Animation Studio

My blogging frequency may taper off a bit. My Father in Law sent me an odd e-mail last week. It had a description of an animation studio looking for local talent. It then stated if you are interested, to e-mail—but there was no e-mail address. But it did have a phone number.

I mulled it over in my head for a while. There were some things about it that made me wary. A collective of passionate artists working for a share of the revenue was one a flag that appeared red to me. Ultimately my curiosity got the best of me and I called the guy. He was in a meeting and asked if he could call me back.

When he called back he had just left the meeting and was on his way to another meeting. So he very quickly described the project, asked me a little about myself, and asked me to send him information about myself and some examples of my work. He also solved the Mystery of the Oddly worded e-mail; it was cut and paste from an online add and was relying on the internal e-mail system of the page. This was around nine in the morning. I still wasn't sure about it. He stated that the reason they were working for a share of the revenue, was because they didn't want to get an investor—and then have that investor pull out. A good friend of mine working on a feature film lost his job recently due to that very situation, so it certainly makes sense to me.

I briefly talked to my wife about it and she thought it would be good for me to be working on a project. I mulled it over a bit more and decided to send my resume and show reel. It took me a while to find the good copy of my resume, then I kept getting distracted when I was updating said resume; I almost shut down my computer to go to bed multiple times, and would remember I hadn't sent that e-mail yet. When I finally got the links to my show reel, and portfolios up and running it was about 1:00 in the morning the next day and I finally hit the send button.

I heard back quickly, there was an e-mail from them when I got to work informing me of a time and a place we could meet. (I just now thought to look at when the reply was sent—just shy of half an hour after I sent mine, he wasn't kidding when he said he doesn't sleep) I still wasn't sure about it. I didn't really want to give up my Saturday to a job interview with a company that was already giving me a weird vibe, but after talking to my Wife again I had decided to give it a go (one of my hang-ups in all of this was spending all my time on it—this requires a lot of patience, understanding, and support from the family, and I just wanted to make sure that they were on board with me). So I called to verify the meeting. Apparently it was the first company meeting, they would talk to me beforehand and invite me into the meeting if they liked me—or send me packing if they didn't, with the possibility of a callback.

Saturday...Still not sure about this, I wanted to look nice, but not like I was trying too hard. So I felt a suit would be overkill. I wore Pinstripe Cargoes with a Short Sleeve Shirt and Tie (My Rush Limbaugh No Boundaries Collection Tie) and of Course—Suspenders.

I arrived at the location about about 10 minutes early. It was located on Campus of a Local College—a campus I didn't know they had. The building was small. I waited a few minutes, no need to show up too early. When I tried the door it was locked. I tried every door of the building (3) all locked. Someone else was there for the meeting as well. Then a couple others showed up, then some more. Casual conversation and cell phone call to our intrepid leader took place. Apparently everything was ready for the meeting, except, our intrepid leader had misplaced the door code. As a result, the meeting started late, and I was just invited in. (Did I mention that everyone else was in shorts and T-Shirts)

I was jazzed after the meeting. It seems like a goofy way to start a company—but what do I know about starting a company. There's a possibility that the project will be a success and I'll get a decent amount of money from it, or I may see nothing, but I'm still glad to be on board.

This marks the first time I've ever signed an NDA.  It's kind of an odd feeling—I'm not sure what I can and can't talk about.

Thus far I've sunk around 20 hours into it in 4 days—the add said 10-15 hours per week. Guess we'll see where this goes.