The Future Is Not The Past

The following is an email exchange between Motionographer's creator and editor-in-chief, Justin Cone and myself, dated October 6, 2015, regarding the 20th anniversary of Blind. You can read the abridged conversation here.

1. I didn't realize Blind was founded in 1995. What was Blind doing back then? 

At our inception, we were mostly print based designers dabbling in motion design (it wasn’t even a term back then). My introduction to motion came by two key events.

A classmate of mine at Art Center recommended that I take the Cosa After Effects class, seeing my interest in animation. My teacher was Lynda Weinman (pre Lynda.com and author) and the class blew my mind. I immediately fell in love with the ability to manipulate and control “characters” over time. This was far more intuitive than working in Alias Power Animator, which I was learning at the time.

The other event came by introduction to Kyle Cooper who was the creative director at RG/A LA. He had just finished the titles to Seven and was blazing a trail in main title design. My good friend, Kimberly Jue (who is now married to Kyle and co-founder of Prologue), introduced us. I remember waiting in the lobby of RG/A to show Kyle my portfolio. This was in 1995 and I was sitting there for over an hour waiting for him. As the minutes ticked on and I contemplated leaving, his assistant would descend down the spiral staircase and apologize and assure me that it would only be a few more minutes. When I finally met Kyle, he rifled through my portfolio and stopped about half way through. He apologized, said nice work and left. The meeting was less than 5 minutes long, and I was thinking what a waste of time.

His producer called me the next day and asked if I was interested in working on a storyboard for the main title "Celtic Pride". I yes said even though I had never made a storyboard before.

Those two events were the catalyst for my foray into motion design. We made the decision to walk away from identity and web deign work so that we could focus on motion design work. It's been a wild ride ever since. 

2. When you started Blind, did you think you’d still be doing it 20 years later? What was your vision for the company then?

We didn’t have any grand plans. In fact, I thought it would be a fun idea to try running a company while we were still relatively young and unburdened by life. The way I saw it, I had 12 months before student loans would kick in so there was no better time to fail. We named the company Blind, almost as lark to see how quickly we could go out of business.

Despite our best attempts, we got business and remained cash flow positive from the very beginning. 

The challenge back then was trying to be seen as legitimate “directors” in an field dominated by traditional live action directors.

The vision was to have fun, hang out with friends and do the best designs we could do. In the early days, overhead was really low (worked out of our loft in the Brewery Artist Colony) and the pay was decent. When we didn’t have any work, we’d just go watch a movie or have an early dinner. It was a simpler time and we had a blast!

Friends, former classmates and students would just drop in randomly to check out what we were doing.

3. Has there ever been a time when you were ready to shut it all down? If so, what kept you going?

Being in business for 20 years, we’ve had our ups and downs both financially and emotionally. Based on workflow, we’ve had to expand and then contract. It’s no fun when you have to start thinking about scaling back the company and saying goodbye to friends who you admire.

For the first 5 years, I don’t think I took any vacation days. So I was a prime candidate for burnout. I felt that with all these young, up and coming designers that I couldn’t contribute in the same way. I took a 3 month sabbatical and taught at Otis. This break along with teaching completely rejuvenated me. I stopped doubting myself after that point.

Some days, especially when business is down, it can be hard to stay motivated. The work and dedication doesn’t seem to add up so the outlook can be rather dim. In those moments, I try to focus on the positive aspects. I measure happiness by personal growth. So in these instances, I try to learn as much as possible about business, art, technology, fashion and other fields of study. This keeps me going because learning new things turns me on.

4. Education has been a huge part of your life. Why is that?

I believe that the best way to learn is to teach.

I love teaching because my students have taught me more than I’ve ever taught them. Most creative types work on an autonomic level, including myself. We don’t really think about what we do or why we do it. We do it because it feels natural to us.

Well that doesn’t work if you’re a teacher. Students will ask why you don’t like something or why something is “elegant” in your mind? It forces me to examine my decision making process and logic system. Why is one design good while another is bad. Understanding and then explaining how I think is a form a self awareness that I would not obtain any other way. By understanding my own internal process, I’m able to think more clearly and react quicker. This is a pretty hand skill to have especially if you’re a creative director, directing a shoot or trouble shooting with a client.

The other thing that teaching provides is the ability to hone in on a problem quickly, identify why it’s not working, an then articulate that to a student in a way they can hear.

Instructors have to manage the energy and personalities of a diverse group. You have to have the ability to process and organize information very quickly. You have to learn how to listen and read body langue and micro-expressions. I can tell when someone is uncomfortable, confused, day dreaming or not telling the truth.

Teaching requires me to research, read books and watch videos. I want to make sure that I’m not just making stuff up so if I have a theory on something, I want to research to see if it’s based on any read data.

Lots of skills get developed through teaching.

5. What advice can you give to people thinking of starting their own studio?

I would recommend doing it on your own. It can be comforting to work with someone else to share the pain if you will. But take time to learn about yourself, likes and dislikes, work ethic, etc… before working with a partner of any sorts. More companies fail because owners don’t get along.

Finding someone else that perfectly complements you is really difficult. When you manage the relationship, it takes time away from doing the work, which is hard enough.

The second bit of advice is to do things on a small scale. Keep your overhead low, which will give you more latitude to pick and choose what you want to work on.

Use the down time to work on personal development. Learn about business, negotiations, marketing and strategy. Travel. Pick up a new hobby. Or, just relax. A bored mind is a creative mind.

Lastly, focus on providing a service that moves you up the value chain. VFX work is migrating overseas or other countries so it can be very challenging to remain competitive from a price point of view. At some point, the work we do becomes very mechanical and seen as a commodity. This will drive the value of what we do lower, so be mindful of this.

6. What’s your attitude toward studio growth/size? Is there a magic number of employees or an ideal rate of growth?

My opinion on this has changed over the years. Blind has been a company of 1 and as many as 20. There’s no magic number, but I think you should have as few employees as possible to get the work done without killing yourself.

I now prefer partnerships and collaborations with others. An example of this is to team up with a specialist for a project. If we need someone who is an expert at CG product renderings, I think we serve our clients better by hiring the best company we can to do the work even if it means that we’ll make less money. Plus, this allows our directors to focus on other things besides managing a 3d pipeline.

7. How is the state of the industry changing?

Oh. This is the mother of all questions.

The motion industry in general is not moving towards a positive place. There’s downward pressure form agencies to produce work for less money. There are more and more companies popping up so I feel that the market is very saturated. This means that supply is far outstripping demand.

Agencies, also feeling the financial pressure, are building in house design and production departments. They can afford to pay top dollar for designers and animators because they’re saving on what a studio would charge for markup, direction and management. This doesn’t bode well for the independent shop.
There’s an erosion of what is considered quality work. Good enough is good enough.

More media channels continue to dilute budgets. Work is becoming more speculative in nature, i.e., creative teams asking studios to pitch on unsold ideas and requiring extensive development work done without pay.

I say this not so much as a complaint or desire for the “good old days” but rather as objective observation. Things have changed. Notice I didn’t say changing but changed.

The future for creatives is about entrepreneurship and authorship. Designers must learn to create their own content, deliver it and become the network, content creator, advertiser and production company rolled up in one. Take a look at the success YouTubers have had in authoring their own content. They’re multi-millionaires and control their own content and make money even when they’re sleeping.

Because they command an audience, brands and advertisers are willing to pay. There is tremendous opportunity here, if we use the skills we apply for others and turn them towards ourselves.

There’s also opportunity in the UX/UI world since everything is becoming software. Think about companies like Uber and AirBnB. Software has essentially created the two largest transportation and hospitality companies. It's also a reason why companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft are paying top dollar for designers who can create the tools of the future.

Designers who know web principles can excel if they are able to transition into different markets. The point is, we need to change. I'm emphasizing "we" here, not the advertising agencies, not the clients, not the customers. We need to change. I know it's a cliche but "Adapt or Die."

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Chris Do is the founder/CEO/ECD of Blind, a business design consultancy. He's also the the co-founder and CEO of The Skool, an online education platform for creative thinkers.