develop our animation pipeline, and work flows in order to make these shorts.  Creating these videos I will learn what areas need to be improved.  It is better to figure it out on these projects then when we have a paying customers that are expecting the pipeline to already be figured out.

3) Develop the Brand:  By making really great, gorgeous shorts it will help in building our brand.  It will show people what kind of work we can do, and what people can expect from us.

4) Gain a following: Hopefully if people enjoy our shorts we can start to gain a greater following through social networks.  I want to create something that will entertain people, and having a following will make sure we have an audience to actually see our work.

5) Source of Pride:  The idea of pulling a team together, and creating something amazing is very exciting.  Being able to create something from nothing is why I love animation.  It will give me and the company something to be very proud of.

If I can accomplish any of the above with these shorts I will feel like they where worth the money spent on them.

There you have it! The 3 areas that I’m working on to build my business, and creating a brand.  I was also looking into the government contracts, but decided that was not worth the trouble at this time.  Not only do you get buried in tons of paperwork, but often they have a requirement that you have been in business for 5+ years.  So for the time being I will shelf that idea, and focus on these 3 areas instead.

As you can see I have a lot to do, and a long way to go. I often find myself jumping back and forth between working on the different areas trying to make progress.  Sometimes I wonder if I should not be dividing my focus, and find one thing to go after.  I think for right now I feel like these are all working towards the same goal, and worth me splitting my time.  The Ad Agencies will be a main source of income for the business, but those are not enough to keep us busy all year long.  The direct to business will help keep us busy for more of the year, and these two things can help fund the third.  This will hopefully allow me to do what I want which is make amazing animation.

 

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.

Learn it, Master it, Redefine it!

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Several years ago I wrote down 3 phrases; Learn it, Master it, and Redefine it.  Whether it is learning a new skill, or starting a new job this explains how I approached new things.  It was frustrating to me that I always felt others would be able to jump into new tasks much quicker then I could.  I often was a slow starter, but would eventually catch up, and often surpassed others in understanding the task.  After reflecting on how I approached new situations I saw a pattern in myself that helped me understand how I work.

I’m a visual learner, so when I first approach a new assignment someone can explain it to me in great detail, but I would not be able to pick it up.  I realized that I have to discover it myself by visually breaking it apart into smaller parts.  It is a joke among my friends that I use excel spreadsheets for everything.  It is an easy way for me to visually lay out all the details, and see how everything relates to one another.  This is also why I like to schedule everything out, since I can visually see my day.  For larger tasks this goes far beyond excel sheets, and calendars.  I break down every aspect of the task, and really analyze every detail until I completely understand it.  This is why it takes me so long to pick up new things, but also why I feel like I might have a better understanding of a task then others that did not take the time to analyze every detail.

Once I truly understand the task I then start to master it.  This often just requires time, and practice that there is no substitute for.  When I start this phase I might not be the best at the task, but I can talk about it like I’m an expert.

Once I feel I understand the task inside and out, and able to perform the task at a level of mastery I start to analyze the process.  After I truly understanding and master something I start to notice the imperfections in the process.  I begin to think of ways that would improve the process, and more efficient ways of completing the task.  I’m never satisfied with the status quo, and I’m often looking for better ways to do things.

This is the process I tend to go through with every new challenge I face.  Currently I’m in the early stages of learning how to run my animation company.  I have never had to find clients, bid on projects, understand accounting, taxes, growing a company, or setting up a production pipeline.  The way I have been learning to do all these things is by looking at my competitors to see how they do it.  I mimic them to get a complete understand of their way of doing it.  I feel this is an important step before I start to redefine the way my company runs.

If you ask me what makes my company stand out from our competitors I would have to say that right now there is not much of a difference.  The more I learn about my competitors the more I will be able to find better ways.  It is at this point the company will start to take its shape, and will become uniquely its own company with its own culture.  This not only gives me a base to start from, but it also helps me under stand my competitors.

This is all incredibly important to me, since I don’t want to simply be a reflection of an existing company.  In order to be successful you have to find a way to stand out from the background.  I know that my process might take me longer, but I feel it will give me an advantage over my competition.  Lets see if my theory works.

Updates
Last week I spent a lot of time reaching out to both clients, and reps. I have also been doing a lot of research on the leadership structure of some of the other animation companies.  I’m making a plan for what I feel would be best for my company at its current stage.

This week I will continue looking into finding new clients.  We are starting on a small project with one of our existing clients, but that should not be more then a couple weeks of work.  This Wednesday I will be attending the DreamWorks Animation’s Home cast and crew screening and wrap party.  I’m excited to see how much the movie has changed since I left in July.  It will also be nice to get to see my old friends and co-workers.  I will let you know how it went in next week’s blog 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.

Animation Industry is Feast or Famine

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Today we got the last shot of the Toys”R”Us project approved, so we are finally 100% finished with that project. It was a great first project to have, but now I’m ready for my next challenge.

I did not get much done on the business front last week.  I’m still struggling with updating my website, and trying to get that in working order.  I’m currently working on the design while I also try and figure out how to do the coding. Once I get my website updated I will use that to try and find my next clients.  I plan to go back to figuring out the government contracts, and trying to get some animation work through the government.

I have also been using this time to meet up with a lot of my business contacts.  Checking in with them to see how they finished out the 2014 year, and to see if there is anything either of us learned that might help the other out.  I found this to be a great way to accelerate your learning without having to make all the mistakes yourself.

I’m currently in talks with a few different people about projects they need help on.  They all seem like fun projects, so hopefully everything will work out. It seems like the number of projects out there is rather limited.  Feast or Famine.  I have been seeing a lot of Facebook posts by my artist friends that where busy at the end of the year, but are all now looking for work.

Other then that there is not much to talk about this week.  I wish I could tell you about some amazing new things that are going on, but this blog is about the real life journey I’m on to start my studio.  The truth is that sometimes the real life is not always that eventful.  If this was a “Lord of the Rings” movie this would be one of the many walking scenes.  Hopefully things will get more exciting soon for all of our sakes.

 

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.

Creating Our Animation Website & Demo Reel

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This last week I have been doing a lot of work on updating my website, and putting a demo reel together.  It has been a while since I have used DreamWeaver to make a website, and it is proving to be much more difficult then in the past.  Granted I normally did not try and do anything special or overly complicated with my website design as I am doing now.  I want my website to be simple and clean in the design, but I want it to have some more advanced features under the hood.  For example I want it to look great on all platforms, so no matter if you are looking at it on a desktop or mobile phone you will still have a great experience.

I have been trying to watch YouTube videos to learn coding for fluid grid website designs, and I think my head is ready to explode from trying to understand it.  I was working on it for several days until I eventually had to start working on something else to keep me from going crazy.  I have a new found respect for web designers and programers.  I won’t give up, and will soon be going back to it.

On a more productive note I finished editing the company’s first demo reel which includes some of the work we did for Toys”R”Us.  I included it in this post, but if you want to watch it in HD you will have to watch it on Vimeo.

Currently I’m 6 away from having 2,000 Facebook Likes on my company page.  The momentum I had in previous weeks has slowed down, but I’m still moving towards my goal of 10,000 likes by the year’s end.

As far as outside work, I currently don’t have any new projects lined up, but from what I hear that is typical for the beginning of the year in the commercial world.  The calm is refreshing after the last 6 months, and allows me to get caught up with other things.  I feel in a few weeks I will be ready for my next projects, but I will have to figure out how to get those projects.

 

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 Blank Canvas, and Endless Possibilities for an Animation Studio

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We are in the last weeks of our second Toys”R”Us project, and when it is done we will have made around 40 commercials for them.  These have been amazing first two projects for my company, and very fortunate to have had this opportunity.  A big thanks to Hashi for thinking of me, and brining me on board to help with it back in July.  Earlier this week after finishing one of the very important commercials we got a very nice email from the agency letting us know how happy the client was with our work.  This is the kind of late night emails I actually enjoy getting.  Hopefully we will get to work with this agency again on other future projects they might have.

As this project is coming to an end I have been kicking the search for my next projects into full speed.  I’m currently in talks with a company that asked me to do some CG animation work for them that.  I’m actually really excited about this project, since it is the kind of project I have been wanting to do.  I will know more in the next couple weeks if I will get to be involved with this project.  It would be perfect timing for me as I start to ramp down from the Toys”R”Us project.

I have also been doing a lot of thinking about how far my company has come so far, and where I want to go with it.  When I left DreamWorks Animation 5 months ago I was expecting that the first 2 years I would not have any clients.  I figured I would need at least that much time to put together a portfolio, and to build a brand for my company.  I feel I’m already ahead of the game, so I could not be happier with how things are going.  With that said though, I feel I have not done anything extraordinary.  I’m positive that anyone that took a chance, and spent the time could be doing the same thing that I am doing.  If I want to make my company great I will have to find a way to make it stand out from the rest.  I will need to find what is unique and special to my company, and expand upon it.  This of course is easier said then done, and I’m still trying to figure out what will set us apart from the crowd.  Luckily this does not have to be figured out at this moment, and it might end up being a more organic discovery as the company grows.

What excites me about where I’m at with the studio are the endless possibilities, like an artist with a blank canvas.  I have the opportunity to guide this studio in any direction that is seems best.

“The sky is a canvas, so paint your own life.” – Jada Berglund

 

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.