Panel
Justin McAleece – Host
Jade Zaroff – Co-Host
Levi Ames
Rachael Jaye Schulz
Sarah Marince
DJ Summitt
Hagop (Kane) Kaneboughazian
Mike Blum
Mark Simon
Transcripts from Talk
Justin McAleece:
Hi, this is Crew Talk with shoots.video. And today we are talking about animation. We have some really awesome animators here and people who work in the animation industry and know a whole ton about that. So if you were interested in that, then you’re in the right place because we have some really brilliant people here and we may be doing a pre-roll here. I’m not sure if we’re gonna do that, but I’m not so worried about that because we have so much great information here. My name is Justin McAleece. I’m with shoots.Video and BLARE Media. And we have a lot of lovely people. One of which is not Sarah Marince. She is our normal host and she wasn’t able to make it with us today. She had the move, she did, she went over to Dallas and all that stuff, and some other things happened. So I’m going to handle it from here on out. And I think I have Jade maybe who’s
Jade Zaroff:
Yeah, I don’t have blonde hair, but that’s okay.
Justin McAleece:
Sure. You’re a lovely person as well. And we will have her sort of coasting today so she can help me out. And I think that will be great. Jay, tell us a little bit about, a little bit about yourself. What do you do?
Jade Zaroff:
Yeah, I I have a non-profit organization called entertainment for change that integrates activism into the arts. I’m a voiceover actress. Whenever I can get a gig and I live in New York city and saying I dance badly and I do things like this, you know? And I act as well.
Justin McAleece:
Okay, cool. Multi Talented excellent. Yeah, we have a full boat today. So I’m going to go around and have you guys introduce yourselves in just a second? I would also like to say that if you have questions, put them in the Q and a section. If you want to chat, if you want to talk to anyone, you could do it there. For all the people on the panel today, if you guys are able to answer it in the questions that show up in the Q and a, then that is very helpful because oftentimes we don’t actually, we can’t get to all the questions in there. And so if you can be typing while someone else is talking, you can sort of divide and conquer in that way. And that worked out really well. So that’s one of the things we do.
Justin McAleece:
This is sponsored by shoots.video. And so if you haven’t gone to the site, shoot, stop video. Yet, if you go there should log in and you should make a profile, then you should log in. If you haven’t done so already, because that is what powers this. And we will be later giving out a $50 gift certificate to B&H photo video. And the way you win that is by going to the site and doing something that we ask you for. So that’s that, that’s our housekeeping out of the way. Happy to have you here. And yeah, let’s get going. On these intros gotta be short, like, like 20, 30 seconds or else we will, we will never get to talking about all the cool animation stuff. Yeah. So Mark, let me, let me hear from you. What’s going on, man? What are you what do you do.
Mark Simon:
Well, I’m known mostly as a story artist. A couple of magazines called me the godfather storyboarding, and I thought that was cool. So I’ve taken on that name. I’ve been working in the industry over 30 years. I’ve worked mostly in live action, but I I’ve storyboard and produce animation as well. I’ve worked on nearly 6,000 productions now. I’m currently on all of the walking dead shows all three of them, the new Dexter black lightning. And I forgot. I mean, I’ve been, I’ve been jumped back and forth every day between a lot of different, really big shows. But a lot of what I’m storyboarding are the animated characters that are in those shows like on black lightning, we have CG versions of every actor. So all those sequences among others, I’m also boarding a wrote.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, that’s cool, man. What a, what? No, I was just saying, wow, that’s a lot of stuff and it’s great that you’re able to work on so many shows simultaneously. That’s really awesome. Yeah.
Mark Simon:
It’s fun. It’s a lot of late nights.
Justin McAleece:
I can imagine. DJ? You are next in my lineup. What’s your deal?
DJ Summitt:
I’m DJ. I have been in the industry since about 2003. Many magazines have called me subscriber, but beyond that I, you know, I’ve done the opening titles, CSI New York, CSI Miami, a couple of seasons of survivor, big brother currently on the mask singer did the new year’s Eve for Fox and also the 2018 2019 world cups. I also teach animation at Arizona state university and for school of motion. So I kind of do a little bit of all the animation and visual effects kind of cover it all. Wow.
Justin McAleece:
That’s cool. You’ve done. You didn’t mention Blare Media. That seems weird to me that you did like putting that at the top of the list. I’ve done some of our lower thirds and intros for some of our corporate clients and things like that.
DJ Summitt:
Fantastic piece for Santa Clara university that I think I have good feelings about.
Justin McAleece:
Kick him off, kick him off. He’s done. Levi, you’re next? What do you do, man? Tell me about it.
Levi Ames:
I, so I’m Levi and I’ve been in the animation industry for about 10 years. I’ve worked on TV shows, commercials, VR, AR, and some significant shows that I’ve worked on in the past have been penguins of Madagascar, the TV show. I’ve worked on webisodes for star Wars Lego and I’ve, I’ve done a few lucky charms animation commercials. So
Justin McAleece:
There you go. I’ve eaten a few lucky charms. I think we had you on a while ago. Yeah, we have you on yes, I am not crazy. At least not for that reason. All right. And Mike, I know that you have an illustrious career going, tell me a little bit about pipsqueak animation.
Mike Blum:
Gosh, well, not, not in comparison to Mark’s resume, but I started my career at Disney feature animation. I was there for about 12 years. I was making short films on the side and they eventually got good enough that I was able to leave and start a kind of professional directing career. And then as I I sort of pop in to help people. I somehow started selling some projects and they gave us the money and we ended up making the first one sort of in-house. I decided to not outsource it and buy some computers and software.
Mike Blum:
And we did that and people started coming to us and we start selling more things. And one day I woke up and I got, and I was like, I guess I have an animation studio. So we do a combination of work for hire and original content clients include your Mark’s TV, cartoon network Netflix comedy, central MTV, and then American airlines all kinds of things. So original content and work for hire and been doing this for not as long as Mark, but no,
Justin McAleece:
that’s awesome. No, so that’s a lot of stuff I like and have probably seen. That’s great. Rachel, I think you are next. Tell me,
Rachael Jaye Schulz:
Hey everyone. So my name is Rachel J. Schultz, and I’ve been in the anime animation industry for about three and a half years. So a little less than some of the people up here, but it’s super, super awesome to be able to be a part of this panel. Currently I have had work in, I’ve been working in TV and the gaming industry, and I have a lot of work that’s been on Netflix and Nickelodeon and have worked on some triple a games as well, but currently I’m an animation supervising artist at Dreamworks TV.
Justin McAleece:
Gotcha. Beautiful. All right. And Kane how do you spell it? How do you say your, your real name Kane?
Hagop Kaneboughazian:
Yeah, creating animations for about 23 years or so. Began my career doing commercials for T thanks for taco bell and local stuff. Went into video games, worked on some games like X-Men legends Chronicles of Riddick. And then for the past 15 years I’ve been doing pharmaceutical and scientific animation. I head up an animation team at a company in San Francisco called the Sara. And yeah, we work with the top pharma companies around the world and I write children’s books for advice. Yeah. Good. I’ll bet. There’s yeah, there’s a lot of money in the pharmaceutical industry that probably has a slightly different career path than some of the other stuff where people are doing it for other reasons I would imagine. That’s great. Is Jade, do you have the questions in front of you? Do you want to get us started here?
Jade Zaroff:
I think you said questions because it cut out for one moment. But but yeah, no, I would love to know how, how do, how do you handle clients who ask how much to animate a 32nd commercial with no other info
Mark Simon:
I cry.
Justin McAleece:
To others, whatever you guys work on? You know, it’s, it’s the idea of like how much is 30 seconds? And you’re like, like where do you start with that question?
Mike Blum:
I always start by asking for more information. I mean, no one like voluntarily starts with offering up everything that you need in order to be able to, to bid something out. And so it’s a combination of asking questions that will allow you to sort of price things. And you know, part of that is you know, what’s the, what are their references? Like what, you know, what quality level are they trying to hit? Is it going to be a 2d spot? Is it going to be a 3d spot?
Mark Simon:
You know, they want Disney quality. I mean, that’s just,
Mike Blum:
And we always heard that the words that they always use within the industry are always quality. Yeah, exactly. And then, and then, and then you want to push back. So, so yeah, so there’s quality there’s like how many sets of notes, what’s their process going to be? What are their expectations for process and and schedule, and then you’re always pushing back and asking them what their budget is because that’ll, that’ll sort of help scope you in terms of where you should be coming in. I mean you know, for a variety of reasons, one, I think this industry, my experience is that you can do animation for a whole variety of price points. And if you do all of them at the lowest end, you’re not going to make a living and you’re not gonna be able to pay the people that are working for you, a living and so breakfast. Yeah. Right. Well, you know, maybe you’re only going to be eating those lucky charms that Levi has animated. So I think it’s, it’s like you want to, you want to scope things so that you can make a sort of accurate bid enough and a place to start. And it’s also a place to start weeding people out because as Mark said, I mean, I’m sure we’ve all had people call us and go, you know, give the Disney reference or I’ve definitely had like the star Wars reference, you know, someone’s looking for visual effects. We wanted to be like star Wars quality. And then you ask what their budget is and they’ll, you know, a thousand dollars. Yeah. We were like, okay, well, we can cut this conversation off pretty quickly. It’s all about understanding. The industry, every industry is different. So you really have to understand what is comparable in that industry. So 30 seconds of animation and feature film is not the same as 30 seconds and television. It’s not the same as a commercial or pharmaceutical or anything else. So start with,
Mark Simon:
But it doesn’t mean anything without the details. I mean, the question is irrelevant because without the script storyboards and directors notes and, and a comparative sample of what they want it to look like, it doesn’t mean anything. I mean, one of the first things I always get into with clients is I do ask the budget and you know, once I see the storyboards or we talk a little bit about it, they never want to say what it is. So then I say, all right, do you have 500,000 or $500, 50,000 or 150,000? And they go, Oh, it can range that much. Yeah. You know, well, we want it under five. It’s like, great, go talk to somebody else. Like, you know, you know, like Mike said, you can cut it off very quickly. If they don’t, if, if they don’t have enough money, they don’t want to tell you until you give them a range. And then they’ll say, Oh, it falls within this area. So at least narrows it down. But then I get into using, I started in construction before I moved out to LA. And so I always use building a house. Well, how much does it cost to build a house? Well, I don’t know. It depends how many bedrooms, how big is it? You know, do you want marble or linoleum? It’s exactly the same thing with animation. You know, are we going to have shadow effects how many characters, you know, what, what quality of motion are we doing? Stop motion, CJ, two D a mix, you know, all those different things. How many characters do we have to design? How many backgrounds are there going to be? You know, we have to go through all of that because you know, anyone who says, well, I was told that it’s a thousand dollars a minute for animation. It’s like, not by anyone who knows what they’re doing. You haven’t, or it’s an Indian studio who, you know It’s just not the same. And you just can’t work that way.
Justin McAleece:
Sure. Car comparison, you know, is it is it Alexis? Is it a Ferrari? Like, they’re all cars, but that’s what I, that’s what we often lean on. Cause it’s so obvious. You know, how much is a car? Well, what does that mean? Is it used as a 10 years old? Is it a piece of trash or is it, you know, like you said, a brand new Ferrari or whatever.
Mike Blum:
I actually liked to compare it. I do. I like those comparisons that Kane and Mark just said, I often find like people from, you know, producers or from more of like live action background, I try to like tie it back to you know, how they would think about budgeting a live action shoot. And I try to find the, like, to me, I think there’s like an 80% overlap between like animation and animation process in live action. And so I try to like drawing and they, people invariably come in and they either, you know, they don’t know, they legitimately don’t know where they act like they don’t know. And I try to really draw those comparisons and the same way. And I’m like, well, you know, are you, are you, are you, is this the you know, independent you know one location cabin in the woods or is this going to be Titanic on the ocean with, you know, with crowds and, you know, and it’s sort of like list of things that for them they know would be expensive. And I try to sort of like what we go through to what they would go through as they sort of figure out how much their TV shows or movies would cost.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes you have to educate your client. I mean, that’s part of our job, honestly. And just about anything we do is letting them know sort of what their sandbox would be given any basic budget limitations and get them started from there. Because like, like you said, they don’t know, they don’t know how much animation costs. They might’ve heard some really misleading facts numbers in the past. And so they that’s, our job is to like lead them to where we can together and we Can actually get something accomplished.
Mark Simon:
And, you know, one of the things that’s really hurt our industry is people who leave a big studio and work as an independent, and don’t understand that your budget has to include potential overages and electricity and rent. So what they’re charging is something you can’t make a living on, but then it trains clients to expect one 10th of what it should actually cost. So independents who don’t understand the true costs hurt everybody.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. Because they’re robbing Peter to pay Paul, you know, it’s D they might not have anything budgeted for backup or upgrades to their software or new hardware or any of those things. And so it’s only going to be sustainable for a couple of years, and then the client might want to come back and be like, Hey, can I have, I want to update that version and the like, out of business. So they don’t do that anymore. They don’t have that stuff sitting around or any of that. There’s a lot of hidden costs from the consumer’s end, from whoever’s a contract and you got to do that, but they just don’t realize what our overhead is or what your guys’ overhead would be. Yeah. Quite interesting. DJ or Levi, I feel like we’ve covered this fairly well, but yeah. Rachel, any other input?
DJ Summitt:
I would just piggyback on what, you know, what was already said. I spent seven years as a creative director at a major tech company where on my floor, I was the only person that wasn’t an engineer doing code, doing that kind of stuff. So when people would come to me it was, you know, education was the big thing. I mean, you know, imagine if you stopped, you know, to, to bring it up yet another metaphor to it, you know, you stopped at a place on the side of the road that said restaurant, and, you know, you’d go in and you’d say like, how much is food? What is food? You wouldn’t have the information to like, tell them that you want, like, you know, a cheese steak or whatever you want. But, and, and that was kind of the situation that we had was they knew that they needed a video or a animation or whatever it may be to put together. But they just lacked with background and that understanding to be able to actually make it. And so that was where we would step in and it was, and we found the more that we focused on education, like the easier it was to kind of convert clients into good clients you know, so that they weren’t kind of underbidding so that they knew next time around what to kind of expect.
Mike Blum:
Yeah, I was gonna, I was going to say another strategy that I have is to try to get them to understand that, you know, yeah, you could go to an Indian studio or wherever and maybe get a bid that is lower. But you’re not gonna get the service. And so one of the things that we sort of try to do is to say, Hey, look, we’ll work with your budget. I mean, again, there, there needs to be a minimum that we can do anything with, but a better way of thinking about our services as sort of like more of a boutique studio studio is we will help you figure out the best way of spending that money so that you can get as much on the screen as possible, but it’s realistic. Like we can actually pay people you know, reasonably and again, for the right client, that is a selling point. Like they actually, if you come in and you don’t know animation, and there are all these, there’s all these knobs that we can tune on the animation side. And some things that might be really valuable, like for us creatively, like maybe we’re like motion sensitive. And so like, animation is super critical, but maybe for the client, they don’t really care about that. What they really are interested in is like the overall, like visual complexity of, of the frames. And they don’t really care so much about movement. Well, if we know that and we can sort of help guide them to, you know, what would be an art direction style that would give them what they want, but allow them to sort of work it so that again, like it’ll come in under whatever budget cap we’ve agreed to. Yeah.
Mark Simon:
Yeah. Kind of backed into budgets at times, too, where, you know, if they’ve got something I say, all right, let us design something that works, instead of you telling us what you want, visually, you tell me what you’ve got, and I’ll tell you what we can design to fit that budget. And quite often that that’s worked and we’ve sold clients that way. Yeah.
Justin McAleece:
That’s nice. That’s almost all of what we do. Do you guys have any workarounds for educating them? Do you, do you ever send them to watch other videos or do you have a, like a white sheet of stuff like that? What’s the best way to get them on the same page with you guys?
Mark Simon:
I send them samples of lots of different styles. And for a long time, I had a sheet that had a single image of lots of different styles of animation, so they could look through, Oh yeah, well, we want something that kind of looks like this, or, you know, or something like that. And that at least helps cause you have to kind of guide and narrow down what direction before you can even start your conversation.
Justin McAleece:
I was at home Depot today and doing something else, but you know what I mean, there’s 50 different types of light switches and they range in price. It’s like something. And that’s one, that’s a level of 0.01 complexity compared to this is like a level thousand complexity. So yeah, I mean, I think people understand that there’s going to be a difference, but you really need to enumerate that.
Rachael Jaye Schulz:
Okay. I also wanted to say when I was three, when I do freelancing I just asked the client, what do you define animation as, because you could say yes to an animation project and not understand that you have to create the assets and like actually create the movement and then do the lighting and the rendering when they think that all of that is just animation when animation is just creating a movement. And so you really just need to understand what they define as animation.
Justin McAleece:
It’s a great point. Yeah. Because there’s a lot of interchangeable words I’m sure. And so like, DJ, you do maybe more graphic design than some of the other people here. That’s, that’s a guess, but ha when do you get in that conversation? Like, they’re like, well, I want a lower third animation and you’re like, yeah, but that’s, that’s actually like graphic design with motion graphics. Like when do you have those discussions or what does that discussion entail?
DJ Summitt:
So my approach to kind of educating the client was, you know, I’ve always kind of included it as part of my marketing. So I actually have an infographic and, you know, I have different pieces that I’ve put together that kind of walked through my process because my concerns, if I start bringing in pieces that other people have done that, you know, they might ask for something that, you know, it’s not really, you know, a hundred percent what I do. And all of a sudden I’m dancing around and, you know, cell animation, then that’s just not my jam. You know, so I, I actually created like a, you know, a video, an infographic that kind of goes over, not just, you know, did the different styles and like kind of breaks out the different techniques, you know, and it’s just a little three to three minute piece that breaks that out, but also talks about like, what’s the workflow going to be?
DJ Summitt:
You know, how, what, what can you expect from me throughout the process? And that was something that I picked up for. You know, we did that at the tech company that I worked with just because it made it easier when we were getting requests to be able to send this out. And you know, this was this kind of, you know, it was how to work with us. One-On-One, you know, what we expect from you, what to expect from us and just, it, it kind of greased the wheels. So, so that things moved along in a much better way because there was that kind of with, since it was motion design, there was, you know, so could do graphic design, but you animate you, you know, and it was, it was very clearly codified what we do and it felt tailored to us and it was a nice vibe.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah, that’s great. We you know, I had freshman year in film school, we learned what a pan was and it tilt and a Dolly and a jib and a truck. And I still to this day have dis you know, like, they’re like, well, just, just pan up. And then I’m like it grates in my head. It hurts my head a little. And I know what they mean. They’re saying up, I understand it, but it still hurts me and my soul. I’m like, it’s a tilt, it’s a tilt when you tilt up or down at the tilt. And I’m sure Mark has dealt with
Mark Simon:
A little bit while you’re trying to all the time, but, but it makes a difference. Cause a boom up is different than it’s Hilltop and you a hundred percent, you have to use the right terminology because in 2d animation, a pan is any movement. Cause you’re just working in 2d. That’s changing a little bit these days just because now we can integrate 3d with so many different things. But yeah, it’s those, so yeah, even seasoned directors, misused pan, I’m quite sure. And I got to tell you, some people you would never think are still misusing that term.
Justin McAleece:
It jargon is very important in a working relationship and even on color, even on use sound, any of those things because you can misuse those words. And so like as a client, I think it’s important for you to educate yourself on just the nomenclature and as a as one of us, like we need to be consistent in what we say so that we’re not dancing around it too much.
Mark Simon:
You know, something that I just thought of that a bunch of you have probably dealt with are also really paying attention to the fine print in your contracts. Last year or a couple of years ago, I was producing the open animation to a movie for universal. And we agreed on, on, on cost for creating the look design and final delivery. But then when I got the contract, they had a whole section on security and they were dictating that we had to have key card entry into our studio and a certain number of security cameras pointed at certain directions. And I just called the exec. I said, Oh, you’re removing this entire section. He goes, but you know, it’s a security issue. I don’t care what it is. You’re, I’m not even considering doing this. I said, you’ve got $150,000. I said, I’m going to charge you $250,000 just for that paragraph or that, that page, if you want it, there’s no need for it. Just remove it. Or we don’t have a deal anymore. And you’re, you’re in a tight bind on schedule. And so you’re there
Justin McAleece:
$150,000. Oh, okay, good, good. I was hoping
Mark Simon:
I don’t ever think that, that you can’t change a contract. I’ve had Disney tell me Disney doesn’t change contracts, which is. I changed every Disney contract I’ve ever been sent. So but you have to read the fine print or you can really get screwed.
Justin McAleece:
Hey, have you guys, this is sort of a different discussion, maybe a bit. Have you guys ever put something in a project that has a bunch of other animators on it or a bunch of other companies doing it and then like your work gets mistaked for anyone else’s work. Has that ever occurred? I know that happens in VFX a lot where there’s 50 VFX companies on working on a project on a movie, for example. So, sorry, what’s the question, the question though. I’m basically, have you ever animated something that was part of a project that had other animation in it and then like those other companies maybe didn’t do what you would have done or didn’t live up to your level of expectations? Anything like that? I mean, I don’t know. Yeah. I don’t know.
Mike Blum:
Personally we’ve worked on other things, but generally I’ve been pretty happy with what other people’s work was generally and well, you can only, you can only affect what you can affect. I don’t know, for me personally, I don’t let that kind of stuff affect me one more time.
Mark Simon:
I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I mean, you put your stuff on your demo reel, so, you know, that’s really all that matters. I mean, you know, I’ve been head of story on a lot of projects with a lot of story artists working under me and you know, each one did their thing. I’m still in charge of the whole thing. So I’m still responsible, but you know, if someone says, Oh, this was great. Well, that was so-and-so and it really doesn’t go beyond that.
Justin McAleece:
Gotcha. Cool. Jade, I think we’re moving on the list here. I think we covered a lot of this.
Jade Zaroff:
Oh yeah, no, I can. I have a transition into it and something to perhaps add to in that? I really appreciate the education conversation because especially in my earliest career, I’ve been on both sides in a deep appreciation for the animation and as a voiceover actress being paid to eat breakfast and also having a nonprofit where I’ve worked with animators and companies and said, transparently speaking, I don’t even know where to start with this budget. And I would love for any insight that you could provide for me so that I can respect and honor your work. So it makes a huge difference in just that transparent communication from the, from the start. And so I’ve really enjoyed this myself. So speaking of early careers, how did you get started in animation? And do you remember your first animation job
Mark Simon:
Mine has to do with sneaking into a place? Yeah. When when I, when I first got started I failed miserably at a test over Filmation studios. And and because of that, I ended up working in live action for a long, long time. And then digital Lincoln paint started happening. So I bought myself a digital Lincoln paint system and started just doing a bunch of demos just to play with it and learn it myself. And then I ended up with a demo reel and I had heard that Disney or that a production company called lightning LakePoint entertainment was moving into Disney down in Orlando and they were a CG house. So I figured that they would end up needing to Dee at some point, because most people don’t understand the difference, you know, clients. So I wanted to be their points earth, but they hadn’t opened up their offices yet.
Mark Simon:
So there was no phone number, but I knew they were on the backlot at the Disney MGM studios, what they called it at the time. So I called Dan animator, friend of mine, Travis blaze, who was working on the backlot. And I said, get me a pass in to see you, but I just need to sneak onto the backlot. And he said, why? I said, does it matter? He said, no. So he got me a pass. I snuck on, I just parked. And I just went into every building. I could find on the backlot until I found this guy, the president of the company. And I asked if I could I said, look, I’m not looking for a job, but I’m assuming you’re going to need two D animation at some point. I just want to get your source. You got a minute, let me just show you my stuff.
Mark Simon:
And so he opened the door, went back, I showed him what I was working, some of my work. And then he started showing me what they were working on. They were working on a piece for the upcoming Disney cruise line, the cruise line hadn’t opened yet. And by the end of the conversation, I walked out with a contract to animate Tinkerbell to help launch the Disney cruise line. And that was my very first animation job. Wow. That’s, that’s some Steven Spielberg stuff right there. If you guys have heard his story about getting his own little office there on the lot. That’s great. DJ. What about you?
DJ Summitt:
Oh man. How can I follow that up? Yeah. So I guess my mine also incorporates illicit activity. Only in that I came, I was at film school during like the old Napster days and I was the only person at my film school that could liberate software, so to speak. So I became the only person on campus that could edit after the computer labs closed. And so I would edit and I would do the animations on everybody’s like, you know, film projects from there I, you know, was I, I started doing like just local commercials, you know, pawn shops, local car dealers and that kind of stuff before I graduated. And for the longest time, I don’t know what my first animation piece was, I suppose. Only because for the longest time I figured I was an editor and that’s just what editors do. Like I was having all these cool tricks because yeah, it was part of this new vibe of editors that was going to have flashy stuff too. And then I realized that I wasn’t an editor and I was actually an animator. And by that point I had been doing it for 10 years. And so, yeah, I can’t say what my first one was probably a local car commercial of some degree. It didn’t launch any cruise lines though. So
Justin McAleece:
I think it’s important for people that are, that are just starting to realize that like you always have a chance to pivot and what you think, what you thought that part of the production business was, whether it’s post or pre or actual production, like it might not be what you thought it was. And so there’s always a chance for you to be like, actually, I don’t even like being a director. I actually like being an a D that’s a way different drop job. Like when you don’t know what the difference is, you don’t realize that they’re like night and day opposite in a lot of ways. And so there’s always time for you to change and like get in specialized a little bit, because a lot of times people like people who are more specialized, not like I can edit and direct and DP, and I do all the things, which is some of the crap that I say sometimes. And it’s because I’m not good at some of those things, for sure. I’m sort of bad at some of them, because definitely, yeah.
DJ Summitt:
I was going to say I definitely pivoted because I, I, my intent was to be onset and then through the, having the software that no one else had, I got pretty good at that. And yeah. And then realize that I don’t like editing. That’s just not my jam. I like to have fun and make stuff flashy. And, you know, that was, that was much more my vibe. And it was, you know, I didn’t really embrace that until probably 10 years ago. I mean, it was, it was well into the career. So
Justin McAleece:
Interesting. How DJ got his groove back? Levi, what do you got to say?
Levi Ames:
So for me, I graduated and I was living at home. My parents were allowing me to live at home for college. And I don’t know, right after graduation, I applied to maybe 20, 25 studios, both big and small. I was cool with whatever I was going to get, just get that foot in there. And a lot of time was going by maybe about a couple months and it was getting to the point where my dad was. He was like, you know, if you’re going to live here, you’re going to have to help start paying rent. And you know, he was driving me out to, you know minimum wage jobs, like dollar general and, you know, go in and get the application. I was like, Oh my God, I got to go find an animation job. And and I was shooting for the stars by that point, you know, I was like aiming for different countries.
Levi Ames:
I was like, just anyone, anyone could take me. I I’m, I’m cool. You know, and finally someone came back after about two, two and a half months and it was New Zealand and it was a start-up animation studio called October animation. And they had just signed a contract with Nickelodeon to be their farm studio, to help work on a few of their CGI shows, which was going to be penguins of Madagascar, robot and monster Kung Fu Panda and so on and so on. And so they were the only ones that accepted me. They were the only people that came back and like, we’ll have you. So I had to go through another month to process to get the visa, get that going. I had $2,000, went over to New Zealand, like 8,000 miles away and started my career. So there’s no wrong way to do it. I think that’s what it is,
Justin McAleece:
Try and where you can and fitting in in whatever way is possible for you. We have some more questions or I love that you guys are answering the questions on the Q and a that’s great. We’ll, we’ll continue with you guys answering the same one that we’re already on, and we will be doing the giveaway here in about a 15, 20 minutes. So stick around for that 50 bucks, be an H. Everyone loves that. Mike so I have a weird background.
Mike Blum:
I actually have like a hardcore technology background. So I have like undergraduate electrical and computer engineering degree. I have like graduate degree in computer science. I never, never like occurred to me growing up that you could have a career in animation. I’m not, I’m not like an artist by nature. And so, yeah, just like nothing, nothing fit for me that, that the career that I, that my sort of second career would wouldn’t even be a possibility.
Mike Blum:
But my second job was at Disney feature animation. And that while I started in a technology side over there and eventually was kind of moved over to production, was one of the supervisors on features. I started making these animated shorts and they started, I sort of sold Disney on the idea by I’m making the training projects. And we initially did a training project for the technology group. And we basically said was my pitch was, Hey, look, we’re going to work on this on the side. We want to use all of the infrastructure and pipeline that we use for our feature films, but like, you know, production doesn’t like technology because we don’t understand the tools that we’re making and how they’re going to be used. So we will do that. We will put this extra time in and, and you know, the backend we’ll have like a little piece of animation to show and that turned out to be really successful.
Mike Blum:
And so successful that we finished the first one took a long time, but I, I would say two things. I was not originally thinking I was going to do anything other than get it off the ground. And then when no one else stepped up, I was like, okay, I’ll produce it. And then and then no one stepped up to direct it. And I’m like, all right, well, I’ll direct it. And literally like two weeks into that, I realized that I’d made a big and that what I really wanted to do, it sounds so trite. Like I wanted to direct. So cut to 10 years later, I basically did a series of these over a course of 10 years. And I would work basically from like six until 10 or 11 o’clock at night, you know, five to sometimes seven days a week.
Mike Blum:
And eventually they just got good, like, you know, I got an agent, you know, and but it took a really long time. So I don’t know, like you know, I left to get my first sort of professional thing at comedy central, I direct this series called the adventures of Baxter McGuire, but I had been working for like literally a decade before then, like, just trying to get good enough, I guess you were, you were an overnight hero, right. And overnight sensation. That’s how they always look at it. After 10 years of, you know, 70 hour weeks Rachel, we got gotta, we got to keep these short because they got more questions. So Rachel tell me
Rachael Jaye Schulz:
Well, I took more of a traditional routes. I actually went to art school for animation. I always just loved drawing ever since I was a kid and loved theater. So I was like, Oh, put those together. And that’s the animation. So I’m like, okay, I’m going to go be an animator. And I went to Savannah college of art and design in Georgia. And so I took their animation program there, but I did not receive a job for about probably two years after I graduated. Which could be, that could be a really dark place for students right now. And when you’re just graduating the main thing that just kept me going was I was staying connected with people from school who had already gotten jobs and just like kept asking for critique on my stuff. And wasn’t afraid to, to show my stuff to people and not isolating myself from the art community just so that I wasn’t, you know, totally in my head about it.
Rachael Jaye Schulz:
So yeah, I landed my first animation job in Vancouver, Canada, and I worked on a TV series that was that’s on Netflix right now. It’s based on how to train your dragon. So I was, yeah, I was a character animator for that. And yeah, another thing that I really think that for young animators, a great piece of advice would be not to put all of your words into the art that you do, because it’s a job and at the end of the day, and it can be if you start like mixing like your worst and your identity and something that you’re like using for your job, that can be really hard to deal with. So just like separating those two, like it’s okay. It’s just, it’s okay if you have a bad day and I’m like, it’s okay. If it’s not working out with your art for one day, it’s just a job.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. It’s an interesting take. I always think about like, you know, just how much goes into a movie, for example. And it’s like, you know, the, the writer, this is her whole dream for their entire life. And it’s been probably hundreds, maybe a thousand hours on the screenplay and went through all these revisions. And then it gets to the production company and the director and all these things. And there’s like hundreds of people on set and just every, there’s like a million man hours in this thing. And then someone comes out of the theater and they’re like, how was the movie? Like, this sucked so much happened to like, let you think it sucked. And you, you know, we can’t take that personally a lot, especially if we’re like a small part of the part of the part in a lot of ways. Yeah. But you want to also be able to like, sync what you care about into it. You want to be passionate about it, obviously that’s super important. So it’s the double-edged sword of all time. It’s a hard balance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I go hit me up last, last one.
Hagop Kaneboughazian:
Yeah, no my career started a while back and started with just doing stop motion animation and cut out animation, big Ben of teenage mutant Ninja turtles. So I was and in high school I actually got really into animation. I was, and this is, you know, this is early days of computers. So but the only thing I had was a physics program. So I would use the physics program to create animations where I would simulate car crashes and people flying out of the windows. And that really, that, that kind of got me going and I had to do computer animation and fortunate enough that my cousins, friends neighbor was a kid genius who was doing 3d animation. And LightWave, and this is, this is like in 1996, 95, 96. So right out of, right in high school, I was a senior. I actually interned with him just, I was like, I want to do animation, teach me animation. So he’s like, sure, here do some stuff. And I just would go to his office every day for about six months, doing whatever he told me to do with the animation and learn 3d programs and started working on commercials and got a job there. And basically,
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. Nice rest is history. Yeah, that’s good. Jay, I think we’ll do the giveaway in just a couple minutes. There are some more questions in the Q and a, if we can do any of those let’s ask one of those real quick. The anonymous attendee has anyone seen a good cheat sheet of animation animation terminology, let’s say for producers or directors, so that there’ll be speaking the same language, sort of what we were talking about before any, any easy to grab thing with nomenclature on it? Well, I know my, my book on how to produce independent animation had it, but that’s out of print, so that won’t really help. That wasn’t, that wasn’t even a shameless plug because it’s not even
Mark Simon:
Come on, Mark books out on Amazon, but it’s like 200 bucks and that’s believe me, it’s not worth. Oh, it was a plug. Nice. No, no, no. I don’t get any money from the resales. Oh, I see. Yeah. Kane, what were you going to say? What book maybe I was just saying there’s, there’s several books out there, but just looked for animation for producers. Okay. Interesting. Oh, producing animation is a really good one. The purple book I’m trying to think of the two women wrote it. It’s it’s fantastic. So it really covers everything including scheduling and budgeting. Nice. If anyone knows the name of that, put that in the third winter was one camp producing animation by Catherine winter. Nice. Perfect. Jade, any more questions from the list?
Jade Zaroff:
Yes, yes, yes. We have, I, I would love to know if there’s a favorite project or a least favorite project that anyone would want to talk about sharing
Levi Ames:
Real quick. Yeah. when I got on to star Wars Lego, I was in heaven and cause a TV man, that stuff is so brutal that the schedules, the way that goes like it, it was an ongoing rigorous schedule thing that I did not love in the end. And so when I got into star Wars Lego it was a lot smaller. It was like a group of 10 people. You can just kind of talk with people in the same room and and, and the projects were smaller, but the quality was higher. So you could put what felt like a lot more into it, like special effects and lighting, just, just up to quality than what I was seeing in TV. And so when I came in I didn’t start off on star Wars Lego at first it was like on Lego city stuff, but they soon found out that I had like a real interest in that stuff. And they’re like, well, maybe we’ll throw him some shots. And and one of the supervisors threw me a lightsaber shot and you know, like this, this is, this is a six year old me going, yes, thank you.
Levi Ames:
And and I did not screw up the opportunity because I was like, I don’t know if I’m gonna get another lightsaber shot, but I put myself into it. Like I did reference for a thumbnailed for this sucker. Like I put everything into it and it, it impressed everyone enough where they’re like give the light saber shots to Levi’s. And and from that point on for like a year or two, you know, I was, I was in heaven doing lightsaber shots for star Wars, Lego, you know, little, little mini Yoda, mini Luke, little Darth Vader, like, ah, so good. So
Mark Simon:
One of my favorites was when I, when I first decided to go full-time into storyboarding, I had been art directing at Nickelodeon for no veers and Spielberg moved into Orlando with Seaquest. If any of you remember the old summer futuristic submarine series on NBC. And I figured, well, it’s it Spielberg NBC was the biggest budgeted show on TV at the time. And it was science fiction. Not one of those things is bad. So I, I wanted on that show so badly and 15 minutes later I had the gig and that was the most fun and the best food and great author. I mean, it was, it was literally everything. And I got my start on doing second unit direction on that show my first season. And that was, that was that was an absolute dream job.
Justin McAleece:
That’s cool. Yeah. And I think that’s what we all have to keep in mind as we go through our lives in production or any sort of, sort of creative role, I think is that you’re going to get ones that are sort of stinkers and then you’re going to get ones that are awesome. And you got to hope you get more awesome ones, but it’s no guarantee, but enjoy them while you’re there. For sure.
Mark Simon:
My first movie was called slave girls from beyond infinity. It got better after
Mike Blum:
I think there’s a fine line. I was gonna say, I think there’s a fine line though, because like, if you’re going to my experience is if you’re going to have like a long career Rachel sort of like hint at it, there’s you have to have, I call it like double things like this. I’m constantly practicing double think where, yeah, you’re going to have different projects that are of in this instance, different projects that you like more than others, but you need to find something that you do like about it. You know, again, the ones that are really horrible that you can’t do, but most other ones there’s like sort of pros and cons and you’re, I think the idea, so, you know, to prevent yourself from getting jaded and to, you know allow yourself to sort of stay creatively motivated is to sort of like find the part of the project that you really do.
Mike Blum:
Like, and just concentrate on that. I mean, you know, the negatives they’re always going to be there, but if you can sort of just kind of keep present the positive parts, I find that that really helps me just stay present and like kind of do good work day in and day out. And you know, so like in terms of like my personal favorite, I mean, it’s, it’s hard not to have like, projects that you’ve like conceived yourself and then sold and then you get to make like, those are super fun. So, you know, it’s hard to say which one of mine, I’d say, I’d probably say this, this small little project I did for Dreamworks TV called Fifi cat therapist was just super, it was just super fun, just so it was like we had a great small little writing team and just, I just, I just really liked everything about it. I think the episodes came out grade they were fun and they were kind of what I envisioned in. So
DJ Summitt:
I’ll probably be my favorite, my, I guess my favorite, I can talk about my favorite and least favorite because it was the same project right before COVID I was doing, I was working on so I had pitched similar to what Mike was saying. You know, it was kind of my idea pitched it, you know, complete you know, blank slate kind of thing. And it was the keynote graphics for the hymns conference, which is this huge conference of like biotech, that kind of thing, you know, 50,000 people come to it. And it was for the huge screens in the back. They were, you know, 30 feet by 20 feet or whatever. I mean, they, you know, huge. And we, it kind of, we had this really cool, it looked like something almost out of, kind of Prometheus’s, you know, had this very like Ash or five, really cool.
DJ Summitt:
And we were about two thirds of the way through it when the entire world canceled everything and HIMS decided that they were too far into it to not have a video, but they would not need this video anymore. So we we took this awesome, beautiful piece as it was coming along and we turned it into a 16 by nine web video. It just, it was, it was, I mean, I understand what they did and we, we were able to take it, put it together in a way that was still, it was pretty nice, but I mean, it was,
Justin McAleece:
It wasn’t the night, it was a nine by 16. They, they did a vertical, you were San Diego. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah.
DJ Summitt:
And it was, it was supposed to be this huge wraparound for the cow, you know, for the ballroom, it was going to be so nice and it was super
Justin McAleece:
I think that puts us to the trivia part. So load up your shoot stop video here is the question everyone get there. W what we’re going to do is you posted in the chat, the answer of whatever this question is, but I go to shoot, stop video, log in, make sure you are there, because if you’re not, then you won’t know the answer, but you might be able to figure out the answer if you’ve ever seen this show before. Okay. So here we go. What did I, Justin, just post on the shoot, stop video community wall. So go to the community wall and and tell me what I posted. It’s the thing that I talk about all the time, what you had for breakfast? No eggs. Cause we’ve got chickens. So we always have eggs. I used to have chickens until the raccoons got them all.
Justin McAleece:
Oh, no, really jerks anyone. Here we go. All right. I don’t, I’m not, I’m going to defer to Blake on this one. I don’t know. Let’s. There we go. Okay. So Mark Schultz answered madness, Mark. I don’t know if that’s a complete answer bark. It’s this is madness. And I know you won like three times already, so we got to work that out. We also have Claire van flutter in and a brick madness is the answer. So yes, that’s for people who don’t know shameless plug, here we go. Brick Madness is the movie that is currently on Amazon and has a little bit of animation in it. Some really intentionally terrible eighties style animation for a for one of the characters in his show. And so, yeah, that’s, that’s the deal. That’s the movie that we made and it’s about Lego national Lego tournament. So anyway, that’s that? Claire’s the winner. Love it. So fun. And thank you for going through shoots.Video, please. Now that you’re there, add some stuff to the wall, watch other people’s things, add comments, that sort of stuff. You know, how walls work you’ve been on Facebook before? Jade, do we have any other parting questions for these guys? We’ve got a few minutes left. We should actually probably handle some stuff that was in the Q and a couple more. Yeah. Hit one of those up.
Jade Zaroff:
Let’s see. Let’s see. Let’s see. I’m a corporate producer and my clients are starting to ask for more animation. Can you give me a better sense of what is 2d versus 3d versus motion graphics and any other forms that fall under the generic animation umbrella?
Hagop Kaneboughazian:
I can say that I’ve answered this question for the same people over and over again, and clients and just everybody. And you’re, it’s never going to be answerable. There’s no answer to this question. It’s more about what is it that you want? Show me examples, talk, it’s a conversation, but to separate 2d and 3d is, it’s almost impossible in the whole spectrum of things. Sure. There, you can say this is a 2d animation, but there might be 3d elements in the background. There might be 3d, like it’s a very complex thing and to 2d, right?
Mike Blum:
It’s rendered that for a lot of people looks 3d or 3d that’s shaded that looks 2d and,
Hagop Kaneboughazian:
And it’s not the client’s job or the producer’s job, or like there’s a lot of people’s job. It’s not their job to understand how maybe a producer, maybe how it’s actually being made. You know, it’s about what do you want the final result to be? And let’s figure out a way to get there, but how it’s actually done, you know, is it done in with a 3d plugin and after effects, is that 3d or is that 2d? It doesn’t really matter. Just walling this over.
Mark Simon:
It does. It doesn’t really help the situation nor does describing it matter. It’s so again, kind of like we were talking about at the beginning, it’s show them samples, or if they show you a sample, you say, Oh, that was done this way. Yeah. So this is an option, or we could do something that looks similar by doing it this way. And so it’s gotta be based on the visuals if they’re not looking at it and they don’t understand the industry, it will make a Hill of beans a difference what you say. And I think, sorry to cut you off. I don’t think there’s way to describe that. You can describe visuals because we all see things different even saying like, well, it’s red, you know, like I want a red color here. And you’re like, what, what does it mean to you? Is that DJ shirt is that space in the background? Is this what Rachel has in the background of hers? Like, there’s, there’s multiple, you know, like even something as simple as that. So you have to have something to actually say that thing. Sorry, Mike.
Mike Blum:
No, I was going to say just sort of piggybacking on both, both what Kane and Mark said is that it’s a starting point when they, you have something you know, concrete to look at, but then like Cain said, it’s a conversation, man. There’s like, cause they, you know, from what you said, they might look at something and they’re like, Oh, I want it to be like this. But when you actually dig in it’s, it’s a, it’s a small component of it. It might be the, I liked, I liked the way the tail moved. I that’s the key thing that I’m keying in on you, you don’t see that being the, the main thing, you know, where someone else is like, no, no, no. It’s like, you know, the overall art direction. I like the color. I like that. I like the, you know, the color palette and all that, the way it moved. I hate that. The character designs, I hate that, but man, I love the colors.
Justin McAleece:
They end up wasting a lot of your time making something that they didn’t actually want. But you thought that they wanted a lot, but it was just because you guys were talking about different stuff.
Mike Blum:
Yeah. I kind of, I kind of, my, my goal is to sort of like over-communicate and you know, some PR that might drive some producers away where, you know, they’re just like, well, I don’t have time just go do it. And I’m always like, I don’t want to take a job that I’m going to under deliver on. And or yeah, I’m just going to under-deliver on that. They’re going to get it and then they’re gonna be like, well, that’s not what I talked about. So for me personally, I just, I want to, I want to talk to them a lot, so that we’re really on the same page and we’re talking kind of throughout the process.
Justin McAleece:
Excellent answers. We have one more question here. Sorry. I placed sorry, not that part. How does a COVID scenario change studio budgeting now that artists have more powerful computers and the studio itself has less expenses, should the artists start charging more? How does that work? Do you guys, do you guys have better stuff at home than they have, or more like better pipelines? At least
Mark Simon:
I actually wrote a big article on LinkedIn about this very thing that studios need to change how they reimburse their artists and artists need to understand that if they don’t charge extra they’re funding, the production company, which is not an employee’s job, you know, all of a sudden you’re paying more for electricity, you’re paying more for water. You’re paying for upgrades, you’re paying for desk use space that can’t be used for something else. There’s a tremendous amount of extra expenses that you take on if you used to work at a studio, but now the studio has you working from your house. So yeah, there are expenses that you absolutely deserve to get paid for. And if you don’t understand that, what look, you have to understand business. Everything we do is a business. Yeah. It’s art, but it’s also but, and you have to protect yourself or people and companies will take advantage of you. I’m going to.
Mike Blum:
I’m going to, I’m going to give a slightly different perspective on that, which is I think it kind of depends on where you are in your career and what your goals are et cetera. So I think it’s different, like sort of like Rachel’s you know, sort of experience that you come out of art school and it could take years to actually get your first position. I kind of, I kind of give different advice to different people depending on where they are. I think getting those first couple of jobs is just, it’s super hard and it’s super critical. And I don’t think you have, I don’t think film schools and animation schools in general prepare folks very well for what it’s like to be out in the job market and what they’re up against with people who actually have been doing it for a few years.
Mike Blum:
So I just think people need to sort of scale their expectations. Like you know, someone that is fresh out of school, they might have some, they might have talent, right. But they might not really know how to use it efficiently. And so giving them work might take five times longer. I mean, all things considered, I’d rather pay, I’d rather pay three times more for the person that has five years experience. But get it five times faster because it’s ultimately going to be cheaper for me. And I just think it’s there’s not a one size fits all. Answer to that. I think it’s Mark is people like Mark, who’ve been doing this for a long time. Absolutely. You’re like much more in the driver’s seat. And I think it’s just sort of a, a knob between where Mark is and then where people are, who are just out of school and just sort of like understanding where you fit and where you are and how everyone else is perceiving you, I think is, is helpful.
Rachael Jaye Schulz:
I think you should just have a conversation with your coworkers and friends who are in the general same area as you in your career and see what is happening with them at their studios. And just to make sure that like, you’re, you’re basically in the know like, and that, you know, what’s going on at different studios and stay up to date so that so that you basically know like which area you really are at, it’s, it is pretty unclear sometimes on what area you’re at, because you grow and you grow out of things and then you’re in a new, a new different level. So just keep, keep in tune with the industry and let your friends who are working in the same kind of area as you,
Mark Simon:
You know, that brings up a good point on something else. I just saw in the contract that I refuse to sign, which is some studios are now putting in there that you may not discuss how much you make with any co-workers anyone outside the industry. And you should also never, ever signed that.
Mark Simon:
It also never signed a contract that says you won’t speak badly about a project, because the only reason for that is to protect people who are doing bad things. Of course, we’re not going to talk badly about it if we’re not being treated badly. But if, if there’s a sexual assault or if there’s of physical or bullying abuse, if they don’t take care of it, of course, we need to be able to speak out about it. And if you sign that contract, you can’t. So the only way we know how much we should be charging is if we can talk openly with one another, about how much we’re getting paid and, and companies are trying to keep us from doing that because it benefits them. But if all of us just decide, no, I’m never going to sign that. It takes everybody sticking to it. So I just, I just take those pages out and I don’t sign them and I never send them back. And I have yet to ever hear word one back from somebody I’ve never even questioned about it.
Rachael Jaye Schulz:
That’s really great advice. Yeah. I definitely am all open about salary with friends. Yeah.
Mark Simon:
So read your contracts to read them every line.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. It’s a difficult thing. Yeah. If you’re just starting out, you know, like we’ve had this discussion a few times already, if you’re just starting out, like you don’t have much leverage, you know, if a grip comes to me, if a PA rather comes to me and it’s like a second day on set, I don’t want to hear a bunch of demands from him, you know, but if he’s a gaffer and he’s great, and I know he’s great, then I’m much more willing to take those demands into consideration. So, you know, these are, these are all business decisions. And like Rachel said, you can’t tie it to your own self worth. You have to tie it to, what’s important about what you do outside of work and all those things, you know, hopefully it should be a way to enable the rest of your life to be awesome as it can be.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. So all right. We had a lovely discussion here and we are out of time. So I think that’s going to be that for that. Yeah. plug your stuff. I think everyone posted already in the chat, it seemed like everyone put that up there. If not put that right now, all your info. And we always make the chat what it call it, the transcript available for everyone. So you can download that later, but Mark, give me a, give me a 15 second plug. Where did they find you?
Mark Simon:
At storyboards-east.com is everything about the storyboarding and animation that we work on or Mark Simon books.com for all the books on the industry that I’ve written.
Justin McAleece:
Beautiful. Love it. DJ.
DJ Summitt:
I’m at @DJSummit on Instagram and Twitter summitFilmworks on Facebook. You can go to DJ summit.com. Yeah, find me, let’s chat.
Justin McAleece:
Yeah. Levi
Levi Ames:
Can find some animation reels on vimeo.com/leviames. There you go.
Justin McAleece:
Nice. Mike.
Mike Blum:
PipsqueakAnimation.Com. If anyone needs anything, it’s really easy to get in touch with us.
Rachael Jaye Schulz:
Rachel Jaye, and you can find me and some of my art on Rachel Jaye Instagram, my Instagram handle is @RachelJaye
Justin McAleece:
Notice the spelling of the Rachel and the J that’s important in that transaction Kane,
Hagop Kaneboughazian:
I guess go check out a hiddengemsfilm.com. Very nice. Love it.
Justin McAleece:
And you can find me at Justinmakesmovies on Instagram or my name on Facebook, and there’s a link tree with Justin McAleece that would probably take you to all that stuff. So yeah. Jade you’re lost. Yeah.
Jade Zaroff:
Jadezaroff.Com. And then my Instagram is @Jadezaroff. You can find me dancing in an earth costume.
Justin McAleece:
I love it. I’m going to add my link tree go watch brick madness. If you like comedy or you like things that are good. Cause I made it and I think it’s good. I tried really hard. So check it out on on Amazon or on you can buy it on brickmadness.com. You can buy actual DVDs and stuff. So cool. Thank you so much for being here. I had a great time learning about this stuff. This is one of my weak spots. I don’t know that much about animation, to be honest. And so it was awesome. Go to shoots.video and make those, yeah. Get those log-ins going, get our community working for all these types of stuff so we can all get hired and do that. Good. Good work. Talk to you guys soon. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for hosting guys. Yeah.
