Read Transcript “What Software Was Used to Create the World of Sebastian?”

Federico: So, that’s like the live action part of it which was very complex. But it is nowhere close as complex as to the CG part of it. The CG part of it is a beast. I was working with people in Vancouver, I was working with people in New York. I was working with people in India, da da da, and eventually, you know, some of them were my friends, so they would jump in an help for a little bit and then they would have to go back to work and then I would have to do it myself. So it was a process.

Federico: So project management is extremely important when you’re doing a project like this. One of the programs that I used called Maya, it’s Autodesk Maya. Autodesk is the maker. And Maya is very powerful. It’s a sculpting, 3D, modeling, well, sculpting, I meant modeling. Sculpting they have MobBox for that which is great. You know, if you want to do a creature, high resolution creature, then you’d go in MobBox.

Federico: So then you have Maya, and Maya’s like this giant program. You can do animation you can do particles, you can do dynamics, but what’s really great about it is it uses Python and MEL which are programming languages. If you learn them, which are not, they’re not had at all. You know, it’s tedious, but it’s not hard. If you learn them you can write your own tools within Maya, which is fantastic.

Federico: So part of the project management was writing a program, very small, nothing complex, that would create the right folder structure for all the shots and that would output the necessary plates for the artist to work with so that at any given time I could be like, okay, I know, you know, Jeremy’s working on this shot, Ricky gives it backup. Coming into this folder and you just keep track of everything that way, so Maya was really, really good for that.

Federico: When, I used Buju and PFTrack to track the live action plates and create the 3D world. So what we did with that is you know, when you’re shooting grid space stuff and you’re going to make, you’re going to build a digital set afterwards, you need to make sure you’re visual effects supervisor is taking all sorts of notes, all sorts of measurements, what are the distances, what kind of lens are you using? Do you have markers on your screens? All that stuff, because when all that stuff is translated into Maya, you can input all that stuff into your camera in Maya so you can mimic a real world camera and the camera in Maya. Which is phenomenal.

Federico: Then you can take a tracking program like Buju or PFTrack and then what these programs do, is they look at the data, they look at the flat image, right, and as a flat image moves it calculates the parallax based on the speed of the movement of those pixels. So it creates that, so then you import that point, it creates points, you import that point data into Maya and now you have your digital set. And that’s what we did for Sebastian.

Federico: We tracked and we measured and we had all the camera specs and all that, and so there’s a beautiful scene where Sebastian is confronting one of the Loldegy, that’s one of the monsters, with his pillow, because his pillow is where his magical powers are, and he takes this giant jump. And what we did is, when we created that shot, I knew that that’s what I wanted, so I had separate markers and I had some distances marked out and I knew sort of where this monster was going to be, the height and all of that and we shot that a very, very, very high speed rate, frame rate, so that we could have a lot of frames to play with and speed the animation up or slow it down as needed. So we shot that took it into PFTrack, brought into Maya and then created one of the shots that you’ll see in the trailer.

Read Transcript “How Do You Find Work as a Freelancer?”

Federico: For motion graphics it’s been sort of a wild, a wild experience because there’s no set system, you know, there’s not unified board, just a few blogs here and there, and there’s some major blogs that do a service of, you know, offering the job posts. But, you know, you’ve got to think that there’s around two, three thousand artists in LA and then maybe like six, seven thousand artists in the US, or ten thousand. And they’re all going to these blogs, so, you know, producers get bombarded with this kind of stuff.

Federico: So it’s not really like I’ve very viable. And a lot of finding jobs in the industry is like dating. It’s very hard to get a first day, you know, because if they don’t, if the company know you, it’s very hard to get in there. Even, your work may be brilliant, but what I’ve seen in my experience is that people are willing to compromise quality a little bit if you’re easy to work with and you’re a nice person. Nobody wants to deal with a diva and nobody wants to deal with a diva at three o’clock in the morning when the project’s due.

Federico: So as far as finding work, yeah, there’s the job posts and there’s the blogs and that’s good, but I think the most powerful tool that you have as a freelancer is your reputation. Just be a good person, be extremely professional, help as many people as you can on your way and it all comes back to you.

Federico: I haven’t, you know, keep a good reel, which is something very hypocritical of me to say because I have a terrible reel. I have barely update it, it’s just I don’t have time. That’s the deal, but, usually what happens is, you know, if I have a really good friend, and I know he’s really good at something, I’ll refer him to a job. And then he’ll go there and he’ll perform really well and then they’ll remember him and they’ll remember me. So then they’ll say, “Hey, your friend was really great, you know, we’re done with what he was doing but would you like to come in and do something else?” That sort of passes on.

Federico: I’d say, yeah, like, just have a very strong network of friends and like I said, I think if I can say that again, just, reputation. Just be very professional. Be very good at what you’re doing. It’s almost like, too, like being a professional athlete in a way, because there is a lot of mental, there’s taxing on your brain and it’s very easy to be a good artist and a good person at three o’clock when you’re rested and the project’s going well, that’s fine.

Federico: But how do you behave when you haven’t eaten and the computer’s crashing and it’s five o’clock in the morning and you’ve got to deliver the next day? That’s, that’s the real test. So, if you’re able to keep your cool, if you’re able to keep your professionalism, if you, the questions that you’re always answering inside your brain are, “How can I help my team?” “How can I solve?” “Can I stay later and help somebody else?” I think that that makes it. Because everybody’s talented. Talent, talent is a minimum requirement.

Federico: It’s how you behave with your team that really sets you apart. So if you do that I think enough, I think I’ve done that enough where I haven’t looked for a job on a post in fifteen years. So I think I’m doing okay. It’s all been referrals by friends. And sometimes I’ll hear somebody that I’ve never ever met say, like, they’ve heard wonderful things about me, they saw my reel, it was a marriage of both things and they want to bring me in and then I’ll go in and work with them.

Interviewer: What about, I mean, you may not know, because you haven’t done it in fifteen years, but if someone is just starting out and wants to like pursue this as a career, like, how do you, how do you get started as a freelance mograph designer?

Federico: That’s a great question. And I’m very glad that you asked that because it’s also a very difficult question. And here’s what happens, is, our market is saturated. There are so many good people already working. And then on top of that you have kids graduating from school that want to be a part of it. And it’s a ruthless industry, man, and if somebody can do the work that you can do for cheaper they’ll get them.

Federico: But if they’re not professional enough it’ll come, it’ll bite that company in the butt, right, nip in the butt. So, anyway, it’s back to your question, if you’re a student, or if you want to dedicate yourself to this, there are schools that are really good schools that offer very powerful motion graphics programs, like Otis, like the Art Center of Design in Pasadena, Savannah School of Design. There’s a lot of art schools that offer a powerful program.

Federico: I would steer away from the for-profit colleges, smaller colleges that offer you an express program, because the design and the though process behind them might not leave you as prepared as some of these schools where you have to go through four years of art education and you get a much more rounded education.

Federico: They’re not, I’m not saying that they’re bad or wimps, I’m just saying that if you had the choice go to the other colleges. But, anyways, these colleges, they have their own network of companies and they have their job events and their job fairs, so that’s like a good way to do it, to get your first job.

Federico: But I think the difficulty, and right now, you know, this might change by the time you guys post this, but, economy might change, but right now it’s a pretty good time. It wasn’t so good a few years ago. It was very difficult to find a job. But what I would say if I was a student and I was looking for a job, do not, don’t, I know that you have a lot of pressure and I know that you have to make your loans, and I know that you have to, you know, go out there and make some money quick.

Federico: But if you approach your job searching with that mentality you’re going to put yourself in a situation of abuse. You’re going to be abused by your employer. Because you’re work’s not going to be respected, your hours are not going to be respected and you’re just going to end up burning yourself pretty quick.

Federico: So, my advice, if you want to get into it, be passionate about it, go to school, create a strong network before you graduate, get to know the companies, contact them, you know, follow them, see what they’re doing, see their work and cold call. Sometimes just cold call or an email. Just go to the website and email them and say, like, “Hey, I’m looking for a job. This is my reel.” Ask about money. Like, ask your friends about money, ask you colleagues, ask your peers, ask the companies. Don’t ever be shy about asking for finances.

Federico: It might seem brash, it might seem rude, but it doesn’t matter. You have to ask. Because if you don’t ask, you might be underselling yourself, you might be overbidding and losing jobs because of that so just always ask. And like I said, don’t put yourself in a position where you say, “I’ll do anything for work.”

Federico: Because not only does that damage you as an artist and as a professional, it damages the entire industry. Because if a lot of people do that it devalues the work. So, best advice I can give you is know your worth, be fair with your own pricing. Even if you’re a student, or even if you’re a new person in the industry, always think of yourself as a professional. Think of yourself as a company, you know. Don’t ever behave like you behave at home if you’re just chilling out, because you’re not going to your friend’s house. You’re offering a professional service. So behave like a company and operate like a company.

Federico: So that’s what I would advise them to do, is just always have a professional mindset from the moment they graduate, or from the moment they get their first job. Have a contract, it’s very important, always have a booking confirmation or a contract or a deal memo or whatever. But have it in writing. Always outline everything that is required of you, what software’s going to be required of you, how many hours are going to be required, what your rate’s going to be and always have that on paper because you never know.

Read Transcript “Why Create a Graphic Novel for Your Movie?”

Federico: The way the Sebastian project came about, the way that idea sort of originated, was that it wasn’t like I woke up one day and I was like, “Oh, I’m going to make a movie about this.” It didn’t really work out that way.

Federico: Frankly, in my mind it shouldn’t work that way. You should always just want to tell stories, and then let the stories find their own way. So what happened was, I have a little brother and he lives in a different country, so when he was very, very young it was very difficult to deal with separation, whenever I had to come here to LA. So I started telling him stories at night. And then in the morning I would go back to him and say, “Hey, man, do you remember this thing, this adventure we did last night?” And he was like, “No, man I don’t remember,” and I would retell the story. He was like, “Oh, yeah, I remember,” you know, because he wanted that bonding, too.

Federico: So, I started telling him all these stories about two brothers that would go into the dream world and have these adventures together. And every night, man, new story, new story, new story. And that at some point became a giant world. And then, you know, at one point he was like not into it anymore, he grew out of it, which is fine.

Federico: But during that process it let us bond and you know, it was a very cool experience. But what happened was that, I think a lot of the stories that I had in my mind that a lot of my life experience that was in my subconscious bubbled up in those stories and in a way I kind of knew, you know, I was like, okay, I’m not going to be around for this guy’s life a lot, because, you know, I live here, he lives there and we’re not going to see each other that, I wanted the time with him to be really valuable, you know?

Federico: So how can I tell him about life without like boring him, and without, how can I tell him about my experience about life without boring him to death and giving him lectures? So I’m just going to tell him these stories.

Federico: And so each story always had a moral. And it was like his mission to tell me what the moral was. And sometimes he would find his own moral in it, which was great. It was never like a fixed thing. But it was a very flexible process and so that’s how it started. That’s the core of it. And so, you know, these stories sort of stuck in my mind for years and then I just started writing them. I just started writing these stories and there was no linear, there was no arc to them. It was just sort of, it was like a dream. It was really like a dream.

Federico: I would one day write a piece of the story and then another time write another piece of the story and there were not connected at all. And then one time a friend of mine saw them and read them and he said, “Boy, these are really good. You should really string these into a story, into a cohesive story.” And I was like, okay, yeah, think so. I think I can do that.

Federico: And so I started writing, but at the time I didn’t have any technical training on script writing. I had never taken courses. I mean, it was just raw, raw writing. So I didn’t know what the right medium for it was. I didn’t know if I should write a graphic novel, a script, or what? So, I just started writing and then I was like, okay, I thought, okay, I’ll write a book and I was just like writing these chapters and it didn’t work, and so I just kept writing stories as they came and then try to tie them together. And then eventually I was, because of the graphic design and the illustration and all that stuff in my life, I was like, well, I should be illustrating these.

Federico: So I started illustrating the characters and then I was like, some of the moments in the story are pretty cool. I’m going to start illustrating them. So it was very organic, man. I never really set out, and I’m not saying that that has to be that way, this is just my personal experience. But it was always like following that organic path, you know?

Federico: So I was like, wow, this could be a graphic novel. So that’s how that graphic novel started. I would say the advantage of the graphic novel over the movie, you know, writing a film, is that when you’re writing your own book, your own novel, you own graphic novel, you just have an endless world of mythology to develop and back stories and all these different relationships between characters. And it’s a sandbox. You can explore anything you want, right? This is your world, you can explore anything you want.

Federico: Whereas if you’re doing a movie, you’ve got 90 minutes or a 120 minutes to, you know, tell the story. So you’re not going to tell an entire story. You might grab a section of it and take snapshot of that section and tell that part of the story. But that’s why it’s very powerful. If you want to get into graphic novels, do it. I mean, it’s, you know, there’s no limit.

Federico: You write as deep as you want to write. And the deeper you go, the more complex you go, the richer, and not complexity for complexity’s sake, but, you know, the real, the complexity that comes from just naturally evolving characters. You know, that the more, the more mythology you create around your story, then when you take a snapshot of it and you make a video game or you make a movie about it, it becomes a lot richer.

Federico: And that’s why all these movies, you know, they’re basing their stuff off comic books. And that’s why there’s a giant following to create movies out of books, 50 Shades of Grey, the Twilight thing, da da da da da. Because they can take a snapshot of a very deep mythology and just put it on screen. I mean, I’m not saying it’s easy, I’m just saying you have a lot of material to work with.