Early dark nights and creeping cold bring out the winter blues. What can you do to keep your spirits high and stay motivated during these depressing days?
In episode 119 of the Greyscalegorilla podcast, the team catches up after the holidays. Hear them talk about movies, shows, and gifts. Take a listen to the latest in industry news from around the mograph world, and finally hear about some tips and tricks to help you stay motivated during the cold winter months.
This episode is packed with dad jokes and sage advice.
Let’s tune in now.
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Show Notes:
Image via Slash Film.
Episode Transcript:
Nick Campbell: 00:00 Hello render friends in this Greyscalegorilla podcast episode. We’re catching up a little bit after the holiday break talking about gifts, movies. We watched fun stuff. We have a a bit of industry news to share with you guys. And uh, we also talk about, you know, working during this time of the year. And what I mean by that is this time of year when everything gets a little gray, specially if you’re living in the Midwest up here. Um, and how to stay more motivated as a creative, how to really, uh, take these days where it gets dark at four o’clock and get the most out of them. Stay productive and stay creative.
Nick Campbell: 00:40 Before we get started today, I wanted to let you guys know that the two part series of intro to Arnold is now officially inside of Greyscalegorilla Plus in fact, it’s exclusive to plus. If you’ve been looking to add Arnold or have been using Arnold and wanna finally catch up with more of what Arnold can do for you. Definitely head on into plus if you’re a member, start streaming it right away. And if you’re not a member of Plus now is a great time. We have so much more coming to plus and have added so much over the last few months. Definitely go check it out at greyscalegorilla.com/plus. All right, let’s head on in to today’s episode.
Speaker 2: 01:19 [Intro Music]
Nick Campbell: 01:30 Hello friends. Welcome back to the Greyscalegorilla podcast. It has been too dang long. Uh, with me today is, uh, Michael Maher. How are you? Big, big buddy.
Michael Maher: 01:43 I’m great and big. I guess I’m big and great. I don’t know why I called you big buddy. I’m going to see if that sticks. Oh, what was that one? Country band. Big and Rich. That’s how I’m feelin.
Nick Campbell: 01:52 You talking about Big Audio Dynamite? Chad. Ashley, how are you?
Chad Ashley: 01:58 I don’t know any of these references. I’m a little under the weather, but um, I’m holding, um, wait, no, I’m keeping it together. Just holding it together.
Nick Campbell: 02:10 Warm sweaters. It is definitely the Midwest, uh, gray, crappy days happening here. Um, how’s the, how’s the, how’s the Texas weather there, Michael?
Michael Maher: 02:20 It is beautiful. Foggy, like I went out this morning, grabbed my camera went out took a few photos. Uh, and it’s just, it’s so, it’s so pleasant right now.
Nick Campbell: 02:33 Jealous, jealous. Well, Oh gosh. A lot has happened, um, since our last podcast in December. Got the whole break. You’ve got that whole weird part of the end of the year where I didn’t even know what dang like day it was. And you just kind of float in between work and events and family and all this stuff. And um, gosh, I mean, uh, any, anybody catch up on shows, movies? What’d you guys do over the break?
Michael Maher: 03:00 I feel like I watched all of it. Like I burned through all, all the new shows everybody was, has been talking about. I finally caught up on a bunch of that, uh, went through a Mandalorian, uh, streamed the Witcher. Uh, what, uh, what are the other big things you guys watched? Any new movies?
Nick Campbell: 03:18 I’m always so behind.
Chad Ashley: 03:19 I haven’t gone to the movies in a really long time, but yeah, I’m the same. I watched a ton. I’ve binged a bunch of stuff and like went through a bunch of stuff.
Nick Campbell: 03:28 There was, there was a fun day where, I don’t know why, I don’t know why my wife picked this movie, but, um, she just showed up was like, we’re going to watch. Um, uh, Oh gosh. Not Jack Reacher. What’s the other one call? I’m so bad with names. Uh, Jack Ryan, Jack, Jack Ryan. We’re going to watch Jack Ryan. I’m like, isn’t that like not a movie you would watch? She’s like, I just, I’ve heard enough about it. We’re going to watch it. And so, uh, I go, cool. So we, we sit down. I, my favorite part about Jack Ryan going into it was, uh, the time, it was like an hour and 30 minutes. I’m like, yes, I’m all in. This is the kind of movie I love.
Michael Maher: 04:09 Oh, so you’re in the Jack Ryan show or the movie? Not the show.
Nick Campbell: 04:13 There’s a show?
Michael Maher: 04:14 Oh, buddy.
Nick Campbell: 04:16 Oh, I just totally, I just totally Nick Campbell. Do you? It’s John Wick. John Wick.
Chad Ashley: 04:22 Oh my God. I was like, what is he talking about?
Nick Campbell: 04:24 Okay. So, so we sit down and, and my wife says, we’ve got to watch John wick. I’m like, that’s cool. And we both, we both love some Keanu and then I see the, the hour in 30 minutes or whatever the, the first, uh, uh, movie was, and I’m like, yeah, this is my kind of movie. I love short movies. So this, this movie fires up and I’m not going to spoil anything for you. But for those of you who have watched it, know that the first five minutes of that movie is a, I mean, everyone’s, everyone’s crying, right? And, uh, so we get to the end of that first five, 10 minutes and the whole room’s Misty and we’re both like, what are we getting into? What kind of movie is this? And, uh, and then the roller coaster, um, uh, went on for the next hour and whatever minutes. And man that I just really enjoyed that movie. Uh, so much so that we kept watching them, uh, the next couple nights. So I, I, that was a, that was a blast.
Michael Maher: 05:26 I feel like I made the same mistake. So my wife and I had a movie night one night, so she picked one movie and I picked one and she picked like a, a Nicholas Sparks romcom and you know, it was fine but you’re feeling terrible at the end cause it’s like, you know, love lives on whatever and you feel bad. Then I’m like, all right, now we’re going to watch my movie. And it was John Wick and then we’re like 10 minutes and we’re both just like on the verge of tears just for, I was like, this is just too much for one night. And then it was like the best movie ever.
Nick Campbell: 05:57 There’s the ultimate movie night. You’re just, you watched like the first 15 minutes of up and then you watch the first 10 minutes, uh, of John Wick and then you watch, I don’t know, like, like Big Bird singing at Jim Henson’s funeral and you just load them all up. Like you were just really get a good cry going. I don’t know. I think that’s like a playlist we should start getting, getting together. You know,
Michael Maher: 06:22 So what’d you think of John wick? You’re a big fan now.
Nick Campbell: 06:24 Um, I really enjoyed it. I thought it was, I love a movie that just kind of makes you assume. I think it, it treats it treated me the way I like a movie to treat me, which is it just goes, it’s assuming your cat, you’re caught up. It’s assuming you understand why everybody’s buying crap with gold coins it assumes you know, all this stuff.
Nick Campbell: 06:44 And I’m like, I love that. I love that they didn’t stop to do some backstory about anything. Were there like, there was zero backstage. It was just go, I love those kind of movies. Um, I don’t know if he’s a character from a comic book. Should I know why they’re paying in gold coins? I didn’t care. Like I was just like, I’m all in, I’m bought into this, this world. I’m gonna watch, uh, keep watching this. And it actually got us interested in the Marvel movies, which between my wife and I, we’ve seen like two or three of the 30 different Marvel series movies. And we’re like, maybe let’s give them a chance because this, this John wick thing was like, maybe, maybe they’re written better now because like we saw a little bit of like superhero in this John wick thing. So we started the Marvel stuff and it started off good.
Nick Campbell: 07:33 We watched, we watched, um, we actually looked it up online of like what we should watch in order. Like rather than just watching them as they came out, uh, if we were to watch the whole Marvel series, where should we start? And, uh, they said start with captain America. So we watched that. I thought that was pretty good. And, uh, so we watch Iron Man, one great, great movie. And then we watched Iron Man too. And then, and then we, and then we, and then we stopped. Then we stopped, cause I knew it was coming. Avengers. I’ve seen vendors that was so bad and I’ve seen so many bad ones. I’m like, look, if they can’t keep me with the 3m, I’m done. I’m not doing 30. You’re not gonna, you’re not going to pull me through. You know, you gotta you gotta you gotta John with me here a little bit.
Nick Campbell: 08:21 It’s just not for me. That’s all. It’s fine. I’m glad people enjoy it. I just, I got to Iron Man two and I saw the future and I didn’t want to go through 30 more movies. Uh, anyway, that’s uh, that’s I think a short thing. Oh, I’ll say this too. We also started watching a lot more of the masterclass videos, which, um,
Michael Maher: 08:41 Oh, nice. Did you watch any of the new ones?
Nick Campbell: 08:43 You know, it’s been so long since I’ve like gotten their emails and everything. I just, everything’s kind of new to me, you know, other than the ones I’ve watched two years ago. So we started watching, um, uh, but kind of skipping around. We watched the, uh, Penn and teller one a little bit last night. That was fun. But, um, yeah,
Speaker 4: 09:02 I’ve been bingeing the Ken burns one. I’m just like a documentary fanatic and I’ve always loved Ken Burns and you know, I’ve had all these ideas just like sitting, you know, on the shelves of old projects and you’re watching Ken Burns and he’s showing you how he takes notes on projects and stuff. And I’m like, ah, he’s getting, he’s making, he’s giving me the itch back. Like it’s starting, like I’m feeling like I want to make another one.
Nick Campbell: 09:25 Uh, well I got one on my list too. I’ll share with you guys. Um, because I heard so many good things about it. If you like documentaries, it’s the, it’s one called General Magic, the movie. That’s the website anyway, so it might be just called general magic, but it’s about this company from what I understand, that basically started building the iPhone way before the iPhone and were just too early. Like they just put all this energy in a figuring out touchscreens, figuring out all this stuff, and they just couldn’t make it work. So I don’t know, I don’t actually know the full story. I might be getting some details wrong, but I’ve heard enough about this documentary now from many different podcasts, from many different people that I’m going to give it a go. So that’s next on my, on my, uh, list of documentaries.
Michael Maher: 10:11 Interesting. Yeah. What about you Chad?
Chad Ashley: 10:14 Uh, yeah, we watched a ton of stuff. I’m trying to think of anything that like stood out. Um, I can’t remember when we talked last, but I highly recommend on Disney plus the Imagineering documentary show.
Michael Maher: 10:29 So good.
Nick Campbell: 10:30 Those are awesome.
Chad Ashley: 10:31 It was really, really good. Um, let’s see what else? Uh, yeah, we watched, we, we caught up on so many different shows, uh, the new season of you, which was really good.
Michael Maher: 10:41 Did you ever get into Mandalorian?
Chad Ashley: 10:43 Yeah, I watched it. I thought it was okay. Uh, it, it was basically it had me and then it lost me and then it had me again. And that’s kind of how the season went
Michael Maher: 10:54 I think. I think that was kinda how most people felt. It kinda got weird in the middle.
Chad Ashley: 10:59 Yeah. I think somebody sort of summed it up for me is like it had this really great first two episode sort of like storyline and then it went right into Xena world where it was like the corniest contrived, just felt so I dunno, it just felt so lame and then they sort of pulled it around at the end of the season to kind of make me want to watch it again.
Michael Maher: 11:25 I really enjoyed it. I think there was probably one episode that was probably definitely the weakest for me, which was in the middle, but.
Chad Ashley: 11:32 I bet the same one that lost me.
Michael Maher: 11:34 It might be, but I, I most of the time I really enjoyed it cause I’ve always enjoyed those old like Western type shows, you know, new town, new problem to solve. I think. I thought they approached it really well. But have you guys seen any of like the behind the scenes stuff they’ve been sharing?
Chad Ashley: 11:48 Yeah, that’s killer killer stuff.
Michael Maher: 11:51 Like, I remember we were at graph and we were talking to the team at unreal and they were telling us about like their video led boards that, you know, they’d been building for essentially to replace green-screen. So instead of going into a green screen, you’re in front of these like live 3d environments and they had a demo version of that at Siggraph and it was really cool. And to check out there’s a video, we’ll link to it, but then they dropped the behind the scenes of the actual show and you’re just seeing these massive screens and you’re like, this is so, so cool.
Nick Campbell: 12:24 Yeah. That, that article was blew me away. I mean, it’s just so clearly the future of so much storytelling and so many problems that greenscreen and little, you know, fake people in ping pong ball suits. Like that’s just not a sustainable way to create good movies. Like there has to be stuff coming around. And I think that like looking, reading that article is like really seeing a glimpse into that future. And uh, it was really exciting. That was really cool stuff.
Michael Maher: 12:54 Yeah. I’m just like a huge John Favreau fanatic. So it’s like between that and then reading up on the behind the scenes of um, like Lion King, how they were creating these whole like digital sets and then they’d go in with like their iPads or whatever and in real time set up cameras and all that stuff. You’re just like, Oh, so this is, this is the future. We are in the future now.
Nick Campbell: 13:15 I mean even even the like iPhone version where you can, you know, stick an iPad, uh, to the table or like a um, a Mac pro to your table to kind of see how big it is. Like that tech is so much further along than I assume until I play with it that we’re like, yeah, we’re just going to be able to film with these characters here. Or I don’t know, there’s just so much of this that’s right around the corner and it’s going to be some exciting behind the scenes, which, which to me, as you could tell by my, my mostly non love of movies is way more exciting than actual movies. Like I would much, I will watch behind the scenes of almost anything. You give me a good document and how it’s made and then I’ll watch it and then maybe I’ll go watch the movie. And it’s like, to me so much more entertaining to go watch, you know, all these artists, all these people, all these amazing talented, creative people working together to make something. That story to me is so much more fun than the final product most of the time.
Michael Maher: 14:19 Right. That was, that was another career path I had always like imagined myself doing. It was doing DVD behind the scenes extras. I was like, this is, this is the coolest thing. And then, you know, they stopped making DVDs and you’re like, look, I guess they’re not really going to do that anymore.
Nick Campbell: 14:35 Oh yeah. That is something that I, I thought I would watch for the rest of my life, which was I would, I would find movies I liked buy the DVD and they started coming out with those like super director versions and then they would all have like two or three audio tracks that you could listen to. And I used to, I used to do work with these. I would put on a movie that I really loved and then I would just listen to the director tracks or they would have one where the actors were in a room talking about it. And it was kind of almost like pre podcasts and, and a lot of stuff that’s happening now where you can just listen to all this stuff. But it was so interesting to me and I feel like, you know, is that, is that still something that’s happening? Like are people putting out podcasts where they say like, hit play now on Netflix and we’re going to talk over this show?
Michael Maher: 15:28 Well, I mean there’s some stuff like the RiffTracks, which is from like the, uh, mystery science theater guys. Or they do like comedy riffs and then some, like if you have to get like the super special Blu-ray editions now to get that kind of stuff, it’s kind of like a, I feel like it’s a lost art at this point.
Nick Campbell: 15:45 Yeah. Oh, that’s so interesting. I’ve totally forgot about that.
Michael Maher: 15:48 It’s been awhile. What’d you guys, uh, any, uh, any good gifts from the holidays this year? And I haven’t really talked to you guys much since. I’m just so curious to what everybody’s been up to.
Chad Ashley: 16:00 I got a couple of things.
Nick Campbell: 16:01 You get anything good?
Chad Ashley: 16:02 I got a pretty sick, uh, kettle for making poor over coffees.
Nick Campbell: 16:08 Does it heat it up?
Chad Ashley: 16:09 Yeah. Yeah, it’s, it’s, um, it’s a fellow, uh, you know, like it’s got, I don’t know what’s called. It’s got like the electronic bottom to it. So like you just set it on there and just like, it heats it up really fast, which is great and it gives you a really nice even pour, which is great. So I was nerding out on that. And then, uh, Nick got me a couple of really nice books about one of my favorite designers, Dieter Rams, and I was checking those out and inspired by those.
Michael Maher: 16:35 He’s like the, he’s like the guy from Braun, right?
Chad Ashley: 16:39 Yeah. He, uh, he’s a kind of a prolific designer that worked at Braun for, gosh, long time from like the, maybe the 60s all the way through the 80s. Maybe even longer than that, but, um, yeah, I mean he’s, he, he influenced a lot of really amazing modern industrial design. So if you look at everything that Apple has done over the past, uh, 20 years, uh, a lot of it kinda came from sensibilities developed by Dieter and his team at Braun.
Michael Maher: 17:12 Well now it’s all coming together. You got like your new coffee pot and then Dieter Rahm and now I’m just like, Oh, so, so that’s why you used a Brown coffee model maker for the Light Kit Pro renders that just click for you. Yeah. That’s funny. So coming together.
Chad Ashley: 17:30 I make that connection, but I guess if you don’t really know, then that would be like not a connection you’d immediately make. But yeah, if you’ve seen the coffee maker renders around some of our lighting plugins and materials and stuff, you’ve seen that weird coffee maker. Well that’s not the coffee maker that he, but it’s one that was part of Braun at the time he was there. It’s sort of like speaks to his aesthetic. So if you’ve seen that and you’ve wondered why we used it, it’s because I’m a fan of that style of industrial design.
Nick Campbell: 18:02 That was good. Um, I’m going through my gifts in my head. Michael, would you, uh, get.
Michael Maher: 18:06 Oh man. Um, if I, if I list my, my best gifts it’s just going to show my age.
Nick Campbell: 18:12 Like some sweet slippers?
Michael Maher: 18:14 I got this sweet heated back massager. Guys, laugh all you want. I’ve used it like every single night since then since I’ve got it. It’s pretty awesome. Um, and then I got some really nice cooking sheets like kitchen industrial cooking sheets that I’ve been putting to good use lately. So, and then, uh, we got a big fire pit for the backyard. It had just like a kind of like this grill attachment on top. So we’ve been outside kinda like smoking and grilling on a big fire pit.
Chad Ashley: 18:46 Nice.
Michael Maher: 18:47 Yeah, it’s been fun.
Nick Campbell: 18:48 That’s good. Well my, uh, for me it’s getting into birthday territory now, so I got some great stuff for my, uh, for, for the holidays. But, um, I was just a surprise to go on a little trip with some friends. Uh, so that’s kinda the new thing in my world is getting out and seeing the mountains and hanging out with some friends.
Michael Maher: 19:10 Where are you going?
Nick Campbell: 19:11 Ah, I think Denver, the details are still a little secretive, but, um, I got to like pack my bag and don’t forget my ski boots. Hmm. So yeah. Uh, it’s getting exciting. That’s the, that’s the big a new thing for me. A big, a big old old guy birthday. So that’s, that’s good. That’s good. It’s all happening. Um, yeah, I’m trying to think of like other holiday gifts. Um, they got, um, but see it’s all coming together for me cause I didn’t know that that Braun coffee pot was Braun. And then now you also have the, um, the color palettes that you put out on Instagram. So I mean, I guess that makes a lot more sense.
Chad Ashley: 19:55 Yeah, the, I was just, those books are great and we’ll throw a link down in the show notes. But yeah, just kind of like looking at all the products that they made over those years and just the colors that they were using in the 70s and 80s were just so fricking good. I just loved them. So I was like really inspired over the break to just like take those colors and, and uh, build some pallets. And if you’re not familiar with the pallets that we have for modern surface material collection, we sort of use a lot of the, we use the um, uh, the builtin color palette tools and cinema four D and uh, we use them quite a bit in modern surface. So making these like sort of Dieter Rahm’s inspired pallets was really pretty fun to make. And I think a lot of people that already are used to using those pallets for modern surface are, are enjoying them over and Plus right now.
Michael Maher: 20:50 That’s awesome. Well no, you’ve been, you’ve been super Plus busy lately cause at the end of, towards the end of December we also dropped your part two of the Intro to Arnold.
Chad Ashley: 21:01 Oh, that’s right. Yeah. There’s so much stuff going through that now that it’s hard to remember what we’re doing. So much stuff.
Chad Ashley: 21:09 But yeah. Yeah, that stuff is great. And uh, I think people are really enjoying it. It’s, it’s, uh, yeah, it’s awesome man. There’s, so we have like a ton of Arnold stuff in there now. So if you’ve been looking for that, go check it out.
Michael Maher: 21:24 Now wasn’t the like part one of the Arnold training. Wasn’t that something that you had personally watched?
Chad Ashley: 21:30 Yeah. Um, the, the MoGraph Plus, uh, team. I hope I’m getting that name right. I have a cold, so if I, if I’m screwing up any names, I’m just going to blame it all on this cold.
Chad Ashley: 21:42 Um, but yeah, that, that was a course that I took a while back, uh, and it is a fantastic Arnold course where you just really learn the guts of everything that, that that’s in there. And so when we got that in there, we wanted to also bring up some new stuff that’s happened since, uh, since that came out. And there’s quite a bit of new stuff and that’s where I’ve been sort of like peppering in, in some of these new features and videos about things that I find interesting in the newer versions of Arnold. So it’s really a complete package for Arnold now.
Michael Maher: 22:17 Super cool.
Nick Campbell: 22:18 Yeah, that’s, that’s exciting. And uh, all the, all the new Plus stuff. Um, I know we haven’t talked about it in a, in a month, but it’s been, it’s been really cool to see all the new stuff popping into Plus and uh, we even got a shout out from School of Motion, which was really cool. They had an awesome end of the year podcast if you haven’t checked that podcast out by the way. Um, it’s a, it’s an Epic one. I think it’s over like three hours, but they really kind of talk through the year and a lot of what’s been happening in our industry, which a lot has been happening. And uh, we’re excited to hear them talk about, uh, Greyscalegorilla Plus and uh, had some nice things to say, some really nice things to say. So I appreciate that guys. And a shout out to a school of motion and their podcast and their new website.
Michael Maher: 23:04 That’s right. I think that dropped today.
Nick Campbell: 23:07 That thing looks killer.
Michael Maher: 23:08 It’s so awesome. Like it’s so well done. Obviously everything they, everything they touch beautiful.
Nick Campbell: 23:14 Yeah. Yeah. They’d been, they’d been on fire and um, yeah, go check it out. Uh, beautiful stuff is always, and I don’t want to tease it unless it’s actually happening. I know we have an interview with Joey here coming up.
Michael Maher: 23:28 Well we do actually, we’ll probably go ahead and drop that, uh, next week now that we’re talking about it.
Nick Campbell: 23:32 Awesome. Well, there you go. See you stay tuned for it on the Greyscalegorilla podcast for an interview with Joey from School of Motion. And uh, at the same time go bookmark that big end of the year one that they did, um, really great episode and just kind of, it, it’s things happen so quickly in our industry and there’s new tech and there’s new, um, training and there’s new everything happening all the time. And then it’s not really until you listen to an episode like that and really only talk about what happened this year and it’s w it’s hours and hours and hours where you’re like, okay, that was a crazy year for 3d, for Cinema 4D for everything that’s happening at Maxon. Um, everything that’s happening, you know, even just what we’ve been up to in the last year, it’s just like every three days really, uh, going through this, this revolution right now. It’s really, really cool to kind of hear people talk through that. So definitely check it out. Um, any other industry news? I know we talked about Arnold coming out. We got the uh, school of motion sites looking, looking bangin any other industry news.
Nick Campbell: 24:44 Chad, what have you been seeing?
Chad Ashley: 24:46 Uh, yeah, that’s that end of the year and then beginning of the new year sort of lull, there’s not a ton going on right now.
Michael Maher: 24:55 It’s all pre-NAB hype at this point. Yeah, whatever he’s going to be talking about in April.
Chad Ashley: 25:01 Yeah. It definitely feels like, um, I think things are quiet cause everybody’s getting back to work and digging in. And that’s typically this time of year when the holidays sort of wind down and all the jobs actually need to start getting work done. Everybody starts to get back into it. Um, yeah. I mean personally I’ve just been trying to rock all these new things that we’re, that we’ve got going on all our new initiatives and gonna try to, uh, go to a few events in the next coming months. Of course a NAB coming up sooner than you think, which will be great.
Michael Maher: 25:37 They changed it that this year. Did you see that?
Chad Ashley: 25:39 No
Michael Maher: 25:40 They moved the start date. So like normally it has started, was it like Sunday through Thursday? They bumped it back. So it actually starts on Saturday this year. Hmm. So it’ll be, let me see, double check the dates. Uh, Saturday, April 18th through Wednesday, April 22nd NAB Las Vegas. Yeah. I threw a wrench and stuff because like, you know, we, we were teaming up with school of motion and others in the past to do the big MoGraph meetup. And we historically like to do it before all the show floors open and everything so people could come in before the chaos. But now it looks like we’re just going to be part of the chaos. So MoGraph meetup 2020, stay tuned. We’ll have some more info about that soon.
Nick Campbell: 26:26 Yeah, you’re right. That’ll be here before we know. Get it on. Get NAB on your calendar at least. Um, if you, if you, uh, have been in the past, um, definitely get, get that on there. Uh, and if you’ve always wanted to go, it’s, it’s really, it’s really a great, great event and there’s always stuff before and after and at night, so keep an ear open for that. I know, uh, um, we usually put up a blog post. I know school of motion puts up one, usually just about all the events and all the crazy stuff you could do at NAB’s. So we’re definitely excited for that. And, uh, a lot of, a lot of behind the scenes stuff is, is happening for plus right now that, um, we can’t really talk about right now, but, um, I’m very excited to, uh, kind of get to NAB and talk more about that stuff as well.
Nick Campbell: 27:14 So, uh, I hate, I hate doing that, like, um, behind the scenes like teaser stuff, but we had our big, uh, company meeting and we all know what what’s happening with plus and uh, I can’t wait to be able to tell you guys more about it, but, um, uh, everyone inside so far is, uh, really enjoyed it and definitely go check it out if, uh, especially if, um, if Arnold is in your future or in your, in your near future, definitely go check out the new Arnold’s stuff we have as well. It’s very exciting. Um, well let’s see here. I know this is kind of a catch up episode,
Michael Maher: 27:53 I’m more of a mustard guy.
Nick Campbell: 27:57 Well that’s it.
Chad Ashley: 27:58 Yeah, I think I got to go guys.
Nick Campbell: 28:00 That’s it folks. Uh, we bring in the soundboard back what’s going on and that was cheesy. I love it. I love it. Um, you know, I think I’ll, I’ll when it, when it comes to NAB and all this stuff that’s happening, well let me, let me say this actually, you reminded me of how the year goes through and I want to know your guys’ thoughts. I, there’s, there’s very specific parts of the year that have different feelings and we’re all creative people here. We all have feelings. And how, what, what is that, what is that like January through April, um, feeling like you, you kinda touched on it. Um, Chad, where it’s like everyone’s getting back to work. You’re kinda catching up from the holidays. You got that new year, energy, new year, new you energy and, and, and then, and then spring, spring comes and the whole, the whole energy of the year flips. And I think it’s something that I hope like everybody kind of feels and thinks about, but is, it’s one of those things that might not be discussed, but what, what is that feeling for you of like January through March, April ish, pre NAB.
Chad Ashley: 29:25 Oh man, I hate these times. I hate this time of year. I hate it.
Nick Campbell: 29:29 Really?
Chad Ashley: 29:29 I really do, man. I, these are the dog days of winter when you live in the Midwest where that’s true. You’re like, the anticipation up to the holiday is great cause it’s like, Oh, Christmas and new years and family and gifts and just all this fun stuff. And then that goes away and you’re like, well at least I still have the end of the football season. And then that goes away. And then you’re like, what am I living here for? Why do I live here? This is so dumb. Like I should not be, nobody should live like this. And then spring you get your first taste of like a 50 or 60 degree day in like April if you’re lucky and you’re like, Oh, okay. So this is not bad. I can deal with this. And then it sorta returns to normal. But yeah, for me, like this time of year it gets like super like why did I choose to live here? So I usually just like focus in on work and don’t leave the house.
Nick Campbell: 30:27 I see that. Yeah, that bit right there. It’s very work centric. It’s very like, let me just focus on this project and maybe the weather will get better kind of thing. It’s like staying at home a little bit more, uh, like turning on more lights like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well Mike, Mike, do you go through the same thing in Texas? Are you guys like,
Michael Maher: 30:53 it’s pretty similar but we don’t have like the seasonal depression as like as nearly as bad as the northerners do. Like you know, we still have, we can still see the sun and it’s not bitter cold here. You know, the hardest time weather wise for us is always the summers. But you know, you just run from your house into your car and start the AC and you’ll survive. But I kind of find now, especially that I’ve worked with more Northern companies for the past five years. I’ve noticed so much of like this time of the year is the grind months because it’s literally like between you guys in Chicago, Detroit and past coworkers in, in Montreal and New York. It’s just like snowy seasons. You just get to your office as fast as you can. Just grind. You don’t want to leave the office cause you don’t want to put on your boots and all that stuff. So everybody just grinds real hard. And then I guess if you just kind of look at our release schedule for the past couple of years, it’s like Greyscalegorilla goes quiet for like three months, four months and then it’s like bam, modern surface, bam, Greyscalegorilla Plus bam new HDRI pack. It’s like, Oh yeah, that’s all the stuff we made those first few months. So I feel like it’s going to be pretty similar this year as well.
Nick Campbell: 32:06 Yeah, that is, that is definitely where we are is in the execution right now and getting all this stuff ready to go and then yeah, you’re right. Then we’ll have it for launch by the spring. It’s, it really is that grind and it really is that like I’ve always attributed that to the Midwest. But you’re, you’re right. Like, I think now that we’re working in a, in more of a global world and distributed workforce, the way that we are, we all kind of work in different places. We, we all kind of have that same feeling of a grind. Even if you’re in a, uh, uh, a place where there the weather cooperates, you know, so it’s kinda like, like bleeds into the rest of the culture. But yeah, that, that’s how I see it. It’s always like, it gets too dang dark, especially on that side of the, of the um, time zone.
Nick Campbell: 33:04 Chicago is like at the beginning of the time zone, which means it gets dark at like what, 3:30.
Chad Ashley: 33:10 Dude, it’s worst, worst time. Like you’ll be sitting there watching TV at five o’clock or four 30 and you’re like, what is it like 10 o’clock at night right now? And then you realize that it’s like five 30, six o’clock and you’re like, Whoa, what? This is like, it’s ridiculous. There’s like no daylight.
Nick Campbell: 33:30 Yeah. The amount of times I’m like, I think I’m ready for bed six or, or you just get in that grind of like, well it’s all dark anyway, so time disappears and then it’s, it’s either seven o’clock and I’m going to bed or it’s like one in the morning. It doesn’t, but your brain knows no different. Yup. Yeah. Well, I mean, I th I think the interesting part for the, for these kinds of talks is like this, this thing where we all are responsible for our time.
Nick Campbell: 34:02 And I know a lot of our listeners are freelancers working from home, working from a small office just like we all do. And I think this stuff is interesting as we all kind of figure out how we work. We actually talked about this at our meeting. You know, we’re a 100% distributed team. We all work either from home or from a small office nearby and, but we talked about, you know, how we get our work done and how we best get our work done and how we, uh, what times of days are we, you know, getting our, our work done and how the, what time of days are the best to communicate with us knowing that. Right. So like for me, for example, I love getting bigger projects done, really kind of creative, complex projects done either really early in the morning or really late at night. And the day is when things get busy.
Nick Campbell: 35:00 Like then I’m writing my emails or recording this podcast or like doing all the day to day stuff. And then for me, I love that quiet time. Maybe I just can’t sleep. I got to wake up and do something. Like that’s the time where I’m like, okay, the rest of the world’s asleep, I’m going to get my work done. And I think that’s important for, for, you know, for all of us, not only on the team to kind of know that about yourself, but also kind of, you know, tell everyone else on the team how that works. So that, so that we could be more, um, understanding when it comes to, to communicating with each other. So I guess to me it’s, it’s for the listeners out there, it’s, it’s a way to kind of audit that and think about that. I think the more that you know how you work, the easier it is to kind of schedule your day and maybe even take it a little easy on yourself too. If you feel like you’re not getting enough stuff done. Like maybe you’re just not showing up really enough for late enough, you know? But I don’t know. Is that, is, is, does that ring true for you guys?
Michael Maher: 36:02 Oh yeah. Like I also imagine there’s quite a few people listening that are in that, in those grind months right now where they’re already locked away in their, their home offices are in the studio and they’re just, they’re starting to feel the grind, settle in. But you know, it really just comes down to how you manage your time and making sure you get all those little tasks done because they are part of the bigger picture. So,
Nick Campbell: 36:26 All right, well look, you can even tell just the energy on the podcast. We’re in the middle.
Chad Ashley: 36:33 Well, I’m sick guys. I’m sick. So.
Nick Campbell: 36:36 You got Chad, do you, you’re under a gray cloud with your, with your, uh, with your sickness, but also you’re in, in almost in Wisconsin over there where you live. So you might as well be permanently in the gray zone.
Chad Ashley: 36:49 Send me a lamp if you’re listening. Help me.
Nick Campbell: 36:54 Can someone send Chad some vitamin D please. Just like , you know, I got to say, I got one of these, uh, sad lamps. Um, mine’s called a ha-. Oh. It’s literally call the happy light. It’s, uh, it’s a bright, I guess it’s like an all spectrum light. I have no idea if this is some like made up goop thing or if this is real science, I do not know, but I kinda don’t care. It works. Works for me, turn on my happy light and uh, you get some sunlight around here or some fake sunlight in your eyes and generally helps. And also getting the heck out of the house and going on a walk, taking the dog out, all that stuff frickin helps me. And it’s, it’s so, um, gosh, that stuff helps me so much. I don’t know if, if now, now we’re getting into like Midwest hacks.
Michael Maher: 37:57 Yeah. That was the thing. Like I didn’t even know about sad lamps really until, uh, Chad told me about it, uh, last winter and I was like, are you all right buddy? He’s like, yeah, it’s just that time of year. I was like, Oh, okay.
Nick Campbell: 38:12 It definitely is. Uh, and, and it also, um, you know, just, just a few things that I, that I’ve learned over the years for this and um, one is, is that, is this lamp? It does help. I have it in my office. It’s dark day here, cloudy day, turn it on, feeling better. Number two is, um, uh, going for that walk is so much easier in Chicago to just like go out and grab a coffee and get, get a little exercise, 20 minutes moving your heart, feeling better. And uh, I got to say even even during the our meetings, so we went all met up in Chicago for the Greyscalegorilla meeting, uh, in mid January. And I had that moment where I could have just as easily, I think it was maybe four or five o’clock, something like that. I drove in and I had that moment where I could just have easily done like one of four different things I could have just laid in bed and stared at my phone and then went to bed and woke up the next day ready for the meetings.
Nick Campbell: 39:17 I could have went into an office and stressed out about my slides and worried about stuff and just kind of double checked everything that maybe that could have been productive. I could have went to the bar, had a beer and looked over my slides and kind of did a little bit of both. Or I could go to like go to workout or just go do something physical with my body. And I feel like every time I make that decision where it’s like, I don’t have to do this for hours, but I’m going to go do some, just walk into the weight room and even like just go in and do three things. That is always, I feel like a better decision. I always feel better, even if I ended up getting a beer afterwards. I always feel so much better when I make that decision and it’s something for this year, you know, I’ve been trying to do more of is for me, it’s the West attitude.
Nick Campbell: 40:12 It’s why I love the mountains so much. Uh, I make this joke all the time. I may have made this on other podcasts, but when you go out West and you’re hanging out, everyone goes, what are we doing today? And they were like, Oh, well we’re going to go hike up this mountain and then we’re going to come back down. And then we might go to the bar and grab a drink and catch up. Like cool, cool day man. And in the Midwest you go, what are you doing today? They’re like, we’re going to this bar. And it’s part of, it’s that culture that I just love of like, all right, let’s go, let’s go. Like, you know, enjoy our scenery first and then, and then go have a beer that, uh, that is something that I’m kind of trying to do a little bit more of this year. Live in this little town. We got cool little trails to walk around. So that’s something I’m trying to do. Um, but uh, gosh, it is the gray. This is, we need to, can, can we cut out Eeyore for the thumbnail?
Michael Maher: 41:11 Oh, bother. Would you say it puts the grey in Greyscalegorilla.
Nick Campbell: 41:17 Ah, wow.
Michael Maher: 41:17 I’m on fire today.
Chad Ashley: 41:20 That’s two. That’s two. One more and you’re out.
Michael Maher: 41:22 No, one more. I think I’m going to have my whole set for the, what do you guys have the improv lounge up there? Haha Room.
Nick Campbell: 41:28 Hey everybody.
Chad Ashley: 41:29 The laugh factory.
Michael Maher: 41:30 I want to bring my show up North be sad with you guys.
Nick Campbell: 41:34 4D? I can’t even learn 3D. Well listen folks, um, uh, eh, you know, I think, I think here’s what we need to do. I think we need to get through these gray days. I think we need to get maybe some morning jumping jacks. I don’t know. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll add it to the, to the Greyscalegorilla schedule we’ll figure it out. And for those of you listening, like, let us know. You know, we have, uh, we have comments here on YouTube. I’m always looking through those. We get really, uh, great comments from you guys. Not only on YouTube but over on iTunes. And can you even do comments on Spotify? I don’t know. I know our podcast is up there now,
Michael Maher: 42:12 No but there’s actually good chats going on in our, the GSG connect slack as well. So we do love hearing from you guys.
Nick Campbell: 42:20 Yeah, that’s true. Uh, head on over to the Slack. Say hi. Let us know your, um, tricks and tips for getting through the gray days. What’d you call it, Chad? You had a better name, like great.
Chad Ashley: 42:34 Um, I don’t know. Dog days.
Nick Campbell: 42:37 It’s this, it’s this, it’s the Midwest dog days solid is folks.
Chad Ashley: 42:41 Yeah.
Nick Campbell: 42:42 Well look, uh, we’ll have a much more to announce soon about plus. Um, uh, so definitely go check that out. Uh, we’re gonna definitely check out the school of motion podcast about the end of the year. Stay tuned for Joey’s podcast coming up very soon, maybe next week. So, uh, subscribe to get that one built in. Send it right to ya. And I think, um, I’m not sure if the latest, uh, tutorial was even out at the, at the last podcast. So definitely go check out YouTube. We have a little peek into, uh, what is available on Plus over at the, uh, YouTube page also on our tutorial page. Definitely go check that out. We got so much more coming in 2020. We’re excited to tell you more about it. Um, and until then, unless there’s anything else, guys, we could wrap this one up and, uh, we’ll see you guys in another Greyscalegorilla podcast.
Michael Maher: 43:38 Bye everybody.
Nick Campbell: 43:39 Bye everybody.
Chad Ashley: 43:40 Bye Bye.
The post How Do You Stay Motivated During the Winter Blues? appeared first on Greyscalegorilla.
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