Astro

So excited about the series. The voices, the tone, everything. Team's crushing it. I still can't believe we're doing this. reveals soon

You're just a kid, and you dream of making movies, telling stories. You don't have any backups, and it's all you apply for in college. 20 kids get accepted, so do you. Turns out college doesn't teach you much. You drop out, and sign up for an online program run by pros (years before covid made that acceptable). You're on a path, and you take risks. You excel. You visit all the big studios. You do everything you can to get your foot in the door. Cold emails. Job fairs. Just to be noticed. You move to Vancouver chasing those jobs. It's too expensive. You get some rejections. You get interest, but a studio (Digital Domain) in Florida closes it's doors and puts 400 people more qualified than you back on the market. Eviction notices, cereal meals, sleepless nights. You're figuring out how to take the flight back home and throw in the towel. You get a call. It's Sony. They'd like you to come back into the studio to check out the new film they're working on. This time, it's not an interview. It's a pitch. A day later, you get an offer. You've never felt this euphoria. And fear. A week later you take the elevator up to the 4th. There's posters of Surf's Up, Spiderman, Hotel T, Cloudy with a Chance everywhere. You don't belong here. You're stoked, but you also wanna puke. You sit next to guys/girls from Pixar, Dreamworks, you-name-it. You start your week, fkn clueless. Trials start and you're in the deep end. You flail a lot. But you don't drown. You learn to swim. You soak up knowledge. You're still terrified, but you focus. You seek mentorship. You listen, adapt. You do an entire month of work, 7-days, 12 hour days. But you're young and you have energy. 9 months later, out of 127 animators, you're one of 13 left on the project. wtf? Eventually, you get a call from one of the "big six" vfx studios, opening up a satellite back home. You love monsters, Jurassic park, cool shit. You leave Sony, and it's really fkn hard. But you're on a path. And you take risks. Two years into your career, you get called to work on Jurassic World. Jesus. That's all you wanted. You head back to the west. It's a short gig, but fuck it, it's Raptors. The hours are insane. The bids are unrealistic. But you're still young, still energetic. Still wide-eyed. You come back home, get jump a few studios to try shit. 4 years into your career, you're asked to lead a team. It's so much pressure. It's just all imposter syndrome. Most are older than you. But you don't drown. You help build a new department. You get validation. You meet directors. But you're still just a cog. You're still clocking 14 hour shifts often for people that don't care. You're still dealing with mismanaged comms and schedules. Politics, inefficiency, reshoots, poor planning. Somehow, you still love it. But you're tired. And you start to understand you're always telling someone else's story. Fixing someone else's problems. You probably don't even get credited. But the guy on set serving sandwiches will, because unions. You get a call from a childhood friend, working with kaytranada. They need help for a music video. It's underbid like crazy, practically free. But they need help, and he's on the come up. You're on a path, and you take risks. You put together a guerilla team to pull off the impossible. We crush it. Awards. Rolling Stones magazine, everything. Tours with K. You start getting calls from everyone. You get asked to join the best team in the world. As a senior bc don't have enough experience as a supervisor. This is the "nba" of film. But I'm stoked. Tired as shit, still. I'm cool with no responsibilities. You keep your head down and still have imposter's syndrome. 8 Months later, they want you to lead a team. On that project, you get nominated for top animation award an individual can receive. Covid hits. You don't even get to attend in person. The industry falls about for a few days. But everyone's streaming. They need content. Some films managed to shoot most of their footage before lockdown. Others not so lucky. But we deal in digital creatures. We can still do the work. I get asked to supervise the next show (for HBO). That means run an entire team of animators for the production. The bids are ludicrous. Work that takes 12 days is allocated 3-5 days. That's the trend. We make it up with overtime. As usual. That's just baked into the process. But we excel. We deliver. You learn to lead a team remotely. It sucks. But you adapt. But you're exhausted, and you start to see writings on the wall. Streaming is a bubble. Bids are a race to the bottom. Box office is on the decline. It doesn't feel sustainable. Bubble Budgets with no ROI. Clients spending millions on a whim, having cold feet, scraping everything, shelving projects before they see the light of day. And you, the artists, doing 80% of the work on any modern-day film or show, get all the flack. You're expendable, you're uncredited. They say it's mo-cap when it's not. They say there's "no vfx" when 75% of the shots are fake. It's more romantic. You don't own anything you create. One day you fall into NFTs by chance. You understand collectibles. You get digital assets. And you're crypto-curious. You're on a path, and you take risks. You start collecting. You get into the trenches and you start understanding the waters. You see the similarities of web1-web3. And opportunity. For the first time in history, there are new gtm strategies and possibilities. You know that collectibles have up until now never been possible on digital, nor two-way consumer channels and loops. You see projects minting that don't actually have much merit, just a byproduct of historical context. Easy money. Hundreds of teams with no acumen shilling "ip ip ip". But you know you're sitting on a goldmine idea, and a killer team. And you zoom out, and know that this web3 thing is about to change all of digital within the next few years. And you know IP. You built it for all the big studios. You studied it for thousands of hours. You're on a path, and you take risks. You start production on a group of characters your friend developed a few years back, though unrefined. We need a name. A good one, good SEO. Claynosaurz. Shit that sounds great. Domains and trademarks are available. You start calling the cavalry. You build a team of crazies, all stacked. All disillusioned, looking for new frontiers. You get lost in CT. You start to breathe and live web3. You're spending your own money for the development. It's expensive, but you're on a path. And you KNOW this shit is good. Really good. Old colleagues are calling you crazy. We post our first teaser, and it blows up on twitter. And we start building community. For months. We keep it organic, and we don't rush. We leverage our relationship with 1/1 artists and friends. The name gets out. All eyes are on us, because they think we can change things. We know we can. You're the talk of the town at Breakpoint. And then FTX collapses. Everything falls apart. You're not really sure what to do. You have a masterplan, and you're on a path. It needs to work. You delay the release slightly. Not sure if you'll sell out. If they could just give you the chance, you know you'll change everything. All of a sudden, demand is through the roof. Your price is lower than virtually every project before you, which sucks because of your value prop and quality metrics. On release day, the website crashes. We sell out in 3 hours. You're life will never be the same. You have this knot in your stomach, because you're probably about to leave the industry that made you. No, you're about to take it on. You're on a path, and you take risks. You quit your insane job w/ Netflix. And the work really starts. We have less money. Royalties are not locked, which sucks because our volume breaks records. But our shit is good. Real good. And we have presence with people that can help. We release activations, host crazy fan & community events, and we are present. Always. We have less resources, but we're smart. And headstrong. We have belief in the product and our abilities. You spend two years building this as sustainably as possible. Campaigning. Protecting it. You're exhausted, but you believe. Small wins feel huge. Small losses feel huge. And then, one day, you wake up at 4am because you're jetlagged from a trip to Singapore and Vietnam. Where you just had development and strategy meetings with the biggest mobile games developer on the planet that doesn't think you're so crazy. That loves the product. That is co-developing with you on a Clayno mobile game. You step back and realize you've travelled the world because of this crazy dream of yours. You've met thousands of people. You've made hundreds of friends. You're making games. Developing toy lines. You're taking constant flights to Paris, to Toronto, to LA for negotiations with parties and an industry you used to work for. Everyone wants a piece. Everyone. You sit in silence and it hits you you're part of the change, and about to shift a status quo. You crack a smile, log on and lock in. You're on a path. And you take risks.

The Why part 2:

I started my career at Sony Animation. I've worked with netflix. I idolized ILM / Lucasfilm growing up (star wars, Jurassic park.) To be here among giants, and to belong here--our rightfull place. We earned it. I can't even begin to tell you the emotional rollercoaster. Been a crazy, impossibly hard, amazing 3 years. We told you we'd do this. This was the prequel.