VFX

Eric Miller Animation Sept 2016 Company Update

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

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

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

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

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Still from Episode 3: Mittens Lights Up Holidayland

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

The World Animation and VFX Summit

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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.

Here or There: Outsourcing of Animation

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I wanted to talk about outsourcing of animation that many US companies are doing.  The main reason to outsource work and make the experience of producing animation more challenging is because of cost.  In my previous roles I had learned the Salary for one US-based artist could pay for 4-5 artists in India.  Even if it takes the overseas artist 3 times as long to complete the task it will still be a cost savings.

Outsourcing animation is by no means a new trend, and has been going on for decades.  In a 2012 interview Steve Hulett of the Animation Guild said “We instituted strikes over run-away production in 1979 and 1982, winning the first and losing the second.”  So you can see this is not a new issue.  I believe what we have seen in recent years is technology making it easier and more possible to do business in this way.  You can now easily have a video call with artists in India, Malaysia, or China which you could not do as easily a decade ago.

One of the popular arguments I would often hear is that the quality of work is not as good, and your value of production will go down.  Unfortunately, that is no longer as strong of an argument as the overseas artists get more talented and more efficient.

Outsourcing overseas is not the only worry for a US-based artist or animation/VFX company.  Our neighbors in Canada are also under bidding US animation companies. I’m sure you have heard of their amazing tax credits, and I have heard for every $1 spent on labor they get $0.60 back.  While I have not been able to find anything backing up that claim I have found the Ontario Computer animation & Special Effects Tax Credit is for 18% of eligible labor costs for a Canadian corporation that is Canadian or foreign-owned, has a permanent establishment in Ontario and files an Ontario corporate tax return. Being able to cut 18% of your costs would allow you to save a lot of money when you are talking about project budgets that are $100,000 to $500,000 or more.

The larger studios like DreamWorks Animation, and Disney are also outsourcing a lot of their animation work.  In animated TV production they will often have pre-production here in the US, but then outsource all the production work.  Many of the Disney Junior and Cartoon Network shows are done in this way.

All this really makes one wonder why anyone would open up an animation production company in the US.  These are things you have to come to terms with when we have a global market. There will always be someone that can do it faster, better and cheaper then you can.  Even with all the outsourcing the US animation industry is stronger then it has ever been.  The budgets for projects might be going down, and that is a reality we all have to come to accept.  Labor rates in other countries are increasing, and Canada’s tax credits are getting smaller.  I feel this is a natural balancing out that will take place over the next decade.  I don’t know if US rates will ever be as low as overseas, but it is not always about price.  Having an excellent business experience is a big factor.  There is a tipping point where the savings are not enough to give up working with someone next door to you, or at least in the same time zone.

While I plan to work with as many US-based artists as possible I have to be open to working with artists from all over the world. There are a lot of really talented people who live outside of the US, and it would be silly not to work with someone simply based on their location.  Hopefully the industry will change to making hiring decisions based on talent, and less about saving money. Regardless of where you are, you have to be able to offer great work, reasonable budgets, and an excellent business experience.

 

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.

Our Freelance Artist Roster

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This week I started updating our freelance artist roster.  Animation is a team effort, and requires a highly skilled, and highly trained crew of artists, technicians, and production staff.  The larger studios with deeper pockets tend to have more specialized artists that work on a very specific part of the production pipeline. Think of a factory where you might be responsible for the same task on the assembly line.  A large animation studio would have artists that are specialized in character animation to be the animators, or specialized artists to do all the modeling of characters, props, and set pieces.  Each step of the pipeline is done by artists who are specialists in that area.

In smaller studios there are often artists who are referred to as generalists.  These would be artists who can model, surface, and rig characters instead of being specialized in only one area.  Since these artists spend their time working on multiple areas they might not be as skilled in one area that someone who specializes in that area might be.  Having artists who are generalist may sacrifice on the quality, but is often much more efficient, and cost effective.

In a larger studio if a Character TD is rigging a character, and finds an error in the model they would have to send a revision request back to the modeling department.  This might take some time for a modeler to get to it, make the correction, and send back the fix.  This is all time that the character TD is either sitting there waiting, or having to move on to another task.

On the other hand if the character TD is also the artist who modeled the character then they could simply make the needed fixes on their own, and then get back to working on rigging the character.  This is more cost effective since you only have to hire one artists, and there is less downtime.

I like to keep a healthy mix of specialized artists, and generalists.  By keeping my artist roster updated it allows me to stay ready for new client work at anytime.  When a client is ready to start a project I go to my roster, and quickly put a team together.  My goal is to have at least 5 people in each specialty that I can call up when I have a project.

By focusing on the top 5 positions it makes it easier to maintain, and helps build a more consistent quality.  Since these artists are freelancers they might be busy working for another client, so by having at least 5 I give myself plenty of backups.  I order the artists on the list with 1 being my top artist, so the artist in position 1 is the first person I call. If they are unavailable I go down the list.  If I have a list of my top 5 animators, and I find an animator that is not as good as the number 1 animator on my list, but better then number two, then they would take the number two spot and everyone after will be shifted down a position.  The animator who was in the number 5 spot will be taken off the roster, and moved into the extra artist list.

I’m always looking to find the most talented artists to work with to keep our quality at an extremely high standard.  While skill level is the most important part of how I rank the artists on my roster there are other considerations.  Other things I consider are; how easy they are to work with, how efficient they are, are they friendly and professional, are they reliable, and what is their rate?

By having a roster I can keep my quality at a more consistent level, so potential clients know what to expect.  It also helps in bidding out projects, since I know the rate of the artist I work with on a regular basis.  These are all things that help me in running the business.

If you are interested in being on our freelance roster please go to our website and fill out the Career News form.  Building a strong team of talented people is the key to my business.

 

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.

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.

Have a happy and animated Halloween!

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Happy Halloween!

I hope you are all enjoying your Halloween today.  It is my wife’s favorite holiday, so we always have a great time celebrating it.  This will also be my son’s first Halloween, so this year it is extra special.

This has been a pretty eventful week for the company.  Our biggest client has asked us to deliver some commercials earlier then we originally planned, so we had to start staffing up.  We now have a team of 9 after effect artists(maybe 1 more), and 1 CG animator.  This team is now bigger then my modeling team I had at DreamWorks Animation.  I’m excited about bringing on our first animator, since my company has not actually done any animation work yet.  So getting to do some animation is really exciting for me.  I’m also really enjoying the VFX world, so it is great getting to work on something that combines the two worlds.

Also because of the size of the team I’m bringing on a production coordinator to help support the growing team.  I met with one of my interns from when I was at DWA, and she agreed to come on and help until we finish the project for a month or so.  It will be a huge help having her on the team, and she will help free up some of my time.

I also talked to a good friend of mine that is interested in doing more producing for animation.  He loves the creative part of producing, and working with artists, but not as excited about the business side of things such as dealing with contracts and taxes.  We talked for a while, and came up with an idea that would help both of us.  He will work as a producer for my company, and will help find new clients.  When he brings new clients in he will produce and manage the project. My company will hire all the artists, deal with all the contracts, and provide production support for the project.  It will also be done under my companies name, and when looking for clients he can use my companies name and reputation to help bring in bigger clients.  Then after all project expenses are paid we will each take a percentage of what is left.  I think we are going to give this a try to see how it works.  I’m excited for the opportunity to work with such a smart, driven, and genuinely great guy.

Well, that is pretty much it for this week.  I currently have the one big project that we are about half way through, and two other projects that are still in the negotiation stage.  Speaking of if you are or know any great motion graphic artists please send me a message.  I’m looking for couple motion graphic artists for one of the projects I’m bidding on.

I have a new comment system on the blog, so please take advantage of it, and leave me some comments.  Let me know what you think, and give me any advice you might have!

I hope everyone has a great Halloween.  Stay safe, dress up, go to a party, or watch some scary movies.

 

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.

Another day in the exciting world of Animation and VFX

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I’m starting to run a little behind on my blog posts.  Finding the time to write these are becoming harder and harder to do lately.  It is important to me to continue writing posts, so I will keep trying to find the time.  This week more then other weeks I have had a lot of people mention to me that they enjoy reading my blog. I sometimes forget people are actually reading them.  Sure the site will tell me numbers of how many people have read them, but it is easy to look at that as just numbers.  When people tell me they are reading my blog it makes it seem more real.  So thank you everyone for taking the time to read my words.  I promise I will keep getting better at this writing thingy.

I do have to say that even though I work way more hours then I used to I love what I do.  I sometimes feel like the only time I’m not working is when I’m sleeping.  I have the one client that takes up 90% of my non-sleeping time, and the other 10% gets filled up by trying to find more projects, thinking of ways to grow my business, and eating(often eating happens at the same time as work though).  Everything is new and exciting right now, and I hope to find ways to keep things that way.  It will be a challenge for me to constantly find ways to take my company to uncharted waters.

Last week I was bidding on VFX work for a low budget horror movie.  They had almost 200 shots that they needed some work done on ranging from turning eyes black to removing wires.  You know your typical horror movie stuff.  I thought things were going really well in the negotiations, and there was a price on the table that was low, but still doable.  The gentleman I was talking to said he needed to check with the director and would get back to me. A few days later I heard from him, and he told me that they decided to split the work between my studio and another.  The other studio got more shots, but the easy stuff, and I got less shots but the harder stuff.  Work wise he was offering my studio around 75% of the work, but was offering 23% of the total budget.  As much as I wanted to take on this project I knew it would be very difficult to find artists that would help me on the project for the rate that was being offered.  So unfortunately I had to turn down the offer.  Hopefully in the future I will get to work with this guy on another project, but it was not going to be this one.

On Tuesday of last week I finally got to meet up with Manny Fragelus.  Manny used to work at DreamWorks Animation(DWA) as a modeler, but eventually left DWA to focus on his newly started company Cgma Art Academy.  The company is a provider of online digital art education.  They offer online classes and workshops for anyone wanting to learn how to do Concept Art, Illustration, or Entertainment Design.  When I heard about what Manny was doing I wanted to meet with him to hear all about it.  We originally made plans to meet the first week after I left DWA, but I ended up getting so busy with the Toys’R’Us commercials and watching Kelton that I was not able to meet up until last week.  Manny is a very bright guy, and has done a lot of great things with his company.  His company seems to be doing really well, and now has a good amount of students and growing.  All his professors are industry professionals, and if you are interested in learning any of these crafts I recommend checking out his website.  Within the first few minutes of talking with Manny it was very clear how much he cares about our industry and the people in it.  He has dedicated a great deal of his time and effort in teaching students what they need to know to be successful in this industry.  Things they don’t always learn from the traditional schools that many of them are still in financial debt to even years after graduation. It was great getting to talk to him about his company, and reminisce about our days at DWA.  I look forward to watching what this guy does, and if I’m lucky we can find a way to work together.

This week Hashi, and one of my artists came over to the house to shoot toy characters on green screen that we will be adding into some of the commercials we are working on.  This was a new experience for me, and we had a lot of fun doing it.  Well at least I did, and hope they shared in my excitement.  I hope it all turns out once we get it edited into the commercials.  It is just another day in the world of animation and VFX!

 

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.