Spotify’s Sunita Kaur joins Twitch as APAC head

With competitors, Facebook, Mixer and YouTube eating away at its market share in the US, games streaming platform Twitch is now beefing up its Asia Pacific operations. For the first time, it has hired an MD to look after the region. Sunita Kaur, who was until recently at Spotify, has stepped into that role after holding many exec profiles across Asia at the likes of Facebook, Forbes and Microsoft. This makes the stance of Amazon-owned Twitch pretty clear, the brand would like to ensure it strengthens its first-mover advantage and position in arguably the most game and content crazy population in the world.

“Asia is a burgeoning region for user-generated live content and gaming, and we are excited to deepen our investments with Sunita’s hire,” said Twitch COO Sara Clemens. “Sunita’s 20 years of experience in digital advertising and online services and communities that serve content creators in APAC make her the perfect leader for Twitch’s business in the region.”

Prior to this Kaur served as the Southeast Asia MD for Spotify and further as the VP Revenue – APAC. She was instrumental in expanding Spotify through, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

What is Twitch?
Twitch is the world’s largest platform for live streaming games. According to a recent report it holds 61 per cent market share in the live game-streaming segment, followed by YouTube Gaming, Facebook Gaming and Microsoft’s Mixer.

What has changed recently?

 

According to the aforementioned report, albeit the Amazon-owned streaming giant holds the top position in market share, much further ahead than its contemporaries; other platforms are showing growth, while Twitch experienced a slight dip in the previous year.

Also, apart from gaming content from titles like Fortnite and League of Legends topping charts in terms of hours, the segment “Just Chatting,” the name being self-explanatory, ruled the platform in terms of hours.

What are the prospects of its competitors?

YouTube Gaming’s share was steady with 27.9 per cent of the market share from 27.5 per cent in the previous year worldwide. Microsoft’s streaming service Mixer swelled its share  to 2.6  per cent from 2 per cent in 2018. Facebook gaming, according to StreamElements CEO Doron Nir will become a meaningful player in this category by 2021. As the social media platform brings in more influencers and specific features targeted at the game streaming biz, the growth seems not very surprising.

How does talent relate to viewership in these platforms?

According to reports, total hours watched on Twitch fell to 2.3 million during the final quarter of last year, down from 2.6 million the quarter before (although overall watch time was up). This has apparently happened because of some high profile streamers like Ninja and Shroud leaving the platform, as they headed to Mixer. Even YouTube saw the entry of another popular streamer CouRage.

What lies ahead?

It would be interesting to see how the viewership patterns and content creation and consumption change over the coming year. It is unlikely that anyone will be dethroning Twitch anytime soon, but given the rise of other stable, streaming platforms Twitch will surely be keeping an eye out and up their efforts.

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MX Player expands their reach on the bigger screen; announces partnership with OnePlus for the OnePlus TV Q1 series

MX Player has created a strong foothold in the streaming world since its launch. Going beyond the six-inch screens and expanding its wide user base, the platform has announced a partnership with OnePlus, the global technology brand, for the OnePlus TV Q1 series.

Talking about MX Player now being available on the OnePlus TV, MX Player head of marketing and business partnerships Abhishek Joshi said, “Our vision of everytainment encompasses not just mobile screens but any avenue that will help us provide entertainment for our users and their discerning needs. We are glad to be associating with One Plus TV which accelerates our growth and expands our reach through bigger screens and connected TVs that promise a huge future uptake. Their technology along with our specially curated shows will enable audiences to watch premium content for free, on a screen of their choice.”

This collaboration will enable the viewer to watch MX Player’s premium web series like Queen, Hello Mini, Madhuri Talkies, TV shows like Bold and Beautiful and Hindi dubbed films like Max Steel, Dear Comrade, The Expendables 2 amongst other offerings from its large content library on the smart TV. The service will be available on the OnePlus TV Q1 series from 5 February onwards.

Speaking on the collaboration, OnePlus India general manager Vikas Agarwal said “We are thrilled to have MX Player on board and expand our suite of entertainment offerings. Given our community-first approach, we are sure our community will enjoy spending hours watching TV shows/movies on MX Player”.

The entertainment app offers viewers multi-genre and multilingual MX originals and exclusives along with an online library of premium content, the best in class offline video playing capabilities, audio music and now games – all on one common platform.

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Comic artist Abhijeet Kini to teach the art of creating comics at Kala Ghoda Art Fest 2020

With comic industry booming in India and many aspiring comic artists showcasing their art through various social media platforms, Abhijeet Kini Studios is having a comic workshop at Kala Ghoda Art Festival 2020, this coming weekend. The workshop will be focusing on making comics and will be help the participants take a look at how characters are created, the various sketching techniques and creating stories in the form of comics.

Abhijeet Kini Studios founder Abhijeet Kini says, “Comics is an artform, and also a storytelling platform. Hence, this genre fits well with the overall art theme of the fest. Kala Ghoda festival has always showcased talent, young and old and many artists look forward to this fest, which makes it the best platform for such workshops.”

The fest which takes place every year during this season brings together the creative industry and celebrates the various artforms. Design, music, dance, photography, you name it and you have it at this fest. And this year, with such workshops, comics too are taking a front seat at the prestigious art fest in Mumbai.

Kini’s workshop will take place over the weekend and comic enthusiasts should definitely try their hand there. Grab that drawing tool of yours and let the creativity pour out.

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Netflix announces to stream video through AV1 for Android

Netflix has announced that it’s going to stream video using AV1 on Android, which will enable high-performance, royalty-free codec providing around 20 to 30 per cent improved compression efficiency than Google’s VP9.

Developed by the Alliance for Open Media, its founding members include Google, Netflix, and Amazon all large video providers. Apart from these giants, the other governing members are Apple, ARM, Cisco, Facebook, IBM, Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nvidia, Samsung Electronics and Tencent.

Netflix

An official statement said, “[Netflix’s] goal is to roll out AV1 on all of their platforms…Selected titles are now available to stream in AV1 for customers who wish to reduce their cellular data usage by enabling the ‘Save Data’ feature.” This feature is particularly for subscribers abroad which is a key growth market. This results in an overall “good fit for AV1’s compression efficiency.”

At launch, the “Save Data” option — More tab > App Settings > Cellular Data Usage — must be set in the Android client. 

“Our AV1 support on Android leverages the open-source dav1d decoder built by the VideoLAN, VLC, and FFmpeg communities and sponsored by the Alliance for Open Media. Here we have optimized dav1d so that it can play Netflix content, which is 10-bit color. In the spirit of making AV1 widely available, we are sponsoring an open-source effort to optimize 10-bit performance further and make these gains available to all,” the streaming powerhouse added. 

Eventually, Netflix’s AV1 usage will expand to more use cases as “codec performance improves over time.” The service is already working with “device and chipset partners to extend this into hardware.”

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Atomic Cartoons from Thunderbird Entertainment opens new animation studio in L.A.

Vancouver-based Thunderbird Entertainment Group has announced the expansion of its kids and family division, Atomic Cartoons, by opening a new animation studio in Los Angeles. The new studio’s debut project is already in production for a major global broadcaster.

Helmed by Thunderbird and Atomic Cartoons chief creative officer Matthew Berkowitz, the new L.A. studio will also find Atomic Originals co-vice presidents Aaron Behl and Kristin Cummings in senior leadership roles.

“We are thrilled to expand our L.A. footprint with the opening of an animation studio to house our local showrunners, directors, writers, designers, storyboard artists and editorial teams. Similar to our studios in Vancouver and Ottawa, we plan to provide a supportive and creative environment for these tremendously talented individuals to achieve the best work of their careers. With the ever-increasing industry demand for premium original content, the new studio is a stellar opportunity to work with the amazing animation talent base in L.A., and partner up with our award-winning creative teams in Canada,” said Berkowitz.

Matthew Berkowitz

2019 saw the size of the streaming market for animation and VFX content reaching $3.5 billion, and is growing at an annual rate of eight percent. The opening of a new studio in L.A. demonstrates Thunderbird’s incredible ability to scale up to meet the continually increasing demand for on-demand content amidst the streaming wars through their kids and family division, Atomic Cartoons.

Having partners like Netflix, Disney, NBCUniversal, PBS, LEGO and Spin Master, Atomic Cartoons is well-positioned to continue providing service for the growing industry to meet the demand for high-quality animated content. The L.A. animation studio will house the Atomic Originals team and primarily focus on pre- and post-production – including writing, directing, storyboarding, design, casting and recording, and editorial.

Formed in October 2016 with the appointment of Berkowitz, The L.A. Atomic Originals team has developed and produced recent high-profile projects in collaboration with the Vancouver studio including The Last Kids on Earth by Max Brallier and Hello Ninja by N.D. Wilson, both presently streaming on Netflix. The studio’s upcoming slate includes an adaptation of the #1 New York Times bestselling Princesses Wear Pants by Savannah Guthrie and Allison Oppenheim, Eerie Elementary by Max Brallier, and a series in collaboration with global lifestyle brand tokidoki, as well as other projects which are yet to be announced.

Thunderbird and Atomic Cartoons CEO Jennifer Twiner McCarron mentioned, “The opening of our third animation studio [at L.A.] is another major milestone for Thunderbird and Atomic, allowing greater access to incredible talent and the ability to continue to create premium content across the industry. I am so proud of Matt Berkowitz and the entire L.A. Atomic team! Our new L.A. studio will continue to build on the success of our last three years in L.A. and I am beyond thrilled about what is ahead for Thunderbird, not only at our new L.A. hub, but across the entire Company.”

With the studio now open at North Ontario Street in Burbank, California, Atomic has capacity for 880 crew members across its three facilities. The existing offices for Atomic Cartoons in L.A. will also be integrated into the new facility to create a full-fledged production hub.

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POGO appoints Value 360 Communications as its brand communications partner for India-based PR activities

Indian kids’ entertainment channel, POGO, a part of WarnerMedia Entertainment Networks Asia Pacific, has appointed Value 360 Communications as its PR and brand communications partner.

The agency assumed the brand mandate on 1 February, 2020, and will be responsible for planning, managing and supporting all PR-related activities for POGO in India.

Value 360 Communications received the POGO mandate after a multi-stage, multi-agency pitch and was chosen for its brand-building expertise in the entertainment domain with existing clients like JioSaavn, Comic Con India, Navrasa Duende and former clients including SonyLIV, PVR Pictures, and KWAN Entertainment. The firm’s extensive media network and proven track record of consistently delivering high-impact communications solutions also played a key role in securing the contract.

Speaking on receiving the mandate, Value 360 Communications founder and director Kunal Kishore said, “We are delighted that India’s first home grown kids’ channel and leading entertainment brand, POGO has chosen us to lead its communications strategy. We are looking forward to creating and executing high-impact campaigns and delivering tangible brand results for the brand, as we contribute towards consolidating POGO’s market leadership in India.”

Launched in 2004, POGO is WarnerMedia’s only-for-India kids’ entertainment network featuring content that spans multiple genres like chase comedy, adventurous escapades and fun-filled action. The channel is home to popular Indian shows like Chhota Bheem, Super Bheem, as well as international hits Grizzy and the Lemmings and Mr. Bean.

Value 360 Communications’ latest account win follows close on heels of the recent additions to its client portfolio, which include prominent brands such as Union Bank of India, Angel Broking, DB (Dainik Bhaskar) Digital and LensCrafters. The organisation already caters to several big global and national brands across sectors such as Lufthansa, Qlik, Cleartrip, MG Motor India, Quick Heal, Indian Angel Network, TCL, Shine.com, TiE Delhi-NCR, Oriflame and ASUS.

WarnerMedia Entertainment Networks, South Asia, Communications director Deepa Sridhar added, “Value 360 Communications has differentiated itself in the brand communications space through innovative strategies and compelling brand narratives. We have full faith in the team’s ability and expertise. We view Value 360 Communications not as an agency or a partner but as an extension of our in-house team and are confident that they will live up to their name by adding 360-degree value to all our PR-related brand initiatives.”

With a strong team of more than 250 professionals, Value 360 Communications is currently managing a portfolio of over 150 brands in sectors as diverse as hospitality, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, IT/ITeS, automotive, on-demand logistics, fintech, proptech and more. With its headquarters in New Delhi, it has principal offices Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and is looking to expand to more cities in the near future.

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TeamTO, M6 and Canal + collaborate on animated comedy ‘Presto! School of Magic’

Leading European kids entertainment companies TeamTO, M6 and Canal + have partnered for Presto! School of Magic (52 x 11), an animated comedy series based on the N’Wave Studio Canal’s international hit feature, House of Magic

Together with Belgian co-production partners, Panache and La Compagnie Cinématographique, the agreement provides a green light for the series and a prestigious platform for the show in France.

M6 group head of Children’s programmes Lila Hannou said, “We are absolutely thrilled to be a part of this magic-filled show, and to begin our first collaboration with TeamTO. We love shows that encourage kids to discover their talent and develop their potential. Presto! School of Magic has both positive values and a heart – a perfect combination!”

Presto! School of Magic features a band of talented and curious kids who dream of becoming magicians. Star students Dylan and Lisa cannot believe how lucky they are to be part of the new school. Lorenzo, a retired magician of international renown, and his nephew have turned their old mansion into Presto! School of Magic, where Lisa, Dylan and fellow aspiring magicians Nica, Violet and Vincent, learn the tricks of the trade. They all have different reasons for attending the school – but they have one thing in common: a passion for illusion, conjuring and the art of magic!

 Canal + Children’s Division director Audrey Brugère added, “Following the success of Angelo Rules and My Knight and Me, we are delighted to once again partner with TEAMTO on Presto! School of Magic, and to have participated in its development. The series fits perfectly within the projects we choose for our channels, dealing with the everyday issues kids face in a world of imagination and humor. The series is a beautiful extension of the universe created in The House of Magic feature film, co-produced by Studio Canal.”

The series and its creatives come to the table with strong credentials for success: Presto! School of Magic was an official selection at Cartoon Forum 2017 where the series’ producer Corinne Kouper, was twice honoured as Producer of the Year in 2010 and 2015. Kouper is also the recipient of two Emmy Awards and one Pulcinella Award in her long career of creating hits such as Mighty Mike, Angelo Rules, Yellowbird the movie, Zoe Kezako and Rolie Polie Olie.

“From Houdini to Shin Lim – the recent winner of America’s Got Talent – we know that magic is timeless, mesmerizing and especially intriguing for kids.  This fun series will introduce children to what lies behind the curtain through the eyes of our heroes. And like in Fame and other shows that allow young people to discover their hidden talents – Presto! School of Magic shows what it takes to become a great magician,” commented TeamTO SVP development and production Corinne Kouper.

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Will Procreate and Cavalry Disrupt the Adobe Empire? | Interview with Joey Korenman

With apps like Procreate and Cavalry disrupting the Adobe ecosystem, should motion designers look to add these tools to their workflow?

In this episode, the team talks to School of Motion founder and all-around extraordinary human being Joey Korenman. Listen to them talk about updates Adobe is working on for After Effects and Photoshop, popular new tools like Procreate and Cavalry, and the benefits of online education versus a traditional school.

Both Joey and Nick Campbell also share insights to entrepreneur-ism and the challenges they face as leaders of growing companies.

This is an action-packed episode full of wisdom, so let’s hop into the podcast.

Subscribe to the Podcast | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | RSS

Show Notes:

  • Student loans are the only type of debt you can’t get rid of (Social Security is garnished for student loans)
  • Seth Godin
  • If people don’t invest in a course, they tend no to finish it
  • School of Motion Squash and Stretch tutorial

Episode Transcript:

Nick Campbell: 00:00 Hello friends. It’s Nick here from Greyscalegorilla and welcome to another Greyscalegorilla podcast. Today is an extra special episode. We had Joey Korenman from School of Motion here on the podcast and we ended up talking about a ton of different stuff including his recent trip to Adobe max. Talk about some of the new stuff that Adobe announced. We also talk about the state of online education and how to really get the best bang for your buck in today’s online education world. We also talk about growing your team. We’ve both experienced some growth in our team and uh, kinda go a little bit behind the curtain on how to grow a bigger team for business. So, um, some really interesting discussion. Always great to talk to Joey. And without further ado, let’s jump into today’s podcast with Joey Korenman from School of Motion.

[Music Plays]

Nick Campbell: 01:06 Hello friends. I’m gonna call you render friends from now on. Hello render friends. Welcome to the Greyscalegorilla podcast. Today is extra special. We have Nick and Chad and Michael here from Greyscalegorilla. How you guys doing?

Michael Maher: 01:17 Doing good.

Chad Ashley: 01:19 Doing good.

Nick Campbell: 01:20 Oh, and we’re all here. We got the whole team together to welcome our extra special guest today. Please welcome Joey Korenman and he’s from School of Motion. By the way, if you don’t know this, this friendly face, Joey, how have you been man.

Joey Korenman: 01:32 I’ve been awesome. And thank you so much for nailing the pronunciation of Korenman. I know we practiced before we started recording, but you, that was a 10 out of 10 Nick. Thank you.

Nick Campbell: 01:41 Did I do it right? Is there now see there’s that E in there we talked a little bit about, but I’m gonna say, the corn man himself. Joey. How that, that’s, that’s how I’m going to remember it.

Joey Korenman: 01:50 I love it. Yes. And I do actually really enjoy corn. So it’s appropriate.

Nick Campbell: 01:55 Who doesn’t, come on, we’re in America. Let’s go.

Joey Korenman: 01:58 Yeah, I mean, and I know that you love soup, so you know, see, you’re named really well.

Nick Campbell: 02:02 Well, so, so last name Campbell and my great grandma once told me it’s pronounced camp bell and I still don’t believe her camp bell. Can you believe it?

Joey Korenman: 02:11 Are you calling her a liar?

Nick Campbell: 02:12 I mean, I don’t know where it is. Where’s the hiss? Where’s the history on that one? But, uh, you could, you could say it either way. Joey, thank you for joining us today. Uh, now you just got back from, um, uh, Adobe max and we gotta we gotta get the inside scoop because, uh, we were over here not paying as much attention as we should have and you don’t, maybe you could fill us in a little bit. Well, how was it?

Joey Korenman: 02:34 So I’ll give you some of the highlights. Uh, so first of all, I’ve never been to a conference like this one. Um, I mean, obviously it’s like a big sort of celebration of Adobe, you know, in a way it’s a big commercial for Adobe. Um, but they actually do a really amazing job of getting ridiculous speakers to come, you know, um, you know, I was walking around and all of a sudden there’s Aaron Draplin and, uh, I got to go listen to G munk talk. And then for some reason, I, yeah, exactly. And so, so there were so many great speakers and, and the rooms that they give these talks in are enormous because there’s like 16,000 attendees. And so, you know, if you watch the YouTube live stream, uh, which you can actually go to to Adobe’s YouTube channel and watch these things, they record them. The big main kind of keynotes that they do where they unveil new features and they have celebrities come up and give talks. The, it’s a, it’s one room with 15,000 people in it. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. And this year the keynotes were incredible. And, um, my seven year old daughter actually, uh, probably watched it because Billie Eilish was one of the, uh, speakers. Um, and I don’t know, do three even know who Billie Eilish is. Like Chad, you might like you, you’ve got a daughter,

Chad Ashley: 03:49 bro, yeah.

Joey Korenman: 03:50 See, I’ve kind of gotten into the music now because that’s all we play in my house.

Chad Ashley: 03:54 Yeah. My daughter went to that one to her concert. I don’t really get into her as, she’s a bit sleepy for me. Okay. But, um, I appreciate it.

Joey Korenman: 04:02 Yeah, yeah. So, and then also Dave Grohl, uh, was sort of the last, um, person

Chad Ashley: 04:07 yeah, that’s more my jam.

Nick Campbell: 04:08 Yeah.

Joey Korenman: 04:09 I mean, he’s a national treasure. Uh, I love him.

Nick Campbell: 04:12 He really is.

Joey Korenman: 04:12 Um, it was a lot of fun. And then, you know, there’s this party called the max bash, which I thought, okay, you know, I’ve been to conferences where there’s parties before this was insane. They rented out the staple center in Los Angeles and there’s this area around it called LA live, which is this giant outdoor sort of section. And Adobe just kind of bought all of that for the night. And this band called vampire weekend played a concert in the arena that only people at Adobe max could go see. I mean, it was absolutely ridiculous. The scale of it.

Chad Ashley: 04:44 They have some cash over there.

Joey Korenman: 04:47 They’ve got a couple of, maybe, maybe they have just a few bucks. Yeah. Their stock price is doing okay. Yeah. Yeah. So it was a lot of fun and it was a, it was a big honor to be asked to go and speak there. And, um, you know, and I always love meeting the after effects team. You know, Tim and Andrew and Michelle. Um, I didn’t see Victoria there. Victoria is the the product manager. But um, but it’s a really awesome team of humans that make after effects and it’s always fun to get to go meet up with them too.

Nick Campbell: 05:13 Yeah, that was a, so last year it was my first year at max and had a similar experience where I got to meet, you know, some of the celebrities walking around, which was great. But actually meeting the Adobe team, I think it was more fun for me. It was like, Oh you just, you just sit and make after effects. You literally make after effects. That’s great. It was a quite amazing and yeah the, the show they put on and the room that, that thing is, I, I was like how far away from my, from the stage, cause those screens are so big and I finally stood up on my tippy toes and I could barely see the silhouette of the speaker up front. I’m like, I’m halfway in this room and I could barely see them.

Joey Korenman: 05:48 It’s a football field between you and the stage. It’s insane.

Nick Campbell: 05:51 It was crazy. So any, any features, any, any big news from, from Adobe side that, that we should, uh, we should download and get used in right away?

Joey Korenman: 05:59 Well, I think the biggest thing that they announced was probably Photoshop for the iPad, which actually looks pretty amazing to be honest. Um, you know, they, they’ve managed to basically bake the entire app into an iPad app and they’ve also, and it’s not like they just ported it over, they made an iPad version so that you have gestures for undo and things like that. Um, I dunno if you guys have ever played around with ProCreate the drawing app on a, on iPad, but it’s so fun to use because they were really smart about using gestures, you know, like you can undo by tapping with three fingers and you can tap with two fingers to, you know, sort of move around and, and so, uh, the Adobe’s done this with Photoshop. And then the other really neat thing that really kind of, I was geeking out on was they have this technology that they call sensei, which I think is some sort of machine learning algorithm, you know, Skynet kind of thing.

Joey Korenman: 06:55 And this is what it’s kind of like this general technology that they use in a million places. So like the content aware fill for video that they announced. Uh, I think that was actually the last max, um, that uses that technology. It’s also in photo shop, like when you use there, uh, there’s this button now in Photoshop that man, it would’ve been so handy when I was doing client work that says select subject and it uses like machine learning to figure out what the subject of the photo is and it will generate a mask and it’s pretty damn good at it. And so they’ve, they showed all these new sort of tech demos where let’s say you have a shot of food and there’s like 10 things on a plate, you can sort of like roughly select one of them and it will figure out what you were trying to select and generate like an almost perfect mask around it.

Joey Korenman: 07:43 So they’re really like pushing the envelope with machine learning. There was, um, there was another tech demo they did that I missed. Uh, my team was telling me about where they have this new technology that will end up in an app somewhere where you can take a video of a person walking around without tracking markers or anything and it can sort of figure out how they’re moving and then apply that to a rig. So it’s sort of like, you know, uh, markerless motion capture. Um, I mean, so yeah, there’s all kinds of crazy stuff that, that Adobe is doing. And eventually a lot of it’ll end up in the apps. But, um, and I, and I will say that they also released after effects 17.0 during max. Uh, which goes a lot faster, which I think is probably the best feature they could have added. They actually really focused on speed as opposed to a whole bunch of new features.

Nick Campbell: 08:30 You guys put on an excellent video about that. Kind of going over some of the, um, uh, some of the new features and some of the speed enhancements and, uh, where, where can people find that video, uh, for those, uh, if you haven’t seen it, go check it out. Where, where’d you guys post that one?

Joey Korenman: 08:46 Thank you for that next. Yeah. So if you go to schoolofmotion.com, uh, and you go to tutorials, you’ll find it in there. There’s a big sort of thumbnail that says After Effects 17.0, it’s also on our YouTube channel. Um, so it’s pretty easy to find. And Kyle Hammerich who we’ve been working with for a long time, he’s a teaching assistant for us. He’s done a lot of content for us. He’s really, really awesome teacher. Um, he uh, he was also speaking at Adobe max and he, he put that one together for us. Um, and for any sort of expression geeks, there’s like a really cool new feature for expressions where you can create dropdown menus on layers now and, and have that drive different things and stuff. So there are some cool new features. But really the main thing that I thought was cool is they just made it faster.

Nick Campbell: 09:27 Man. I’ve been waiting for that.

Chad Ashley: 09:28 That’s a huge thing cause that’s the, that’s the big complaint. Right?

Joey Korenman: 09:32 Yeah. Well and it’s funny Chad, cause I know you’re a fusion guy and we’re, we uh, we recently announced this visual effects for motion design class and one of the bonus lessons that we put together for that was sort of, cause the whole class takes place in after effects. And so we put a bonus lesson together sort of talking about nodes versus layers and after effects versus a node-based compositor. And when I was doing client work, I used a nuke. So I got pretty comfortable with that. But I didn’t want to use nuke for this because it’s really expensive. And I wanted students to be able to like try something out if they are, if they’re into this. So I used fusion and I’d never used it before, but it was really easy to learn coming from nuke. And I was absolutely floored by the speed of that app. It is, it’s, I mean, I love after facts. It’s my bread and butter, but fusion, it’s like the speed of thought almost sometimes in like, I mean even the tracker and stuff like that, it’s so great. So I might have to start diving into that a little bit more too.

Chad Ashley: 10:30 Dude, let me know. I’ll, I’ll set you up nice.

Joey Korenman: 10:35 And there’s a free version of it, which was, that’s crazy. That’s why I chose it because our students can then go play with it if they want to. But there’s literally a free version of it.

Chad Ashley: 10:44 Yeah, that’s crazy. When it was purchased by, uh, by black magic, I was sort of like really nervous that they were gonna destroy and kill the standalone version because I’d use the standalone version for so long. And they were basically roping it into resolve proper as like a panel in resolve. And we were all like, Oh my God, no, they’re, they’re going to kill it or they’re just gonna let it be this thing inside of resolve. And uh, I think they, they listened to the, to the public, which is great and they actually invested more time and money into the standalone version, which is what I love using. And I was super stoked to to see that they’re, that they’re keeping that thing alive. Cause I think it’s probably the best comper out there in my opinion because it’s, it’s sort of like a, a bridge. It’s sort of an in between nuke and after effects where you can be creative with it, but you can also get really deep into it, uh, from like, you know, uh, a comping perspective. I don’t tell people that they should do motion design in there because that’s just like, yeah, not the right place for that. But for comping, it’s great.

Joey Korenman: 11:49 Yeah. That’s what I found too. And I, again, I was just like completely by the speed. And I love how it’s integrated into resolve. You know, like the way premiere and after effects work together is really, really handy. Uh, but there is still this kind of gap between them, whereas in, you know, nuke studio, that’s the Foundry’s version of what da Vinci has put together. Um, you know, you’ve got a timeline and then you basically like, you know, double click on a clip and all of a sudden you’re now in a node tree. Um, it’s kinda like flames work and, and now with resolve and fusion, it’s, it’s not quite that seamless yet, but you can kind of tell it that’s the direction it’s going.

Chad Ashley: 12:28 Yeah. And I tell people to like play with it, you know, cause you might find that you like that workflow and, and honestly, the color tools that you get in a DaVinci right there in front of you are super powerful. And there’s also some really cool, uh, de noising in, in, um, uh, DaVinci that they’ve had forever because you know, you’re, you’re constantly degraining footage and regrading it. So they have some really good Denoisers in there.

Joey Korenman: 12:56 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s sort of best in class for color grading, like on, you know, at, at this scale, you know, unless you want to go up to something like, I don’t know Baselight or something super expensive, right. Who’s already got time for that?

Nick Campbell: 13:10 It’s reminded me a little of a, our last podcast that went out, um, where we talked about some of the other, uh, pieces of software that, uh, motion designers and, uh, visual effects artists are kind of using. And we talked about this, this, uh, thing that’s been happening slowly but even quicker lately, which is no longer is just like one piece of software installed on your computer. And, uh, you open it and you use it. Now there’s people are jumping in between all of this amazing new software and, uh, Joey, I’ve always looked up to what you guys have been doing over at School of Motion and having great teachers and an incredible, um, you know, group audience that you have. What have you, what have you been seeing on your side of maybe new software or you know, what’s, what are, what are people using these days to get their job done? And maybe is there something new that we haven’t even seen yet that’s going to pop up here?

Joey Korenman: 14:04 Well, I’m still very much focused on the 2D side of things. It’s actually, it’s interesting because a, I was talking to, uh, to Paul and Matthias said I’m at max. Maxon had a, had a presence there. And um, and Matthias was asking me like, Hey, do you, do you use cinema 4d at all? And you know, when I was doing client work, I was literally 50, 50 cinema 40. And after effects I was like really kind of trying to be both. Um, but then when School of Motion started to grow, our first class was a two D class. So now that’s sort of all I have been with to focus on. Right. And so, and so EJ thank God he’s, he’s focused on the 3d side, so he’d be better to ask about about that. But on the 2D side, the truth is there’s not really that many new apps, I’ll say that procreate, um, for the iPad that has actually become kind of the tool of choice for illustrators. Um, we have an illustration for motion designers class that came out this year. Uh, Sarah Beth Morgan who is brilliant, teaches that one and she actually, you know, she has a big Cintiq and that’s generally what she uses to work on.

Joey Korenman: 15:10 Um, but we wanted to have her teach, uh, that you know how to use an iPad because that’s accessible since peaks are still pretty expensive and you have to have the room form and now you’ve got procreate, which I, you know, it’s like a, I don’t know, 10 or $20 app. It’s really inexpensive and it’s incredible. The drawing tools in my opinion are better than Photoshops and it’s really intuitive and it can spit out a Photoshop layered file. And so, um, that app has really kind of taken over the illustration world, which is really cool to see. Um, but then in terms of two D animation, it’s still 90% after effects. There is a new app being developed, um, by, I’m trying, I don’t want to get the company wrong. I’m pretty sure it’s mainframe. Uh, in the UK they’re building an app called cavalry.

Nick Campbell: 15:58 Oh, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen little snippets.

Chad Ashley: 16:00 I’m on the beta, but I’ve never opened it.

Joey Korenman: 16:04 Yeah. So, so I, I’m on the beta two and I’ve opened it a couple of times and you know, it’s a beta app, so it’s not, it’s not ready to use on client work and there’s a lot of things that you’d need that, that are kind of missing. Um, but the, they’re building it in a way where if you use cinema 40, especially if you use the MoGraph tools, it’s pretty intuitive and they’re doing it, they’re building it. It’s a completely different system than the way after effects works. Um, and I can see it maybe in a couple of years when it gets developed, more being an incredibly useful tool for certain types of animation. Um, and also too, I just, I love that there is somebody trying to create some kind of competition for after effects. I mean, I don’t see after effects going anywhere, but there has not been competition. And I think it makes it, um, it does slow the pace of development when, when there isn’t.

Nick Campbell: 16:54 Any, anytime there’s competition, even if even if you stay where you are, it’s just going to help everybody. It’s kind of this, this new, um, blender energy that’s happening. You know, people are asking like, do I need to switch to blender is it’s really, um, uh, not, not that, not that there’s going to be like the ultimate winner at the end of all this by having tighter competition like that, they’re all just going to get better faster. And so that’s, that’s the exciting part for the customer is like a blender might add something or, or, um, Calvary might have this concept and that’ll push after effects to be even better for the next version. So that’s, that’s what’s exciting about that to me. For sure. Yeah.

Chad Ashley: 17:34 The idea behind cavalry is really fascinating. The idea that something like 2D animation that largely has never sort of appreciated a procedural workflow is now going to be able to sort of work like that, which is really great. I feel like the complexity of 2D is getting insane. Like I don’t know how some of these artists are handling some of these animations that I’m seeing. Like I don’t even know how I would approach that if it wasn’t in three D. so the idea of a program that is sort of built on a foundation of proceduralism to a certain extent, and it’s also intuitive from what I’ve seen. I haven’t played with it yet, but that idea is great. It’s only going to make everybody’s work better and you’re just gonna see a lot more crazy stuff.

Joey Korenman: 18:20 Yeah, there’s this, there’s this thing that I see in the 2D world. I’m trying to think how to put this into words. So in 3D when you’re working in, in cinema 4D like you’re way more likely to, if you have this vision in your head of what you want to see, you have to build that actual thing to see it, right? Like you. Like if I have this vision of, I dunno, some sort of Essure looking composition, I have to literally build all the pieces in three D. and so it’s, it’s a lot more literal of a process, whereas in 2d, it doesn’t matter how the thing’s built at all, as long as the pixels in the final render look the way you want them to. And so, uh, it’s in two D there’s always been, I feel like this universe of hacks that you have to learn how to do to get the result. You know, we, um, we had, we worked with ordinary folk, this amazing studio in Vancouver to do a manifesto video for us this year. And there’s shots in there that I looked at and I’m like, how the hell did you do that? And after effects and they have breakdowns on their site and it’s like expressions in these crazy hacks where you have this pre-comp but on the next frame you switch, switch out a different pre comp so that it just looks the right way. And in three D it’s much harder to do that. And I think cavalry, the goal is it’ll let you work a little bit more like you do in 3d where it’s like I want a field of things that are all randomly moving and then they combine at the end and you actually make that as opposed to faking it. You know, like turning off this layer on one frame and turning on a new layer and kind of, you know, doing this slight of hand thing.

Chad Ashley: 19:52 I just have to say that manifesto video was insanely good.

Joey Korenman: 19:58 Yeah, it was. I, I, I wish I could take more credit for it. I picked the right person to head it up, which is, which is Jorge. I mean he is one of mine. He’s the best. Yeah. I could not be happier with that thing.

Chad Ashley: 20:11 When I watched it, I was like, Jesus, how, how, what.

Nick Campbell: 20:15 you guys have been, uh, on a roll man on fire this year with, with, uh, that piece and all these new courses coming out the scene. Are you launching two or three new courses? What’s, um, what’s, what’s in the, what’s in the near future for you guys? Sure.

Joey Korenman: 20:29 So this year we released, uh, illustration for motion, which is taught by Sarah Beth Morgan. And um, that class was really the first. So this year we grew like crazy, uh, like real, like literally like crazy. Like we started the year with, um, with six full time staff and we’re ending the year with 16, uh, which, which was just crazy and terrifying and awesome. Um, and so, and part of that was we made this big investment to upgrade our production values. So we bought these like production kits with 4K cameras and lighting kits and shotgun mics and Atomos recorders. And, and we, we invested in a bunch of those. And so now we send those out to our instructors when they’re making a class. Sarah Beth’s class was the first one where we did this. And it was really challenging to make that cause we had to figure out how the hell to make a class that uses a camera. And you know, Sarah Beth is an illustrator so that she doesn’t have a ton of experience using the camera. So how do we teach instructors to do all that? She was kind of the, the beta for that and she did such a good job and I’m so proud of that class. And so then we took that experience and we built, um, the next two classes, which are both coming out. Uh, we announced both of them, but there’ll be on sale in a few weeks. A VFX promotion, which the instructor, and by the way, this was like a bucket list thing to get this guy Mark Christianson. He wrote.

Nick Campbell: 21:54 Wow.

Joey Korenman: 21:54 He wrote the book. Yeah. He wrote after effects, uh, compositing techniques. Um, which, and it’s so funny because I remember I told him when he, when he agreed to do the class, I said, you know, I remember being in like, I dunno, like right out of college or something. And I was in a bookstore, uh, back when people still went to bookstores and I saw that book and I opened it up and flipped to a random page. And there was this technique on how to match, uh, something that you’ve keyed onto a background plate using levels and using, you know, channels and stuff. And I’d never seen it before. And I read that. And then like five years later I had to do that exact thing and I knew how to do it because of him and it like saved my bacon. And now he’s, he’s created this crazy class that that class is, is nuts. We actually, um, all of our classes are project based. So we had to come up with like real world scenarios. Like why would you have to key out talent with blonde hair that’s also inside of a car and there’s reflections. And so we would sort of write a fake promo for a fake TV show. We flew to Boston and we worked with a production company and shot, it was a pretty big scale shoot, um, and captured like 11 different projects. Uh, you guys might remember this. There’s a, there’s a really famous TV commercial from the 80s for Maxwell tapes where the students sitting in a chair and his Butler comes up and shows him the tape, puts it.

Nick Campbell: 23:15 Yeah.

Joey Korenman: 23:16 And then, yeah. And then he turns on the music and it’s like opera or something and the wind starts blowing and it’s like a jet engine. So we recreated that. We literally like built a set, recreated that, um, and had Nydia Diaz do a smart direction and design for it so that it, I mean, we went nuts with that one. Um, and Mark is an incredible teacher and then the other class is called expression session. Um, and you guys probably know that after effects, artists are sort of oddly obsessed with learning how to write expressions. Um, and so we got Noel Hoenig who is brilliant. He’s, uh, he lives in New York and he freelances for companies like golden Wolf and CYOP.

Joey Korenman: 23:54 And he also taught our beginner after effects class. Uh, he paired up with Zach Lovett who is pretty well known in the world of script development and expressions. He, uh, he developed explode shape layers and flow, which are two very popular scripts for after effects. So the two of them paired up and taught and created this insane expressions class. Uh, and it was, that was really difficult too because Noel’s in New York and Zach’s in Los Angeles, so we had to ship them each a camera and an iMac pro and, and they had to figure out how to like co-teach, um, across the country. And that class is amazing too. Uh, we, we had artwork from, uh, Jimmy Simpson and Carly cyclone and, and some amazing artists. Uh, there’s a lot of fake UI kind of projects in there and, um, creating templates and turning those into, you know, things editors can use.

Joey Korenman: 24:45 And so we’ve been so busy this year, um, that I kind of can’t wait for the holidays to come around. So a sec.

Nick Campbell: 24:54 A little break.

Joey Korenman: 24:55 Yeah, exactly. It’s been great though. I mean, and, and my favorite part about the whole thing is just seeing how our team has grown. And you know, Amy, who I know you’ve met before, you know, she was, she was the first person that I ever hired and she’s been with us the whole time and now she’s our executive producer and she’s managing a team and, and you know, and helping make these things happen. Uh, EJ, uh, is working on, um, a new class that he’s going to teach. Plus we just signed on another instructor, uh, to, to be named, uh, eventually. Um, and, and he’s going to be making a pretty amazing 3d class too. So there’s a lot going on. And, uh, sometimes I, I describe it as just trying to hang onto the bowl at this point. Like, I feel like, you know, if I was hit by a bus, this would keep going. Like, you know, like I, I’m not the linchpin anymore.

Nick Campbell: 25:42 Well this, this may be a little inside baseball for some of the listeners, but I, I’m really interested in how, what, what the hiring, um, uh, the roles that were filled to go from six to 16. You know, I feel like we’re, you know, we’re, we’ve hired three people in the last, uh, three, four months now we’re on this really, um, with, with plus kind of as the successes as what, uh, what, what happened with plus and everything we have planned for it. We just know that we’re building this team really quickly and so I would, I would kind of want to know what was that process like? And you have any, any tips for someone that is currently at six or seven and might grow in, in the, in the same way?

Joey Korenman: 26:25 Yeah, totally. We’ll see the one of the smartest things I ever did and it w it wasn’t smart cause I’m smart. It was smart cause someone told me to do this and I did it. Uh, I just listened, um, was to really kind of separate the operations of the company from the sort of visionary aspect. I’m not a good operations person. That’s not, that’s not my strong suit at all. Um, and so when, uh, when Alaena VanderMost came on and she’s our COO, um, she basically took over like, how are, you know, I, if I say I want, you know, us to do this, she can figure out how we do that and what we need and you know, as long as we have enough money to do that, she, you know, has free reign almost. And so she recognized all these gaps that we had. So like at the beginning of the year, we, uh, scaled up our support team, but we actually sort of started thinking about it differently. Like we have, um, we have customer support obviously, and I know you guys do too, but we also kind of took the model of, you know, at a lot of startups, they don’t call their support team a support team. They call it customer success, which is kind of like silly sounding. We call it, like we, we basically call ours a student experience. So, okay, that department, which right now is two people full time. Um, and a handful of, uh, sort of contractors, um, they handle all the support tickets and all that stuff, but that’s only half their job. The other half is how do we make these classes more engaging and more fun? And how do we connect alumni with studios? And it’s basically all about making the experience better. So it’s actually just investing in things like, you know, okay, this class just had a really hard lesson and the energy level dropped. How can we bring it back up? Let’s have a contest and it’s, you know, take a picture of your workstation and whoever has the cleanest one gets a free tee shirt. Like just stuff like that where, you know, it just adds to the experience, but you need people to do that. So that was one thing we did, um, up until the very end of last year, our marketing team was one person. Um, Michael, how you doing buddy?

Michael Maher: 28:33 I, uh. Hm. So Caleb’s doing well then?

Joey Korenman: 28:41 Caleb is killer. He’s an amazing dude. Um, but yes, but we brought on a Ryan Plummer towards the end of last year. Uh, and then this year, um, we brought on two more people, uh, for our marketing team. Uh, CJ and Phil. Um, we also, uh, this year EJ came on as our 3d creative director. So he’s in charge of the three D curriculum. Um, that’s, uh, that’s his to mess up if he now he’s like, he’s absolutely talking to him, gets me so excited cause he’s got such an incredible grasp of like the thing in his head. He’s got this vision of what he’s going to build.

Nick Campbell: 29:19 He’s awesome. He’s a great hire man. I had got to spend some time with him out, uh, on some of these max on trips that, uh, had been happening. The road tour or whatever they call it. It’s always good to catch up with each. I’m going to see him in Denver actually here.

Joey Korenman: 29:32 Yeah, I know. I was actually thinking of coming out to that, but I have, I have too much travel. I’m actually going to see tool this week or next week. Um, so I’ve, I’ve, I basically had been told I can’t fly anymore. Uh, but in addition to that, I mean, we, um, we brought on a second producer this year, Reagan who, um, she actually was my producer, uh, at toil, the studio that I was running up in Boston and she lives in Hawaii. So we have, we literally span, you know, as far from East to West is as you can possibly go. We brought on a junior producer, Kaylee, uh, we brought on Zach who is our technical product manager. So he’s basically managing all of the engineers and all the technology on our site. Um, we’re in the middle of a huge site redesign that we were hoping to launch in December. I have a feeling it’s going to push to January, but he’s managing that whole thing. Um, and we’re, and then we just brought on somebody that, uh, I can’t really talk about it quite yet. Um, but we’ll have some pretty cool news towards the end of the year, um, about who we’re bringing on. Uh, so it’s really like, like overall it’s been student experience, beefing up marketing, which was long overdue. Uh, and then.

Michael Maher: 30:45 [Cough Cough]

Joey Korenman: 30:45 We’re making classes and you alright there? Wait, wait, wait. Frog in your throat.

Nick Campbell: 30:51 I lost a lost connection there for a sec.

Joey Korenman: 30:53 Yeah, I dunno. I dunno what that was. But anyway, it’s, you know, it’s sort of like we’ve, I it felt like we hit this inflection point where you’re a small company and you’re able to get away with kind of having everybody just being a Swiss army knife and, and then it was weird. It’s like, it just, there was just a point where all of a sudden everything started to break and we were like, Oh. Well we need this person to fix that and then something else breaks. Oh, we need this person to fix that. And actually a big part of it, um, which I’m sure you know, you and Chad can definitely, uh, appreciate is, um, I was doing eight things and Alaina was doing eight things and both of us, like ha had no ability to turn our brains off ever. Uh, or to like, you know, take time off and not be like constantly thinking about stuff. And so a lot of it is also offloading things to people who are better at it than us, um, and have the bandwidth to, you know, to really focus on it. And so it’s also opened up Alaina and my bandwidth and, um, and let us be able to like poke our head up and kind of look around and say like, Oh, okay, so where should this giant boat go now, you know, and, and listening to our alumni, um, you know, I, I go to conferences a lot and I’d meet alumni everywhere and they’re telling us like, this is what we want, this is what we want. And up until pretty recently, we had no ability to do anything about it cause we just didn’t have bandwidth. Um, so yeah, I don’t think, I don’t think we’ll double again next year and head count. But um, I, I bet we get up to maybe 20 or something, but this was the year. This was like the, the crazy year.

Nick Campbell: 32:32 No, thanks for sharing that. Cause we’re, we’re, I think in a similar place to where we, we all had so many hats on. We all kind of knew roughly how everything else worked. And at a certain scale you have to have things a little bit more isolated and a little bit more focus, like hire people that just do that one thing and make sure that that is happening. And that that’s been our transition over the last year as well. And I’m experiences experiencing the same thing too when it works. Right. The, you know, we could kind of lift our heads and have a breath to look in and plan better and see what’s coming down rather than all of us like just, you know, heads down in the factory making all this stuff. So it’s been, um, it’s been a really fun transition last year and I appreciate you, uh, kind of sharing that actually had a question about the first thing you said cause there was, there’s something interesting to maybe pick apart that I think might also help. Um, you know, freelancers and in any of us listening that are kind of starting our own business is separate. The separating the vision from operations. And it reminded me of of something that I remember when I was working, um, as a designer and working in animation that a lot of times the, uh, we were directed to make a board that we didn’t, where we didn’t have to worry about how it was going to be made and essentially instead of making a board to, to, to try to win over a client and worrying about how this was going to be animated and worrying about the technology and worrying about the plugins used, trying to like ignore all that part and then just literally make the best board possible for that client. And then if it wins, we can go find the technology or find the freelancers to get it done. Is that kind of roughly what like separate vision from operations is in a bit more business way of like, let’s, you know, pick where the future is, what the vision is without worrying about the tech. And then once we know that that’s the future turn around and hand it off to operations, is that, did I understand that correctly?

Joey Korenman: 34:40 That’s a good connection to make. I never thought of it that way, but I think that’s exactly what it is to be honest. Uh, so I, um, you know, when you start a business and this and this definitely a hundred percent applies to anyone who has been a generalist or a freelancer and then you graduate or you get promoted to creative director, let’s say it’s a totally different way of thinking. Uh, and it’s, it is kind of like separating the how and the why a little bit. Um, and, and yeah, that’s kind of exactly what it is. I mean, I’m trying to think of a concrete example from, from our perspective. I mean, um, I mean, just like as an example, um, you know, we have, I think now we have like 34 or 35 teaching assistants for our classes and they’re, um, you know, their, their part time basically contractors. And, uh, you know, that we have to figure out like how many we need. And we have to hire them and, uh, we have to pay them and figure out how much they get paid based on how many students are in their session and this and that. And then they go on, uh, you know, sometimes they, they go on vacation and we need to like substitute one for the other and it’s this big logistical operational problem. And because money is involved cause we’re paying people, it was really hard for me to kind of let go of that for awhile. Um, and so there was this weird crossing of wires where I would maybe have Alaina deal with, um, you know, assigning students to teaching assistants. But then when it came time to pay them, I would then, uh, you know, I would be sending numbers to our bookkeeper to actually make the payments. And so it was sort of like, instead of just letting her own that process, I was kind of hanging onto a piece of it and micromanaging a little bit. Um, and then in the end it just got to be too much. And I finally gave it to her and she said, okay, now that I own this, I’m going to make this automated and smarter. And that’s what she’s brilliant at. That’s kind of her like genius is her ability to like make air tables and use, you know, Zapier and like create these. It’s almost automated now. Um, and once I let go of that and I was like, okay, here’s what I want. I want our TA’s to get paid on time every single time. Uh, and she figured out how to make that happen and it happens. I’m not really capable of figuring out how to make that happen and making it happen. She is. And because I was in the way initially, I like hadn’t fully let go. Um, we had problems and we had like, you know, screwed up payments and stuff like that. So, um, so really like that was a good lesson for me to realize, like if I let go and I just, you know, trust that this person truly is like way better at this than me, everything works better. Um, and so that, that’s been a muscle that I’ve had to develop over the last probably three years is just, um, I mean that’s, that’s been the hardest thing for me. Like as a whole building School of Motion is just learning to let go of things. And um, it’s the same thing. I think almost every entrepreneur minded person, you know, finds out, you feel like Superman. Like, Oh, you know, yeah, look, I made my own website and I figured out how WordPress works and I figured out how to use ScreenFlow and Vimeo and how to market this thing and look at, I did it all myself. And, and so it’s hard to let those pieces go. And, and the second you do, uh, your company goes from six to 10 in one year.

Nick Campbell: 38:01 That’s the secret.

Joey Korenman: 38:04 That is this, it really is. Honestly, someone was asking me at max, um, I ran into a couple of buddies who were also kind of in this online education space and they asked me what the, what’s the secret? Cause they’ve seen how big we’ve grown this year. And I said, um, build a good team. Like, and it’s so cliche, like I’m sure, you know, you hear that all the time. It’s easier said than done and it’s, it’s, it’s hard to find good people. But I think the hardest thing is as a, as the person who kicked off this party saying, okay, I’m not gonna be the bartender anymore. I’m let somebody else do that. You know, I’m not going to be the DJ anymore. Someone else is going to do that and being okay with it.

Nick Campbell: 38:40 Yeah. I personally have no clue what you’re talking about with all the micromanaging and letting go,

Joey Korenman: 38:45 yeah, Chad, chad, we’ll talk later.

Chad Ashley: 38:49 Let’s circle back on that.

Nick Campbell: 38:52 That’s been a huge, um, a huge part of, of, uh, my growth and the team’s growth too is, is kind of figuring that out because you’re right, you, you, you have that year or two where you did do it yourself. And I think this, I think this works in, in for freelancers and, and other, you know, business owners, even if you’re, uh, you know, working in as a freelancer or starting your own company, we all go through that part of it, which is, you know, I did this all on my own and I, and now that there’s other people around, how do I, how do I, uh, give up some of the, give the trust to the right people and also, um, how do you remove your ego from it as well? And I’ll tell ya, I’ll tell you a part of the secret and you’ve done this to Joey, is hiring really great people, uh, because that once you have the, once you could look at someone and they do it better than you and you can remove your ego from it, hopefully you could start to walk away and say, okay, they, it’s in good hands.

Joey Korenman: 39:49 Yeah. And, and you know, business coaching has been like invaluable for me there. Um, and, and this, I mean, I, I really recommend like anyone who feels like it would be helpful and you can find a good setup, like get, get a coach. I know. Um, you know, uh, our, our mutual friend Hayley runs, um, motion hatch and she’s got motion design masterminds, which is sort of like a, you know, it’s like a different flavor of coaching. Um, it’s just having somebody who’s like two steps ahead of you or outside of your bubble that can like be objective and look at what you’re doing and saying like, yeah, I can see you spinning your wheels a lot right here. Why don’t you just not do that? You know, um, like my favorite piece of advice. How about you? Uh, stop. Just not do that anymore. Yeah. How about you just go, Oh, I never thought about that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Um, yeah. And, and so, you know, when you’re in the middle of it, in the middle of the hurricane, it’s really hard to stop sometimes. So having, having outside counsel, uh, I’d say is also been really helpful.

Nick Campbell: 40:50 Well, I, I appreciate that. And, um, yeah, it’s, it’s, that’s also been a lot of the fun for me of like learning how to build the team and how to, how to get to where we we want. There’s so much we’re doing this year and the, the success of Greyscalegorilla Plus and like everything we have planned there is like, like it ignited a new, um, like I feel like it’s ignited a new fire in the team and, and our purpose and everything we’re, we’re building right now is, is for this, this, this plus group and it’s been, um, it’s been really fun. So I appreciate that, that kind of insight. Cause uh, I I have a feeling we’ll, we’ll see if we get to 16, but, uh, I have a feeling this might be the year as well.

Joey Korenman: 41:33 I wanted to congratulate you on that too, real quick man. Cause I know like when you guys announced it and you did it, I mean I can’t imagine how scary that must’ve been. You know, cause that’s a big, that’s a big shift from the way you guys have been operating. And from what I’ve heard is, you know, everyone I’ve encountered who’s used it, raves about it. Um, and I, I expect that you will eventually get to 16, um, because I think it’s gonna it’s gonna allow Greyscalegorilla to operate in a different way and really like have, you know, I think a little more of a runway to like launch things and really like help your customers and help your audience. Um, in a way that was probably a little bit harder to do before. Um, because now you’ve got this ongoing relationship.

Nick Campbell: 42:17 Yeah. And that, that’s what’s been fun too internally now that we, now that we have an ongoing relationship with our customers, we’re allowed internally to have ideas that we don’t have to necessarily package up in new $100 box.

Joey Korenman: 42:33 Right.

Nick Campbell: 42:33 You can have an idea that is a simple scene file or a smaller material pack like, you know, 10 materials and say, you know, let’s, let’s just build this and, and include it in plus because we think that that will help. Or if there’s a new trend in a certain direction, we don’t have to, um, you know, again, package it up into a a hundred or 200, $100 box. It’s just included. It’s right there in your membership. And that’s been really fun. And we’re seeing our customers, um, really respond to that too. Even the quick tips, Chad just put out a bunch of, uh, like five, 10, 15 minute quick tips of stuff that really wouldn’t have fit well on YouTube. It’s really not this stuff people would search for on YouTube, but it’s like a little bit more advanced and a little bit more like technical, but exactly the stuff you need to learn when you run into that problem and they’re just sitting there. So that’s, that’s just been really fun to do that. I, I appreciate that. It’s been a a long time in the making now. It’s, uh, it’s finally going. And so maybe that’s how, um, we can kinda ask a couple more questions for you cause we’re in a similar space when it comes to online education. We’ve talked a lot about this, I think on one of your podcasts, we dive. We kind of dove into online education and kind of what that means to, to, um, to our industry and just kinda seeing where, where you’re sitting right now with online education and there’s a lot of options out there and there’s always, you know, the expensive art school that, uh, I’m, I’m definitely not a fan of. I’m pretty sure you’re not either. And so we, you know, what, what would you say right now to someone that is looking to get into this industry and, you know, they’ve been playing around with after effects or cinema and they’re like, all right, this is it. I want this to be my career. What would be, you know, the first, a few steps for them, uh, based on kind of where, where the internet is these days?

Joey Korenman: 44:30 Yeah, I would definitely stress that unless you have the cash to pay for a four year art school. And this is a pretty us centric view because I know in other countries it’s not as expensive. It can still be very expensive though. Um, yeah. In the U S uh, you know, I, I think I just talked about this, um, well we talked about it with Chris Do on, um, on one of his live streams.

Nick Campbell: 44:54 That’s right.

Joey Korenman: 44:55 You know, it’s, it’s $70,000 a year to go to these big art schools and you know, and then you’re taking out loans almost certainly for that. And so with interest in everything, it’s, it’s well over $300,000 of tuition and room and board and all that stuff. And unless you can just pay for that, like if you’re, if you’re really in a good, if you’re in a very fortunate situation and that’s not going to put you deep in debt, then cool. Go do that. I mean, that’s a good way to learn it, but it’s a terrible way to start your life in your early twenties with basically a mortgage that you have to pay off that you cannot discharge in bankruptcy. I don’t think a lot of, I know that 18 year olds don’t know this when they’re signing up for student loans. Uh, but student loans are the only kind of debt that you cannot get rid of ever. There are people in their sixties that are starting to collect social security and the government will garnish your social security if you haven’t paid off your student loans. No other kind of debt works that way. Um, I feel very strongly about this. I, I, but so I’ll try to not rant about it too for too long. So don’t do that. That’s a don’t do that. Um, what I would say is this overall the full, like the, the mentality that I think, um, I wish, like I’m really trying to do this with my kids and, and anyone I talked to you that asked me this, I would say you have to understand that at some point you have to invest something to get good at this. You can invest money to get good at this and that might speed up the process. You can also invest time to get good at this, right? So if you are willing to sleep four hours a night for a year and just gourge on YouTube, right? Like go, like watch every Greyscalegorilla tutorial, every School of Motion, tutorial, every Mt. MoGraph tutorial. Um, Ben Marriott’s is like this, this new tutorial artists who’s doing amazing stuff. Just gourge on that. Um, and just practice, practice, practice. Then you can basically learn all of this for free if you have to be very disciplined and you have to be willing to sacrifice a lot of time to do that. Uh, but it’s totally an option and there are plenty of people that that’s how they get into the industry. Then you have another level where you can, you can invest some money to have a curriculum structured for you and really all that the money is doing well. I think there’s kind of two points to paying for class. One is it’s saving you so much time, cause someone else curated things for you. But also, I’m also a big believer in having skin in the game. Um, you know, I really find that, you know, I’m a big Seth Godin guy. Um, and he sells, he has these classes that his company runs and he makes them expensive, not because they have to be expensive to make a profit, but because if they’re not expensive people don’t finish them. Um, and, and we’ve seen that too. And you know, if you look at like the finish rates of say the average skillshare class versus the average School of Motion class, I guarantee ours are an order of magnitude higher because you have 1000 bucks in the game, you’re going to want to do it. Um, so you’re either investing time or you’re investing money and you can sort of, those are your two leavers that you can sort of adjust, right? And if you have less money, invest more time. If you have less time, invest a little more money. Um, and I would say just like, just ask somebody who knows what you should learn. People like when I was at max, people would come up to me after my talks and they would say, how do I get started? And I would say, uh, you know, open after effects, ignore absolutely everything in that app except for shape layers and key frames in the graph editor. Don’t touch anything else. You’re not allowed to touch the motion tracker or the effects panel or any of that you touch.

Nick Campbell: 48:46 No lens flares until, until you key frame.

Joey Korenman: 48:50 I know you want to, I know you want it, but just and then just go on YouTube and, and search for like our, our ball bounce tutorial and just do that right? If you can animate a ball bouncing after effects your head of 90% of, of the curve. Um, so I, I think that really it’s just sort of the first step is just adopt that mindset. I’m going to invest something, I’m going to sacrifice something to get good at this. Uh, I think one of the issues that, and this is all hindsight because I went to college and I had an amazing time, but in hindsight I had the mentality I think most college students do, which is well I’m here, I showed up and that’s good enough because I’m here, I will learn and I will be sort of moved along the conveyor belt of life towards a job and success. And as we all know, that’s not how it works. Right. Um, because they’re not truly invested in it. Um, and so if every, if there’s any, you know, high school students listening or anyone that is thinking of, you know, going into this, I would say just first adopt that mindset. Like I’m going to invest something, I’m going to sacrifice comfort for one year to get my foot in the door. Once your foot’s in the door then the path forward becomes pretty clear to be honest.

Nick Campbell: 50:02 Yeah. Meeting. Yeah. Cause then you’re talking about the other side of it is like meeting the right people, understanding you know, what’s in your hometown and, and cause at the, I always, I always say that too. It’s like at the end of it, you need to meet a person that will invite you into this world and give you your first break or, or your, and that’s, that’s always how it goes. So that, that’s, that’s great advice. Like getting started getting out there. We, you know, uh, like you said, tons of free stuff as well just to get going. And if you find yourself not being able to pay attention to the free stuff for a week or two or a month straight, you might, you might be, uh, you might be learning a lesson of this might be, might not be the thing you want to spend the next four years of your life on, you know.

Joey Korenman: 50:51 Well, yeah. And the problem with free is, it’s kinda what I was saying before, you know, to learn how to use the speed graph in after effects. Right? We have a class called animation bootcamp, and there’s a lesson in there about speed graph. And the exercise that we do is we give the students a paper airplane that’s made up of 3d layers. So it’s actually like a little paper airplane and we give them this very curvy Loopy motion path. And we say, animate this, this airplane so that it obeys physics, right? Is it when it’s going down, it’s accelerating. When it gets to the top of a hoop, it almost stops, but then it keeps going and it does a loop. It accelerates until the bottom and then it slows down as it’s going up. And to do that with the speed graph, the first time, it is so painful, it’s like getting your, you know, it’s like getting your teeth drill or something. It’s very hard to do. Uh, and if you’re watching a free YouTube tutorial and you start doing it and it’s hard, you may just quit, right? But if you’ve got money invested in this and others and you’re seeing other people, you know, post their thing and it’s looking pretty good. Or if your teaching assistant is waiting for this thing and you know that they’re waiting for you to turn it in, you may actually just suck it up and do it. And so it’s really about knowing yourself and being able to hack your motivational, you know, the motivational center of your brain, however that works for you.

Nick Campbell: 52:10 Yeah, I agree. I’ve definitely found parts of my life where I am self directed and self motivated and just making the thing is enough. And then there’s definitely other parts where I’m like, okay, I need help. Right? It’s like if you, if you, there are people that can go to the gym and are self motivated to go do all this stuff and sweat and you know, uh, stress their muscles and leave feeling fulfilled about what they just did. And then there’s some other people that need someone to yell at them or go to a class and follow, you know, have a group of people around you all doing the same thing. And it’s, and it’s really, it does, you’re right. Joey comes down to understanding yourself and how you learn. And once you find that, then you could set yourself up for so much success because you can, you can understand that you might need a little help or you might need a class to, or, uh, like you said, a TA yelling at you to, to, to turn your homework in. Finding out how how you learn is a, is a huge part of it. That’s, uh, that’s huge.

Joey Korenman: 53:09 Yeah. And it’s really about like, if you’re spending money to learn, it’s really you’re buying, you’re buying more resources to be able to learn and you’re, you’re also buying a little bit more of a piano hanging over your head. Like, I spent money on this and if I squander this opportunity, then I’m doing something dumb. I can tell you having taught at a physical art school, the best students that were there, um, when I was there, you guys might know him. His name’s Jake Ferguson. Um, he was a demo artist for octane. Uh, I think he’s kind of perma-lancing at imaginary forces right now. Incredible 3d artists. And he was at Ringling when I was there. He was a sophomore and it was clear from like a week of meeting him that he was going to be a killer. And the reason I could tell was because he would stay up all night working on three these stuff and he would come in the next day showing me, Hey, I learned how to use, you know, the particles and cinema 4d, like figure it out himself. Someone like him is going to use any resources around him. And if you give him the resources of a Ringling, he, it’s just rocket fuel. Right. But there were plenty of students there that didn’t take advantage of any of the resources. And it wouldn’t matter if they’re on YouTube or if they’re at school of motion or MoGraph mentor or Greyscalegorilla Plus or Ringling. If you don’t actually sacrifice something and work, nothing happens. Right. Um, and so, you know, like the point I’m trying to make is that just spending more money does not equate to a better result. It’s still completely dependent on the person. And so you may think I’m the kind of person that I need someone sitting there yelling at me to, to, to learn. And I’ve been that person sitting there yelling at a classroom and it doesn’t work if you’re not invested in it.

Nick Campbell: 55:01 Uh, yeah. Well, well said. Um, well I, I want to respect your time Joey. Uh, I guess we can, uh, probably start to head to wrap it up, but I did, uh, want to make sure that, uh, you know, anyone listening, if they wanted to get a hold of School of Motion and kind of learn exactly what is coming out, you guys have so much new stuff coming out, you know, what’s the best place to go? The tutorial page.

Joey Korenman: 55:25 Yes. So if you go to schoolofmotion.com, uh, you know, we always sort of tried to update our front page with whatever’s new and exciting. Um, if you’re, I mean, if you just go and look through our tutorials and our podcast, I mean you can sort of browse and check out anything you want to. Uh, we have a courses page that specific to all of our paid courses and if you want to sort of be able to keep up easily, um, we do have a mailing list, uh, you can sign up for it’s free. And we put out a weekly newsletter called motion Mondays, uh, where it’s mostly just news about the industry, cool pieces of work, new plugins, um, you know, conferences, things like that. Uh, we also, we, we have a lot of partnerships now, so we, we sometimes get sort of exclusive discount codes and stuff. Um, and then when we launch a new class or when it’s a new session and we’re about to open registration, we let you know. Um, so yeah, I would just say you go to schoolofmotion.com And um, you know, there’ll be something will pop up and tell you what’s going to go up.

Nick Campbell: 56:24 Well man, I appreciate your time and I got to say every time I meet a new, a part of your team, they are always so nice, so helpful, so friendly, so personable. I’ve just really enjoyed watching, watching your team grow as well. It’s been really fun to meet them and uh, congrats on all the success this year, man. It’s been amazing to watch.

Joey Korenman: 56:42 Oh, thank you so much. It’s been awesome hanging out with, uh, with the three of you and, and again, congrats on Greyscalegorilla Plus. I mean, it’s really, really impressive what you’ve done and, and I know that, you know, in 12 months you’re going to look back and you’re going to be like, can you believe how small it was? And you’re, you know, you’re going to have your first, uh, you know, 16 person retreats and it’s going to be awesome.

Nick Campbell: 57:00 All right, I’m going to put it in the calendar right now. One year from this podcast. We’re going to do a survey here. Figure out what, how big the team as well. Awesome. Well, thanks again, Joey. I appreciate a man and a everyone listening. I really appreciate you stopping by and uh, thanks for joining another great skill growth podcast. We’ll do the group a goodbye. You all ready?

Nick Campbell: 57:22 Thanks for coming everybody.

Joey Korenman: 57:24 Goodbye.

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Whatever You Call It

Animated pilot of ‘Malaika : Warrior Queen’ depicts rich Nigerian culture and authenticity of the craft

The world of animation is expanding and how! Over the past few years the medium has traversed from the periphery towards mainstream of telling myriad stories across the world. Apart from India which has earned a name as one of the major hubs of animation, Nigerian animated content is also making quite a stir.

Though based out of the US, YouNeek Studios is creating rich and quality animated content, one of their prominent works being Malika: Warrior Queen. The studio focuses on ‘unique’ (read YouNeek) and creative character-based storytelling and entertainment. Through the use of animation, illustration, film and other popular mediums, their goal is to build a massive library of diverse and eclectic characters that appeal to a broad audience. Simply put, YouNeek Studios intends to tell extraordinary stories about extraordinary characters.

Set in fifteenth-century West Africa, Malika: Warrior Queen follows the exploits of Queen and military commander, Malika, who struggles to keep the peace in her ever-expanding empire. Growing up as a prodigy, Malika inherited the crown from her father in the most unusual of circumstances, splitting the Kingdom of Azzaz in half. After years of civil war, Malika was able to unite all of Azzaz, expanding it into one of the largest empires in all of West Africa. YouNeek Studios released the breakdown of storyboards and animatics recently. 

But the expansion would not come without its costs. Enemies begin to rise within her council, and Azzaz grabbed the attention of the most feared superpower the world has ever known: the Songhai Empire. Now,Malika must fight to win the clandestine civil war within the walls of her empire and turn her attention to an indomitable and treacherous foe that plans to vanquish her entire people. From dragons to mythical relics, a feuding royal family and magical swords, the story of Malika: Warrior Queen stays true to the fantasy genre while adding something new by setting familiar concepts in an awe-inspiring African setting.

YouNeek Studios owner/creative director and Malika: Warrior Queen writer and director Roye Okupe shared with Animation Xpress, “Malika: Warrior Queen is a historical fantasy story set in West Africa and it’s inspired by a real African Queen who existed in the 16th Century Queen named Aminatu. She was a Hausa warrior queen of the city-state Zazzau (present-day city of Zaria in Kaduna State), in what is now in the north-west region of Nigeria. From her story, we integrated a lot into Malika’s fictional character. I felt that Malika should be such a fictional character having its roots in something real, like history and powerful. We took a lot of inspiration and then made Malika our own. Besides the characters, the locations, costume designs, everything is rich in African history, mythology and culture. And this is what sets it apart.” 

Roye Okupe

Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Okupe moved to the United States when he was sixteen to study computer science. After getting his degree, his passion for animation and comics led him to set up YouNeek Studios in 2012. He is an award-winning filmmaker, author, speaker and entrepreneur who pursued his dream of creating a diverse library of superheroes. The platform of YouNeek Studios allowed him to further nurture his passion and he produced and directed several animated productions including, b the award-winning and critically acclaimed Malika – Warrior Queen Animated Short

These productions have allowed Roye to attain many prestigious recognitions such as being ‘#5 on Ventures Africa’s list of 40 African innovators to watch’ (2016) as well as being part of ‘NewAfrican Magazines’ 100 most influential Africans’ two years in a row (2016 and 2017). 

In August 2015, Roye released his debut graphic novel titled, E.X.O. The Legend of Wale Williams Part One, a superhero story set in a futuristic Nigeria. E.X.O. was received with critical acclaim and has since been featured on several reputed channels and print publications like Forbes, CNN, The Guardian, NBC, and more! His sophomore graphic novel, Malika – Warrior Queen was also received with critical acclaim, selling more than 40,000 copies of its chapter one special during Diamond Comics’ Free Comic Book Day (2017) from which he has adapted the animated project. Both books have gone on to win several awards including multiple Glyph Comic Awards and Comic Fist Awards.

The animation looks fresh, natural, unique as the name of the studio suggests, and depicts the culture and mythology to its truest form and manner. Talking about the  process of animation for the 15 minute pilot, Okupe said, “It’s pretty much as per the industry standard, starting with the script which took two to three months for me to write as I had to adapt the graphic novel of 130 pages. So there were a lot of stories and I was looking for the most apt one for the pilot. 

Obviously, I couldn’t include everything in it, but we made sure we got whatever was essential for that particular story; to try and get into the story and characters as much as possible. This was followed by long back and forth processes of editing to make it authentic and attractive. We then worked with the artist on storyboard as per the script, character designs, location designs, set designs and after that we found the best possible Nollywood actors to voice for it, who did a fantastic job. Then we started with the animatics followed by the actual production of the animation and how it would look. Next came the background score, the sound effects, the layering and all. After that we edited and blended it together.”

Creating an animated project is an uphill task that requires dedication, precision and knowledge of fund management as it entails huge budgets, which in most cases is the biggest challenge for the content creators, “The biggest challenge for an independent studio or animator or animator who’s from the african descent or diaspora is to manage the finances and raise funds for the project via Kickstarter. We don’t have a production studio or a sponsor or a distributor as a partner. We did this project fully from our pockets. But now that we have such a proper concept, we hope to get bigger brands, investors, production companies to come on board with us, to get this done.”

The team at YouNeek Studios is now hoping to pitch the animated pilot to as many people as possible to see how they can raise money for making it into a full length animated feature or a series. It was important for them to have a proper concept to make sure they present a visual representation of the story to people rather than verbally pitching it. They needed something that had emotions, looked great and felt great. So that people are intrigued to know that they need money to make more of it. 

The YouNeek Studios team is looking for the right partner to move forward with Malika: Warrior Queen which would really determine the timing of when and where to release the project either as a full length feature film or a series. “We are trying to take a step at a time and figure out the next steps accordingly. We are really hopeful about it,” noted Okupe. 

Okupe also regards high of India as a market and hub for animation. He concluded, “I think India is a huge market for animation, not just with studios that are coming up with quality animated content but also in terms of the consumption. Animation as a medium is very popular and that’s why there is an increase in the production companies in India. In fact, even in the US people work with different studios in India to get their work done. I see a lot of opportunities in terms of partnerships  and have also worked with an Indian studio in the past called DQ Entertainment on my first film E.X.O.: The Legend of Wale Williams. So my hope is that I have the opportunity for future partnerships.”

Nigeria’s animation Industry is a very fast-growing industry, it’s still in its infancy but what a lot of the artists and animators have been able to put together with limited resources is nothing short of amazing. “One of my goals is to continue to expose their works to the mainstream audience, the global audience which is why Malaika was exclusively animated by Nigerian animators. A studio in Nigeria called Anthill studio co-produced it with us and there are no regrets on that end and that’s something we hope to do more of in the future. The industry is growing very quickly and I see a lot of opportunities not just in Nigeria but in the continent as a whole for people to bring out amazing projects that the world has never seen before,” concluded he. 

As they say, there’s nothing powerful than a rich story, stories like Malika: Warrior Queen imagined in the medium of animation surely deserves all the appreciation and attention.

The post Animated pilot of ‘Malaika : Warrior Queen’ depicts rich Nigerian culture and authenticity of the craft appeared first on AnimationXpress.