Podcast 14 min read

Tales From a Creative Director

with Jose Gomez

Jose Gomez and Chris Do examine the cost of creative pitching and why better ideas alone do not win the work.

Chris Do

Founder, The Futur™ · November 24, 2025

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The cost of being considered

A studio can spend $45,000 proving it deserves a job and leave with nothing. Jose Gomez, executive creative director of Dallas-based design agency Attack Plan and former owner of Shiloh, knows that cost firsthand. Having worked in the business since about 2001, he brings a perspective shaped by both making the work and paying for the pursuit.

The loss came on a pitch for a Ford F-150 campaign that Gomez describes as a potential couple of million dollars in work. His studio invested in custom artwork and an extensive presentation. The agency liked the proposal, he recalls, but the job went elsewhere.

Approval was not an award. Enthusiasm was not a purchase order.

For Gomez and Chris Do, whose studios competed in motion design, this distinction sits at the center of a difficult business model. Advertising agencies invite several companies to propose creative approaches. Those companies fund the thinking, design, and presentation before knowing whether any production revenue will follow.

A pitch is an investment, not a promise of revenue. That sounds obvious until the studio has assembled its strongest team, fallen in love with the concept, and started treating a possible project as an inevitable one. The expense is real long before the opportunity becomes income.

Gomez does not describe himself as a reluctant competitor. He enjoys the pursuit, the pressure, and the creative energy that competition produces. His objection is more specific: the thinking has value, yet the system often asks studios to supply it without compensation.

Do sees the same tension from another angle. Money spent securing a project is money no longer available for making it. On a small assignment, that competition can consume resources the actual production needs.

Designers spend paid time developing speculative work.
Custom artwork raises the cost before a job is awarded.
Animation tests increase what clients expect to see before buying.
A lost pitch leaves the studio carrying the expense.

The attractive response is to declare that studios should stop. The conversation refuses that easy resolution. Gomez says that on larger assignments, declining to pitch can mean declining access to the work entirely. A client with several willing competitors has little reason to change its procurement process for one holdout.

That does not make the arrangement healthy. It makes the decision consequential.

The real problem is not simply whether creative businesses should compete. It is whether they understand what they are spending, what they are being judged on, and what kind of business those decisions produce. A beautiful presentation can win a project and still reinforce an arrangement that exhausts the people responsible for delivering it.

The $45,000 loss is therefore more than a cautionary anecdote. It exposes the gap between creative ambition and commercial control. Gomez's career offers no formula that closes that gap completely, but it does show where a studio can recover some agency.

A different structure for the same ambition

Before Attack Plan, Gomez spent roughly 18 years building and running his own studio operation. Shiloh had offices in New York and San Diego. After his former partner left to pursue live-action direction, Gomez continued carrying the demands of the business with his wife, who handled its books, accounting, and business operations.

The geographic reach came with a personal cost. Splitting time between two cities was taxing. Gomez loved New York, but affection for a place did not make constant movement sustainable for his family.

His decision to change direction was not a rejection of creative leadership. It was an attempt to preserve it.

Gomez describes Attack Plan as part of a larger organization with animation capabilities far beyond those of his previous studio. Shiloh, he recalls, reached approximately 30 people at its height. The new opportunity offered access to a much larger pool of animators and production resources.

The attraction was both creative and structural. He could concentrate more on leading teams and developing work, with less of the pressure attached to operating a self-funded entity. Letting go of something built over nearly two decades remained difficult, but keeping it unchanged was not automatically the responsible choice.

Creative leadership and business ownership are different jobs. Gomez had performed both for years. The move gave him a way to reconsider how much of each he wanted in his daily life.

That distinction belongs beside the career choices suggested by Staff, Freelance or Entrepreneur? The relevant question is not which title sounds most independent. It is which arrangement supports the work and life a person actually intends to sustain.

Meanwhile, the business around him had changed. Gomez and Do remember an earlier motion design market with fewer competing studios, healthier budgets, and more predictable payment. In their account, capable small teams later multiplied, making high-quality work without the infrastructure that once distinguished established companies.

The deliverables became less tidy, too. A conventional commercial assignment had often meant a 30-second spot and a 15-second cutdown. Gomez describes a newer mix of social distribution, varied running times, and entertainment marketing work.

Attack Plan's response was not to rely on one kind of commission. Gomez describes a combination of traditional commercials, marketing animation for entertainment properties, and live-action direction. Its strength lies in the intersection of design, motion graphics, animation, and filmed production.

There is a business lesson inside that change, but not a universal instruction to expand services. Gomez changed the structure around the capabilities he wanted to keep using. He did not assume that the studio model that had worked earlier would remain the best vehicle indefinitely.

The ambition stayed. The container changed.

The escalating price of proof

Do remembers a period when a number and a short written treatment could be enough to compete for an assignment. Over time, the presentation itself became more elaborate. Design frames led to more developed proposals, and competitors added motion tests or other demonstrations that made their ideas easier to approve.

Each escalation changed the reference point for the next pitch.

Gomez recalls agencies explicitly telling studios that a competitor was producing a motion test. The implication was clear: another company had supplied additional proof, and a studio that chose not to match it risked appearing less convincing.

From the client's perspective, this reduced uncertainty. From the studio's perspective, it increased the unpaid cost of being considered. Both interpretations can be true at once.

Gomez tracks the results rather than treating every loss as a mystery. At Shiloh, the business maintained spreadsheets showing its pitch-to-win ratio. He recalls periods of winning roughly 60 percent and losing 40 percent, alongside stretches when those proportions reversed.

Those figures are recollections of changing performance, not a guaranteed lifetime average. The fluctuation matters. A studio that budgets as though its best streak will continue is planning around an exception rather than the variability Gomez describes.

At Attack Plan, a gong announced new wins to the team. Gomez remembers eight successful pitches in a row, followed by four or five losses. The same business could feel unstoppable and then abruptly vulnerable.

His response is investigation. What worked in the winning presentations? What did competitors supply? What did the agency say afterward? The answers do not eliminate uncertainty, but they replace some self-congratulation and self-reproach with evidence.

Track wins and losses rather than relying on recent memory.
Ask clients why a proposal failed.
Examine the creative approach that succeeded.
Distinguish a stronger idea from stronger proof of execution.

Gomez also recognizes the limits of that analysis. After seeing competitors' work, he has sometimes concluded that their proposals were as strong as his own. When several capable studios are invited, quality is not necessarily the deciding difference.

Strong creative work is the entry requirement. Relationship, communication, and confidence can decide what happens after that threshold is met.

This is where the economics return. A pitch has to be assessed not only as a design exercise but as an expense attached to uncertain revenue. The broader pricing concern sits alongside 99% Of Creatives Lose Money With These Pricing Mistakes: winning work and earning money are not interchangeable outcomes.

Gomez will not enter a pitch halfheartedly. If the studio commits, it commits fully. That makes selectivity more important, not less. An all-in creative standard needs a disciplined decision before the work begins, because enthusiasm after the decision will not protect the budget.

The idea hidden in plain sight

The most revealing loss in Gomez's account was not the most expensive. It was the pitch for the opening titles of Mad Men, where the studio produced an abundance of ideas while overlooking the significance of one already on the table.

Gomez recalls a call with the show's creator, Matthew Weiner, who described the premise and mentioned an image: a person falling down a building while elements of his life's work passed by. Inside the studio, that suggestion became a point of disagreement.

Was it a meaningful direction or merely an improvised thought? Should the team develop it or prove its originality by proposing something else?

According to Gomez, the studio prepared roughly 10 to 15 ideas but did not present that one. When he later saw the title sequence by Imaginary Forces, the omission was painfully clear. The falling figure had not been a distraction from the brief. It had been an essential clue.

The failure was not a shortage of effort. It was a misreading of what effort should serve.

Gomez's response was to become more demanding about listening. Not simply recording words, but probing for intent. Clients can present a polished briefing while leaving the most important preference embedded in an apparently casual remark.

Improve the client's idea before replacing it. Gomez calls that improvement plussing: adding a meaningful creative contribution without abandoning the underlying direction. The contribution needs a hook, not just a more attractive surface.

As he puts it, “beautiful only goes you gets you half the way.” The phrasing is conversational, but the distinction is precise. Attractive frames do not automatically explain the story, the concept, or why one execution is more appropriate than another.

A paint commercial provides his clearest example. The original concept involved a hand rearranging images of patio furniture and architectural elements. Gomez proposed keeping the action but building the objects as miniatures.

That change preserved the idea while making the interaction physical. The hand could touch actual objects. Their depth and parallax would become part of the image rather than something suggested by flat pictures.

Preserve the underlying concept. The hand still rearranges the setting.
Add a meaningful execution choice. Miniatures replace flat images.
Make the improvement visible. Touch and depth strengthen the original action.

These are not presented as a named formula in the conversation. They describe the logic of Gomez's example: understand what must remain, then identify the contribution that makes it better.

The attention required has a natural connection to The Skill You Need To Win Clients That No One Talks About. Here, the commercial consequence is concrete. A studio cannot persuade a client that it understands the assignment while treating the client's central idea as something to escape.

Originality is not the problem. Originality aimed at the wrong problem is.

Confidence needs a production plan

Once several studios can produce compelling work, the client faces a different judgment. Which team can be trusted to deliver it? Gomez argues that the answer is shaped well before production, in how the studio discusses the assignment.

He describes calls in which he lays out the proposed result and explains how the team will achieve it. Clients respond with relief. They have sometimes come from another conversation dominated by warnings about insufficient money, insufficient time, or general concern.

Neither money nor time disappears because a creative director sounds composed. The difference is whether the conversation gives the client a workable path or merely transfers the studio's anxiety.

Gomez is careful about the prerequisite. He does not want to enter that conversation until he believes the team can make something of the project. When the combination of schedule, budget, and expectations is untenable, he would rather decline than present confidence unsupported by a plan.

Confidence must follow feasibility. Reversing that order creates a sales performance that production has to rescue.

Inside the studio, feasibility is rarely one person's uncontested conclusion. Gomez describes different kinds of producers: some emphasize relationships and moving an opportunity forward, while others focus closely on time, resources, and execution details.

Both perspectives can expose something the other misses. An optimistic producer can keep a viable opportunity from being dismissed too early. A detail-oriented producer can identify the assumptions that make an exciting concept financially dangerous.

Creative leadership is not always the expansive voice in that argument, either. Gomez describes occasions when a producer calls a project impossible and he sees a different production method that makes it workable. The answer can be a change in technique rather than a larger budget.

His helicopter example makes the distinction tangible. A client wants a helicopter in the background of a live-action commercial, even though it is not central to the spot. The rental, pilot, and setup consume a disproportionate share of the available money.

A responsible response identifies what the scene needs to communicate and proposes a way to achieve that without spending the production on an incidental object. That is creative problem-solving in service of the agreement, not creativity detached from its cost.

Gomez also admits that these judgments have gone wrong. He has taken projects that lost money. Once the studio has agreed to deliver, however, its profitability is not the client's problem to solve.

This gives the confident pitch a harder edge. It is not just a persuasive explanation of what can happen. It is the beginning of an obligation.

The studio earns trust by showing a credible path, but it protects that trust by refusing promises it cannot reasonably keep. The most useful answer is sometimes an alternative approach. Sometimes it is a clear refusal before the client has built a plan around a false yes.

Prestige needs terms, not faith

Not every project is pursued for its immediate margin. Gomez and Do both recognize the appeal of main titles: limited budgets can accompany an opportunity to attach a studio's work to a distinctive television show.

That was part of the reasoning behind Shiloh's investment in the Mad Men pitch. Gomez saw creative opportunity and potential exposure. The studio was not confusing the assignment with a straightforward moneymaker; it was making a different kind of bet.

Do challenges what happens when an entire field keeps making that bet. If numerous studios offer extensive creative thinking for a small budget, the buyer has little incentive to allocate more money. The studios' willingness to subsidize prestige becomes part of the pricing environment.

Gomez does not dismiss that criticism. His response is to make the hoped-for return more explicit.

Before pursuing some low-budget opportunities, he now asks for agreement around publicity. The studio needs to be able to show the finished work and associate its name with it. If the commercial rationale includes exposure, restrictions on displaying or publicizing the project undermine that rationale.

Exposure cannot remain an undefined benefit that disappears when the contract arrives.

The question belongs alongside Free Work That Actually Pays, but Gomez's account supplies a specific test. A studio accepting less money for visibility needs permission to obtain that visibility. Otherwise, the sacrifice is concrete and the return remains hypothetical.

Establish whether the studio can display the finished work.
Discuss publicity before committing to the pitch.
Make the nonfinancial reason for participation explicit.
Do not assume a prestigious project guarantees useful exposure.

There are also opportunities that money cannot make appropriate. Gomez recalls turning down a large tobacco assignment because he did not feel right accepting it. He had worked on beer and pharmaceutical advertising, but tobacco crossed his own boundary.

The distinction was personal rather than a universal industry rule. Its importance is that the boundary held when the budget made refusal painful.

These decisions reveal a more complete version of selectivity. A project can be technically feasible and still be wrong for the studio. It can be creatively attractive and still lack a credible return. It can pay well and still conflict with the owner's judgment.

None of those decisions becomes easier after the team has invested weeks in winning. The useful discussion happens before commitment, when a refusal still costs less than withdrawal.

Gomez enjoys competition enough to understand its pull. That makes his insistence on terms significant. The thrill of pursuing a desirable project does not remove the need to decide what, exactly, the studio expects to receive.

A prestigious name is not a substitute for an agreement.

The work is not permission for everything

The conversation's hardest tension emerges in memories of a Scion campaign involving Shiloh, Blind, and Stardust. Both Gomez and Do admire the work that came out of it. Neither describes an easy production.

Gomez remembers late nights as routine and says the assignment nearly broke his studio. The available tools were slower, and the demands pushed the team hard. Creative achievement and organizational strain existed inside the same project.

Do's recollection is sharper. He describes a roughly $200,000 car-commercial budget, followed by changes to delivery specifications and additional creative demands. In his account, more work arrived without more money or adequate acknowledgment of what the changes required.

These are recollections from the participants, not a complete record of the engagement. What they expose is the difference between a demanding standard and an expanding obligation. A client can ask for excellence within an agreement; adding requirements changes what that agreement costs to fulfill.

Do is particularly frustrated by the absence of acknowledgment. A request to absorb a difficult change lands differently when the client recognizes the burden. Treating extra work as something a studio should simply be grateful to receive compounds the production problem with a relationship problem.

That distinction matters because the creative business can romanticize exactly these experiences. Long nights become evidence of commitment. A celebrated result becomes proof that the process was justified. Gomez's account resists that simplification: the work was valuable, and the strain was real.

The same double vision applies to his account of Shiloh's Huff title sequence. Do remembers admiring the result after losing the pitch. Gomez credits Danny Yount's contribution to the concept, then describes the studio developing and producing the execution in After Effects.

The achievement was not the product of one heroic creative director. It depended on a particular group of people working well together.

Gomez describes these combinations as seasons within a studio's life. Teams form, find momentum, and eventually change. A period of exceptional work cannot simply be attributed to the owner's permanent genius, any more than a losing streak proves that the studio has forgotten how to design.

That leaves a practical standard more durable than winning every pitch: understand the client before inventing, understand the production before promising, and understand the return before investing. These are disciplines demonstrated across Gomez's stories, not a guarantee against another expensive loss.

The next pitch still contains uncertainty. The client can prefer another proposal. A competitor can supply more proof. An agency's enthusiasm can fail to become an award.

But the studio can know why it entered, what it spent, what it heard, and what it agreed to deliver. Those are decisions within its control.

The pitch can be speculative. The commitment cannot.

TRANSCRIPT

I get on a call with a client and I'm like, "Hey, we're going to do X, Y, Z, and this is how we're going to do X, Y, Z. We're going to do it A, B, C, like this." And they're like, "Thank you so much. That makes so much sense. You guys sound like you know you have a plan." And then they might say something like, "All we heard on our last call was how short the schedule is, how we don't have enough money," or they're nervous or concerned. And that just puts them off, right? Hello and welcome to the Future Podcast. I'm your producer Greg Gunn and I hope you are having a good day. They're hard to come by. Today's guest is the executive creative director of Dallas-based design agency Attack Plan. He is one of few people that have been in the motion design business just as long as Chris has and that is a long time. This episode is full of great stories about the triumphs and tribulations of running a creative business in the advertising world. He and Chris swap stories about pitching ideas, working with nightmare clients, and how to take a loss and learn from it, even when it costs you $45,000. Yeah, they get real. But it's not all war stories. Listen hard enough, and you might pick up a few new tools to use in your own creative business. So without any further teasing, please enjoy our conversation with director Jose Gomez. Hi, my name is Jose Gomez. I'm the executive creative director of Attack Plan. I used to have a studio named Shiloh, and I've been doing this since about 2001. what is attack plan what do you guys do so attack plan is a basically a creative uh design agency and i think the best way to describe it is you know we work at the intersection of entertainment marketing and commercial production so i think that's a little bit different than most studios these days where they're either doing you know commercial production and that kind of stuff so i mean yeah it we kind of have a three-prong kind of approach to our business. So it's a little bit different than Shiloh was. I see. Okay. So you mentioned Shiloh twice now. So maybe our conversation makes a lot of sense to begin there. I understand that you decided to go a different direction. Can you tell us a little bit about what led up to this and what the decision was like and how you were feeling at the moment and why create Attack Blind? Yeah, I mean as you know Running your own creative studios is a challenge. It always has been You know and I think for me doing my studios for better part of 18 years it kind of got to the point where I Wanted to kind of make a change for the quality of our life you know my family's life and have a little bit less stress in my life and And being when you're a self-funded entity, there's an amount of stress that goes along with it. Not that I'm saying that it's bad, but it can be a little bit taxing at times. I think with a TAC plan, it gives me the opportunity to really focus on the things that I love, and that's being creative and leading those teams. So can I infer that now there is a business entity, somebody who's got a stake in it, so you're not as stressed out over the profit and loss and all that stuff? Yeah. Yeah. You know, so Attack Plan is part of Real Effects. So we probably have, you know, 300 plus animators that do, you know, film, animated films and whatnot. And we're the commercial kind of entity for that. So, you know, one of the things is when Real Effects came and talked to me a little bit about, you know, the possibility of doing this, you know, they gave me the tour. And what really struck me was the wherewithal and the capabilities that they had. And being something that was coming from my small studio, you know, I think we were probably at our height, maybe 30 people. It's pretty exciting to see the you know, the possibilities that could happen Mm-hmm and did did real effects did this opportunity happen as you're Contemplating about what you want to do with her life or had you already closed down Shiloh? Can you take us through that thought process? No, yeah No, it kind of was serendipitous. I think they had come to us and few years back about making a deal with you know Shiloh and that kind of stuff but it didn't work out at the time and then this time around it kind of you know everything kind of fell into place mm-hmm I want to talk about the mindset a little bit about how you felt because it's hard to let go of something that you've built for 18 years you know yeah yeah for sure and I think I It's one of those things where, and I have to be completely honest, it was hard. It was a hard decision to make, but I really it was a decision that I made because, hey, I never thought I'd end up living in Dallas. We're based in Dallas, Texas. But splitting our time, we had two studios, and splitting our time between New York and San Diego was pretty taxing over the years. Although I love New York, you know, it's kind of like chocolate. You love chocolate, but you can't just have it be, you know, your whole diet. Right. So it gets a little bit much after a while. So we want to, you know, it's we wanted to kind of have a change of pace and try not to be constantly on the treadmill, if you will. And so what's your relationship with Andre right now? Is he involved in Attack Planet at all? No, no. Andre went off to do, you know, his own thing, I think, you know, maybe five years or six years ago. I see. You know, so there was the time where, you know, we were partners and then he left to do, he wanted to pursue live action direction. His appetite for animation, I think, probably ran its course. I see. So you were left to run this bi-coastal office on your own. Yeah. Okay, I see. The story is making a lot of sense for me now. Yeah. That's a lot to do. Yeah, yeah. And I think it was one of those things where it was me and my wife. And my wife pretty much ran the books and did all the business and accounting and stuff. And it's a lot to deal with having a bi-coastal studio. And especially in a... in a marketplace that, hey, you know, when we first started Shiloh, I think it was what, Blind Shiloh? Stardust, right? Yeah. Yeah, right? Yes. And it's like, how many times have we pitched against each other? And I'm just like, damn it, Chris. Chris won this one, you know? And, you know, we even shared an executive producer, right? Yes, yes. A lot of it. Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, at the time when we first started, it was like, Gosh, you know, it was a handful of companies and budgets were bigger and people paid their bills on time, which, you know, such a shocker. What a novelty, people paying their bills. Interesting. Yeah, exactly. And the competition, you know, you can't minimize how many studios started popping up. You really can't minimize that, you know, because, look, we did some great work. Blind did some great work. Stardust, Buck, Brand New School, we've all done great work, right? But then as the years go on, it's like you have these studios that are like, you know... some guy who, you know, him and his buddy are working in Houdini and they can pump out great work on their desktop. Right. It becomes a diluted marketplace, right? Yeah. So that's where, you know, dealing with the ups and downs of that was like, hey, you know, I think doing this on our own is just going to stay stressful, you know, so let's make a change. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, if you haven't figured it out, we're going to probably go pretty deep in the into the motion realm space and it's not that often that I'm able to talk to somebody who's been doing this for as long as I've been doing it and now you're continuing on where I've kind of left that world behind so I think we're going to get deep, guys. So if this is not your cup of tea, that's fine. Skip this episode. But if you really want to hear the trials and tribulations and things that both of us have witnessed over the two decades that we've been in this business, in this motion industry, and have seen it from its high highs to the low lows, and it's just... It's kind of funky. So I haven't talked to anybody in the motion space at your level in a really, really long time. When I unplugged, I really unplugged. So I'm curious more than anything else. And it's like one of these things where when I was still actively in this space, it was like a slow moving car crash. Yeah, I could feel it. And you pointed out to some of the things ready when you and I are around in the early 2000s. It was just a handful of companies. The budgets were healthy. The creative was amazing. It was fun to do. Right. And like all things, the market becomes saturated. Clients are getting funky and the whole landscape has changed so much so that I'm still wondering, like, are you still making commercials? Do you still enjoy this process? And what's that like now? the key to success that we have an attack plan and the things that we've found work for us is you know, not only are part of our business is doing traditional commercials, but the way you even do traditional commercials anymore is so like not what was happening in 2000, right? Like, like I remember everything used to be so tidy, you know, Hey, we need a 32nd spot. And a 15-second cut down. Now it's we need a 32-second spot. Really? Yeah, just like random – they don't care – less care about the time length and it's more of like, hey, this is going to be on Facebook or Snapchat or whatever. And yeah, sure, it usually follows like that traditional timeline, 30 and 15 or whatever. Yeah. So we're doing a lot of stuff for social and those kind of delivery methods, right? So the delivery methods changed, but the contents remain the same. And then also we do a ton of... commercial entertainment work for studios, right? So like we just did the Paramount animation logo, we did all the marketing work for Jumanji or all the marketing work for Scooby-Doo or those types of animated movies. So we'll animate the marketing work for those properties, a lot of Sony properties, a lot of Warner Brothers properties, those types of things. So it's a mixture of those. And then layered in, You know, I still direct a lot of live action. So it's that's kind of like our calling card. It's the intersection between live action design, motion graphics and 3D animation. OK, so the landscape has changed. It's getting messy. The the Complex. Yeah, it's getting complex. And where you air these things, air in quotes, is no longer television or maybe that's just part of it. And it's all weird sizes and formats and orientations, as I can imagine. What's the relationship like? with your clients on the commercial side? Is it the same pitch process? Is it the same prove yourself every single time or is the relationship changing? Yeah, it's in a lot of ways. There's a definite mixture, a lot more than previous, you know, because in one aspect, you're still having the bigger jobs, right? Because there are bigger jobs. And when I say bigger jobs, I'm saying over 300K, right? For those jobs, you're going to be triple bidding. And it's going to be what you're used to and what I'm used to and putting a pitch deck together, putting design frames together, perspective and all that other stuff. And then there's what we're seeing a lot of now and what's grown over the course of the last 10 years is this client direct, right? Where Like say we do a lot of work for Lay's and Pepsi, right? And they just have an internal agency. So it's nice because sometimes it cuts out that step where you're just going, hey, we've done projects together. You want us to do this. They don't make us pitch the second and third time. They're just like, hey, we have this project. Let's execute this. you know, they, that kind of re proving yourself every time that's kind of fallen a little bit to the wayside when you're working client direct now on the agency side. I mean, geez, I don't know how many projects I've done for BBDO or Leo Burnett or, Y&R, but every single time they would make you pitch the damn project over and over again. It's like every time it'd be the same three or four or five companies bidding for the same project. So that's a little bit nice working with client direct. And I think agencies have that as policy and whatever, but it's just like, It does get a little tiring when they're like, hey, can you send me a reel of your capabilities? I'm like, we've done five projects together. Right. You know, so but, you know, that's just the way things work. And that's, you know, it's you don't make up the rules. You just you just live by them. I mean, you can break the rules. And, you know, there's some people that have done that. But, you know, at a certain level. Right. On the smaller projects. like there's some sometimes where and stop me if i'm rambling there's sometimes you know on smaller projects where i'm like literally the cost of pitching this project is going to take a portion of your actual budget like you know i need to bring in designers or if the designers that i have are here they're all you know we're all on the clock right so Just even pitching your project you're jeopardizing your project's success, right? Because if it's if it's a really low budget don't let's not waste the time, you know, we can do it, you know So sometimes we'll turn down projects at a very very low level like that But at a higher level you're not dictating the course, right? You're you're competing for that job, you know if it's a half a million dollars or or a million dollar job, you're definitely competing. Yeah. So I want to just say this for people who are curious about the motion design industry and you're like, what is this pitching thing about? And just in a nutshell, the client, usually advertising agencies will invite a handful and sometimes more, unfortunately, of companies to bid speculatively for a project by presenting creative that they have to foot the bill of the creative. and everything that goes into that in hopes of securing the job. So what you're talking about, what Jose is talking about is sometimes you can spend quite a bit of money on the pitch process itself, and that's going to come back out of the budget of the project that you potentially win. So it's putting in jeopardy the resources and the talent where it's supposed to be which is in the making of the thing and not the pursuit of the thing so that's kind of what jose is talking about there for anybody that doesn't understand the way it works in the commercial world now i remember a time i don't know if you you do but there was a time when you could just submit a number Maybe a one-page written treatment, a director's treatment, as they would refer to it. And those years didn't last long. It was only a few short years before everybody started getting into it. And then somewhere along the way, the agencies realized, and they still do this to this day, if we can get a bunch of companies to submit ideas for free, why not? And that was, for me, the beginning of a long, spiraling death. It was like, God, that sucks. Yeah, like 12 years of that or 15 years of that. Yeah. Yes. No, for sure. I mean, I think there was definitely times where, you know, we've done pitches where they've been very small, one, two pages, right? And there's been times where, you know, sometimes on a project you might, you know, we might have pitched just a two-page little treatment written and some mood boards, right? So you pull together some reference. triangulate the intent of your message and with mood frames and writing and that actually is pretty effective, right? And, you know, we'd get some pretty big jobs. You know, I pitched on the Ford F-150 campaign, right? So that's like a couple million dollars in work. And we spent $45,000 on the pitch. We lost, you know, and that hurt. Really bad So that's the other extreme right where you're bringing in, you know, I I brought in Artists like, you know, I'm an artist myself my backgrounds in art Skateboarding and you know an artist I admire Evan he cocks I brought him in to work on the pitch and I'm like he drew out of the whole campaign You know custom painting everything and And the agency loved it and whatever. But as you know, sometimes these things you could be the recommend and still lose the job. Right. So that was like that was one of those times where I was like, OK, well, you know, you're not going to you're not going to win any of the jobs that you don't swing for. Right. And that's kind of like been my mantra. Like, all right, we just got to like and that's another thing. I refuse to do a pitch unless I'm in 100 percent. Like I'm not going to. Half-ass it, you know, it's like I'll just turn it down and then you know on to the next because I feel like it's a it's it's too much of a an expenditure of effort and brainpower to Trivialize it in that respect as a business owner. I When you're running Shiloh, you're pitching on jobs, you're losing. I think you have to lose a bunch of jobs. This is a numbers game. You can't if there are five people. The way I always looked at it is you have a one in five chance. I'd like to say that we always have a better than that. But I'm just looking at math. Right. And you're going to win some and you're going to lose a bunch. Did you ever look at the number of jobs that you've lost and how much money that was spent against that? And how did you feel about that? Yeah, I mean, I can't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but we were very buttoned up in calculating our pitch to win ratio. So we had spreadsheets and, you know, and I think at our best time, yeah, I think our best average was 60-40, right? So we were winning 60% and losing 40%. And then that would fluctuate, you know, to... winning 40% and losing 60%. And the good times are like when you, like at Attack Plan, we have a gong. Because you have a lot of employees and everybody wants to know when you win a job. So we have this big, it's like a gong in our office. We gong the gong. But at Attack Plan, we won eight pitches in a row. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is great, right? You're unstoppable. Yeah, we're unstoppable. And then we won eight pitches in a row and then proceeded to lose four in a row or five in a row. And those are the times that you're like, okay, here's your slice of humble pie. I think even as a small business owner... you know, even if you're a two man shop or whatever, you really need to focus on, you know, how you're winning, what's winning, what's the approach, like analyze that creative because it's an intangible thing. Every bit of creative idea, they're all different, right? - Right. - But it's like, what did you do differently on this pitch that made you win? And try to harness that, you know? It's kind of like a nebulous kind of a nebulous thing. You can't, it's super hard to explain to someone why you win a pitch and why, you know, cause I've seen some, you know, and I've been lucky enough to see some of my competitors pitches after the fact, you know, like the client might share it with you and you're like, Ooh, and you're like, sometimes to be honest, I'm like, Oh, Oh, okay. We won. That's you know you look at someone else's pitches you're like that's pretty awesome right they did just as good a job as we did and then so sometimes i even think you know even when you're on a pitch say with somebody like when we were pitching against you guys right and we were pitching against say psyop or brand new school or one of the other studios And we still pitch against a lot of those studios still. Like I'm under the realization that each one of us probably do just as good a job as the next person. Right. Right. So you're going to you're going to knock it out of the park. We're going to knock it out of the park. But then then then it gets down to what can we offer the client that's going to entice him to pick us? over the other folks because creativity is just creativity and create creative output is just like the base layer. It's the foundation. It's the, uh, it's the given, right? You know, we're, we're good. You're good. They're good. You're picking three good people. It's like, then what do you layer on top of that? Is it, is it communication? Is it, is it relationship? Is it your projection of confidence? You know, because that's another thing like early on, you know, in the early 2000s, even all the way through 2010, you could almost smell when a client was afraid, right? Because there's so many of them, especially at agencies, they're very afraid of making a fumble. Right. Right. So a lot of the time, you know, even now it's projecting, you know, an air of capability and confidence and wherewithal that they know they're in good hands. Because sometimes even on, you know, I get on a call with a client and, you know, I'm like, hey, we're going to do X, Y, Z, and this is how we're going to do X, Y, Z. We're going to do it, you know, A, B, C, like this. They're like, thank you so much. That makes so much sense You guys sound like you know You have a plan and then they might say something like all we heard on our last call was how short the schedule is how we don't have enough money or They're nervous or concerned and that just puts them off right? So to me I kind of gathered the information first and I'm like, oh I won't get on a call with a client unless I know we can make something of it. If we can't make something of it, I'd rather just be like, honestly, this is too big of an uphill battle for us to tackle right now. And we can't do this project in two weeks for half the budget, right? So, you know, you want to engage the client when you're confident enough that you know you're going to be able to do a good job and have all those answers. uniform. So with your experience, you knew when there was something that was being asked of you that was just based on your standards, not feasible, budget and time. Because we say like with any amount of budget, we can make something work. But since that's never the case, it's a finite budget, then we have to fight against time and expectations. And so you'll gracefully bow out of the whole process knowing like okay man this is not right for us good luck to whoever gets it yeah when you ran your company and your executive producer is working with you did you guys ever get into points of conflict and i asked this very earnestly because they want you to get the job no matter what all the time okay and you're the owner and tell me what that dialogue sounds like so so i can compare it to the kinds of conversations i've had over the years Sure. I mean, it could go both ways too. Sometimes I can be like, a producer might look at something and say, hey, this is totally impossible. And I'll be like, no, it's not. We'll do it like this. We'll do it in 3D or we'll do it stop motion or we'll do it like this. And there might be an argument of, well, the client doesn't want that. And I'm like, Listen, I'm kind of always about like if there's a hope for a project, it's almost like we can't do what you're asking exactly, but here's what we can do. And it'll be really, really awesome if you just do these two things together. Like, for instance, some big live action commercial and they want a helicopter. And the whole spot has nothing to do with really a helicopter. Just somebody got an idea like, oh, we want a helicopter in the background. And you're like, no, you don't understand. To rent the helicopter and to set up and the pilot and all that other stuff, that's... majority of your budget that you're blowing right so it I know that's a weird like example but yeah it's trying to find those solutions that I think that I would push for as a business owner now from a Producer standpoint like some producers there's different types of producers too, right? There's like the relationship producers like a Tino, right? Yeah very much very much about the relationship very much sales like pushing the ball across the line very hopeful right right and optimistic And those are great to have. And then there's the, I like to call them like the line producers of motion graphics, where they're just looking at every little detail, every little bit of time. And those producers kind of tend to be the ones that are a little bit more worried about whether we're able to pull it off in time and budget and whatnot. there's a case to be said both ways because Sometimes and surely I've made this mistake where I get into a project and I lose money Yeah, you know because at the end of the day you agreed to do something and you've got to deliver Now whether or not you make money or not. That's not the clients problem. That's your problem. So You learn those lessons and you confer with them and you kind of make an educated decision together. But yeah, there was a lot of times that we had major, let's say, animated discussions about whether or not we could do a project or not. Mm hmm. But then you still get the final say, right? It's your company. And you say, you know what? I know. We'll probably lose money. It's fine. I still want to do it. It's my prerogative. And conversely, hey, we're going to make a lot of money on this. And you say, you know what? It's not right for us. I don't feel it. I'm not getting the vibes, whatever, walk away from it. And that's the natural push and pull of these kind of relationships. Yeah, for sure. I mean, there was definitely times where I remember, say, around maybe 2007 or 8 or something, it was like, we had a really big job, but it was for tobacco. And at the time, I just didn't feel right. So I was just like, It's a very rare occasion because I mean, I definitely am have my belief system, but In advertising, it's hard to pick and choose what is the point where you decide, hey, this is too much for me, right? And tobacco is one of them. And I've done beer commercials. I've done all sorts of pharmaceutical commercials and all sorts of things like that. But tobacco is the one where I was like, no, I can't do this one. Big budget. It's very painful to walk away. Yeah. They usually are. The ones like that are usually very painful because they're flush with money. Yeah. For a reason. Yes, for a reason. Now, I want to go back to this one thing because you were talking about your win to loss ratio. So for every 10 jobs for the lifetime of your company, you were averaging about six of those jobs you would win and then you would lose four out of every 10 jobs, right? Well, that would fluctuate. Right. And then you'd go on hot streaks and you would go on cold streaks. Yes. We've seen the same thing. So I wanted to ask you, and you talked about this a little bit, and I'm not sure there's an answer for you, but there's this black box. And the black box is what we'll call the agency thinking creative process. You do your best. You show up every day that you decide, hey, man, we're going to go after this. We're going to give it our best. And it goes inside the black box. What comes out of it is they give it to company A, B, C, D, or E, and sometimes it seems like you know what you're doing. Sometimes we have no idea why they choose the things that they choose. I wanted to ask you, what do you attribute to be the secrets to your success of getting a better than 50% win ratio over the lifetime of your company? What do you think that was? Man, that is a very good question. And I think one that is multi-layered, right? It's not just like, oh, because we did, we put this in our treatments. I've got a lot of stories. So I can, I'll share some good stories. because the ones that you will the ones the ones that pain me the most are usually the best ones okay so i think for me what i learned early on was listening but like not listening but like really really listening now when someone says words you're you get the words right but what is their intent what are they trying it's almost like i got good And this is even today, like, you know, I make everyone in our team, like, listen to what the client's really trying to say and poke and prod them to reveal more information than they're trying to give you. Because usually they have this boilerplate and they're kind of spitting it out. And I learned this early on because, okay, so you're familiar, Imaginary Forces did the main title for Mad Men, right? Yep. And we were on that pitch. And we had won an Emmy for a Showtime show called Huff, right? Oh, yeah. Beautiful job, by the way. Oh, thank you. So we were pitching Mad Men at the time. And I was just like, what is this show? Who is this guy? Let's just get on the phone with him. And he starts talking. And forgive me, I forget the show creator's name. Matt Weiner or something like that? Yes, yes. Yeah. And so he's, you know, Matt's on the phone with us and he's just kind of telling us what the show's about, you know, the context of it, the storyline, whatever. And I'm like, wow, this is really cool. It's about advertising agencies and whatever. So we go back and he's like, you know, you guys come up with a bunch of come up with a bunch of ideas. He's all, you know, I don't know. He's like, I kind of think it'd be kind of cool to see someone, you know, committing suicide and like or falling down a building and and watching his life's work kind of flash by as he's falling, you know, like the downfall of of his agency or whatever, you know, him falling down from building. And that was the whole thing. We did a huge presentation, but we didn't give that idea. We had all sorts of different ideas because we were like – I remember back then the argument was on the team like, well, he spouted that out. That was just like a toss-away idea he had on the conference call. And there was this big discussion back and forth. I was like, no, we should be safe. We should do a design and a concept based on that and whatever. And it was like this big – kind of back and forth and then no we need to do all all original ideas you know we did like 10 or 15 different ideas wow you know and then yeah we lost and then we go and then i watch it on air and i'm like son of a bitch you know we should have just done what he said to do right yeah and so from then on i'm i was i'm always like all right just listen Listen to what they're trying to say, but not just listen. Really, really, really, really try to get in deep to what they're meaning. What's the intent of what they're trying to do here? So I think part of that is taking a layered approach where you're going at the pitch like, OK, We listen to what the client wants, what they need. We're going to build something against that. But then we're going to try to plus it, right? We're going to try to do something that they haven't thought of or a little creative twist or a little hook. And that was my big thing. Every pitch had to have a hook. What was the creative hook that got them, you know, to be like, wow, we really loved what you did with our idea and how you took this and changed it just a little bit into that. And, you know, that kind of that kind of thinking, you know, and then also, too, I think a lot of the stuff is the team that we built at the time was so it's almost like in the 18 years you have seasons. Right. You have you have seasons of like you. It's like capturing magic. Somehow these people come together and you're like, you're just firing all cylinders. And then sometimes they disperse and then you, you know, it's kind of like up and down. But a lot of the people, you know, that worked over the course of the time, it really was more than just one person. It was like when you had a great team, they could come up with great ideas. You know, everybody vibed off each other. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back. Hey, Greg Gunn from the future here. That's right. It's me again. Now the future's mission is to teach 1 billion creatives how to make money doing what they love without feeling gross about it. Now maybe you're in school but you feel like you're not getting what you need. Or maybe you're like me and sold all of your internal organs to pay for private art school tuition. But you know, it's been a while and you want to sharpen up some of those skills. Well, fortunately for you, we have a bunch of courses and products designed specifically to help you become a smarter and more versatile creative. Design courses like typography, logo design, and color for creatives go deep into the design fundamentals that you need to know and command in order to be successful. Check out all of our courses and products about learning design by visiting thefuture.com/design. ♪ Welcome to Naughty Yotta Island ♪ - Next on Naughty Yotta Island. - I knew I deserved so much more, so I left. I finally switched to Metro and got what I was looking for. - Get one line for only $25 a month with auto pay. Just bring your phone to Metro and experience all the data you want on the largest 5G network. That's Naughty Yotta Yotta, only at Metro by T-Mobile. - First month is $30. Bring your number and ID. Offer not available if with T-Mobile or with Metro in the past 180 days. Nerds! Introducing NerdWallet's 2025 Best of Awards list, your shortcut to the best credit cards, savings accounts, and more. The nerds have done the work for you, researching and reviewing over 1,100 financial products to bring you only the best of the best. Looking for a balanced transfer credit card with 0% APR? They've got a winner for that. Or a bank account with a top rate to hit your savings goals? They've got a winner for that too. Know you're getting the best products for you without doing all the research yourself. So let NerdWallet do the heavy lifting for your finances this year and head over to their 2025 Best of Awards at nerdwallet.com/awards to find the best financial products today. Welcome back to our conversation with Jose Gomez. I want to ask you about this creative hook, but before I do, I want to ask what year was this that you were pitching for Mad Men and what was the budget like for you to be submitting 15 ideas? Well, the budget wasn't big. Especially on main titles, the budgets aren't very good. But we knew that if we won, it would have been really good for our studio. And it was great for, I mean, come on. Imaginary Forces really milked that one for a long time. It was great for their studio, right? So we kind of knew that going in. And it was a question of, you know, I did three ideas. Andre did three ideas. Nate did two ideas. You know, we really got into it and did a lot of ideas. But I can't remember the time. You know, it was before the show started. So it was a while ago. But, you know, it was one of those things like, you know that it's a unique opportunity. And it wasn't about the money, per se. It was about the creative and the exposure. Okay, so I think what you're saying is that you knew going in, this is not a moneymaker, because main titles are not lucrative, generally speaking. Never. Maybe HBO pays a lot of money. I don't know how... We've done a lot for HBO. I tell myself this story before I go to bed that HBO pays a lot because the work they get is phenomenal. But what we're talking about is there's a lot of cachet if you wind up working and attaching yourself to a project that winds up becoming a hit show. Right. So you read the premise, the synopsis, whatever it is, and you can't even know for certain it's going to be a show. You just think it probably will be a hit and I need to get my name attached to this. And so we get into this. Now, I do want to do the creative hook thing, but we're on this. Do you think it's healthy for companies like yourselves, like us, because I'm in that space, too, to look at it like this? Because now we are subsidizing these projects. And there's no motivation for show creators, show runners to say, look, you know, let's put $300,000 in for that show open because it's really important to the visual identity and the packaging of our show. But if we can put $30,000 aside and we have 10 companies giving us 15 ideas each, why should we change? So what do you think about that? What about the kind of... Our mentality. Yeah. I mean, look, there's two parts to that. If they have a good show and you know it's going to come off really well, it's a calculated risk because it's not about the money. It's something – it's more – and that's something that even we agree upon. Like before we go in, we're like, hey, we're not working on this project just so you know because your budget isn't very good. And they know that, right? So they already know that their budget's not good. And what they mostly lean upon is, hey, we've got a great show. It's going to be a hit. But this idea of – because I hate the idea of working for free, right? And it's one of those things where we go in and we're like, hey, we're a little bit more demanding now. before we engage right so we're like we're gonna pitch this project but if we win we're gonna get we want press associated together because sometimes what they try to do is they they say hey you can't put this on your website you can't show it you can't pr it no like that's not happening i'm not you know like we need to pr it in a very healthy way so we'll we'll do that But then on the flip side of that, like I was talking about before, the larger budget jobs that say a half a million on up, at that point, you're either participating or you're not participating and you don't have that chance. It's almost like this industry – dug its own grave in a sense when it comes to pitching like now now We're lying in it like it's gonna be really hard once you once you've dug that hole It's gonna take a collective effort of every studio to fill it back Right because it took it took a collective effort from every studio to dig the hole, right? But guess what now the agencies and most everybody else they're used to that system and So why, you know, why change? Right. And then there's, and then also too, the, the amount of studios is so much higher. Each one of them is going to do whatever it takes to get the job. Right. And they're going to push and pull and they'll, you know, they'll do whatever, you know, at this point it's, it's, um, either you choose to be part of it or you choose to not. Right. That's it. Right. I see. I, I, I agree with what you're saying, the summary. But I don't remember stepping into that line saying, hey, guys, let's vote on this. Let's all start pitching for free. A studio does it. I know, I know. A studio did it. And then they basically educated their clients saying, hey, one of these five studios just did animation tests. One of these five studios just did this whole animatic for us. So now... Motion test? You're taking it even to the next level, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've lost so many pitches because they used to be a little bit, agencies might have been a little bit more coy about what the other competitors were doing. Now they'll tell you, hey, they're doing a motion test. You better do a motion test. Yes. And there's been a lot of times where we've lost pitches where it's like, hey – and also too when I lose a pitch or when we lose a pitch as a studio, I love to gather the information like, hey, why did we lose? What did we do wrong? How can we do better next time? And a lot of times it could just be – The other studio did a motion test and it made the client believe in them more. And you're like, well, okay. I didn't know we were doing motion tests or anything. I guess fair game, but it's very rare to be paid for pitches these days. And when we have, and it's still, it happens sometimes, you know, the money is really not enough to even cover the pitch. So it might buy the lunches, right? Yeah, exactly. Thank you for that. So in a way, we've dug this hole ourselves unwittingly, collectively, whatever, because supply is so far outstripped demand. There's a few people offering work. And so there's so many mouths to feed that it's warfare. And it's, I guess, all's fair in war. And everybody does whatever they want. Some people will fly out and present their fully baked idea in person. I've done it. At the cost of tens of thousands of dollars themselves to to hope to secure it and you're back there in the studio submitting four boards And so it is kind of a thing and that's why I like okay Look, you have a decision to make you want to be in the business you accept the rules of warfare Or you get out or you go client direct or you do something different and that's the way it is well and also - it's like don't it I feel like complaining about it is wasted energy because Either you're doing something to affect change or get out of the way or mind your business and try to win more. But to complain only, yeah, it's wasted energy. I mean, you know, like when we're pitching jobs with Warner Brothers or whatever, they're so used to, hey, if we have a million dollars for this campaign, we're seeing three different options if you don't want to pitch. then goodbye. We'll find 20 other studios that'll pitch your idea. And at that point, we're like, okay, we're gonna pitch. And quite honestly, the only part that bends me a little bit is the expenditure of the pitch. And not being compensated for creativity is one part that really chaps my hide. But on the other side, the most favorite part of the whole job for me is the pitch. It's almost like... I love the hunt. You know, I love competition. I love winning. I love losing. You know, like when we lose. Yeah. Nobody likes to lose. But I'm like, it's such an emotional roller coaster. You know what I mean? And, you know, that's what I think. I think sometimes really great creativity comes out of that competition. But I just wish the competition was more competitive. compensated right like when say for instance basketball players go out you know and they play all year to get to the finals they get paid before the finals right so it's like it'd be nice to be paid for getting to the point where you're you know at the job yeah i think they get paid whether they play or not yeah so that's a whole different i mean you're talking about different universe here yeah maybe that's not the best example yeah you know what i mean it's like i know what you mean you're getting you're getting compensated you know enough to cover your costs that would be fantastic but again to complain about it it's it's wasted energy i agree i still want to know what you mean when you say It has to have a creative hook. How do you explain that to somebody who's two years out of school and when they present ideas to you and you say, there's no creative hook here, work on it. What does that mean? You know, it's kind of like when I'm talking to the designer and they'll make beautiful frames I'm like, yeah, these are these are fantastic looking frames my man. They look great, but it's just a big nothing You know, there's it's just beautiful and beautiful only goes you gets you half the way. What's the story? What's the hook? What's the the concept? Where are you? Where are you planning your flag in the ground like in their creative? Right? What how are you plussing it? Like for instance? I And this is like something, I'm just going to use this as an example. Sure. There is this job for a paint company, right? Like Valspar Paints or whatever. And they had this concept where a hand came in and started deconstructing a patio, moving the patio furniture around and rearranging the windows on the house. And their idea was, hey, we're going to have... this hand come in and move all this stuff on the patio, but it was all just like pictures of, you know, patio furniture or whatever, and the hand would pick up the picture and move it around. So, like, I had this idea, like, hey, how can we plus this without changing their idea? So I proposed making everything out of miniatures. Right. So they could come like the hand could actually touch something in the parallax. And there was like and it gave it just enough difference that they were like, oh, my God, this is genius. That's kind of what I'm talking about. It's it's it's not necessarily changing their idea. It's plussing it and doing it in a way where. You can you can say, hey, that's that's X, Y, Z. And but I'm going to add this fourth layer on it, you know. So it could even be as simple as that. Or is it something like the way you approach the creative? Like what is the what is the the angle you're taking at it rather than just regurgitating to them what they told you? Right. You got to do something to plus it. So I hope that answers. It does. And the example made it more concrete for me that the idea was preserved. The technique that you proposed, the creative approach, It's it's this marriage of form and function that just made it seem like uh-huh Of course, that's the way that's genius in its simplicity now it's gonna take somebody years of experience to figure this thing out because some people do literally what the boards or the client will say and so they have not plus it in your words and Or they think plussing it is, hey, I got this totally different approach. Let's just blow the whole furniture up. You sit there and, no, it's not what we're doing. Yeah, and that's how I lost Mad Men. Yeah. Because we were pitching Mad Men, and rather than taking his idea and plussing it, I was like, all right, we're going to go nuts. And the team were like, we're going to throw them with all these genius ideas, and we're so smart. Yeah. We're so brilliant, we're gonna come up with all these creative ideas. And then you get slapped with a big slice of humble pie and you're like, we should have just listened and brought something more, not something. When you're swinging, you could totally, you don't wanna be off in left field. You wanna be inside the house. You don't wanna be knocking it down. You wanna be beautifying it, right? So you wanna be making it better. So maybe in a way that you're talking about this, when you say you want to be able to do more, so you're looking for something to add to it to make it to make the concept stronger versus doing something totally out of left field, which is, to me, subtracting from it. It's like you're pulling away from the core idea. Okay. So for all you aspiring people who want to win more pitches, that was probably one of the most insightful key things that you're going to take from this conversation. But I'm going to ask you this question. Sure. I'm glad you really brought it up. huff beautiful conceptual all of it and we lost you guys and when i saw what you guys did i was like there's no way we could have done that i'm not even talking about like did we even come up with ideas like the amount of love you put into that main title i was like damn that's so good that's one where we just take off our hat we bow to you gracefully and say you know what the best person and it doesn't always happen one you deserve to win what was the idea for that can you quickly describe that So essentially Huff was a show about a psychiatrist, but his own psychosis, you know, it was kind of like this like weird thing. So the, the concept, um, you know, we presented like six different concepts and, um, The concept was like compartments of the mind and memories, you know, and those floating bits of your memory, of your mind floating in this kind of nebulous space framed in these pictures of moments in time. And I think before that, that was one of those spots too where that we did a lot of parallaxing and through, you know, we did it all in After Effects. This is, you know, the tools were not as abundant as they are now. But That technique, man, it was copied so much after that. I would see like 20 different versions of that spot. It was pretty amazing how prevalent that design kind of took off. But yeah, you know, I remember it was pretty much Danny Yount. He helped us on that pitch, and that was his contribution was the concept for that. So Danny – he deserves a lot of credit for that. You know, he came in and helped us and he was a good contributor, but, you know on the idea stage and then we took it off and we produced it and whatever yeah so i'm gonna have to look at that thing again because when i looked at it i for many times because i was a fan of the show as well i was thinking oh there's some 3d trickery there's a lot going on here it was beautiful it's just yeah when you talk about an idea it meets its form and execution again hats off to you so thank you let's talk about another thing that we have some crossover this time not so sad for us Because we worked on a campaign together for Scion with the Attic. Oh, yes. And I saw what you guys did. I was like, wow, these guys are good. My God, it's good. I mean, likewise. That was one where it was Blind, Stardust, and Shiloh doing the whole campaign. And Simon Needham. Mm-hmm. Bless his heart. He knows what he wants, and he's a very, let's say as a client, I'm going to use the word, demanding. He is. Very demanding, very succinct, too. Like, he was not wishy-washy with what his words chose. You know, he was just like, he knew exactly what he wanted. And he wasn't afraid to tell you if something wasn't up to snuff, right? Yeah. So that project really changed our studio in a lot of ways. I mean, it almost broke us, you know? It was like, God, we were... Really pushing hard on that one. Back then too, the tools weren't as fast. So 2:00 AM was the norm. Buying dinner for everybody, the norm. Those projects were awesome to work on. Yeah. I'm glad that you're saying some of the things that you're saying. So I'm going to say some things and we're going to have to figure out whether or not we want to leave this into the edit here. Okay, I'm not a big fan of Simon. I'm not a fan of the way he manages people. I think he's a former creative himself running his own design studio. So you would hope that as a person who's been on the line before, that now that you become the client, that you would have some semblance of... Man, we could change things from the inside out. But actually, he became the worst kind of client possible. When you say demanding, I think that's a very polite way to say it. So if I remember correctly, it was a $200,000 budget to do a car commercial back in the 2000s. And that's a ridiculously low budget for a car commercial. Ridiculous, okay? Yeah. It'd be probably pretty good these days, but back then that was just stupid. Junk. Right? And we would do this and we would present things one after another. So here's a couple of things he did that I just can't let go of, which is first, it was bidded out at a $7.25 hd project and then it became a full 1920 hd project and back then there was still relatively new it's hard still transitioning man it's like we're talking about double the rendering everything and like you said the horsepower wasn't there in computing he just snapped his fingers and said that's the way it's going to be there was no sense of fairness like hey man you changed the spec on us and then he's like oh yeah you know what we were going to shoot this uh shark and we want a robot shark and make it Yep. And we're already deep into it now. So what are we going to do? And here's the worst part. It's one thing to say, here's some new creative things, but like to acknowledge it, that guys, I'm sorry, there's no more money. Just roll with the punches with me. I do appreciate that. Versus like, no, you should be so grateful that I'm throwing three times as much work on top of you for no extra money. And here's the last little bit. We would present boards to him and he's like, instead of reacting like a normal human, and I think he was getting off on this, he would say, Ah, this doesn't offend me. Like, F you, dude. F you. You go do some boards then. Let me see what you got there. Yeah. So that was rough. I think your recollection of that time is just as crystal clear as mine is. Yes. But I think you're a little bit more revealing. So, I mean, there's been times where Simon, he was the worst kind of client. Yeah. The absolute worst. Yes. Like it didn't get worse. I don't typically, especially in a public forum like this, I would never talk bad about anybody, but those projects were, you busted your ass and And we knew they were good, but he never told you they were good. He never would say, man, you guys kicked ass or this is great. And those spots really helped their agency a whole bunch. And we all kicked our asses for those things. And it would have just been nice to have been a little... Because clients, it's so nice when clients will say, oh my God, you guys killed it. We're so appreciative. I know... he he didn't make a lot of fans and you know attic i don't know i i think it faded away but you know that was those were rough days man i mean they were great it was great creative and that's why you did them right you know you know it's one of those things where you go back and you're just like god i hope i i hope not everybody's like this yeah you know i mean because i would do and and you know with clients I will do just about anything to make a client comfortable and happy. And a couple times with him, I would just have to just Stand my ground. I think there's the best way. Yeah to describe what I'm saying you have to stand your ground sometimes because and there's been times where I've had to hang up the phone with clients where they're like screaming at producers like I'm glad those days are done because that doesn't happen anymore Yeah, you know when like a client starts screaming and you know junior producers crying in the corner And I'm you know, and I'm like, you know what? You're not we're done. This conversations over. You're not we're not having this conversation anymore Yeah, you know like in New York I People are a little more gruff. They're a little more forthcoming with their opinions. Yeah, and You know, I remember saying something like oh, you know, we'd love to do this project But you know like we're booked from X date to this day and we're just we need to just push it back a week And he's like look man, I could throw a quarter out the window right now It's gonna hit a director in the head So either you want to do the job or you don't want to do job and I was like, okay. Thanks for that Yeah Thanks for reminding me of that, right? I could see you're still a little scarred from Simon Needham. You know what? No, you know, I've had really great clients. I've had really bad clients. But what's interesting, and I have a pretty good memory, so it was interesting to me for you to share a little bit and tip me on, like, I think we went through the same thing because... you never know we're one of three companies i assume stardust was like having champagne and caviar and as you guys were and we're the only people getting wrecked on this thing and oh man right so there's no point to air dirty laundry there isn't the point here is to find some learning lesson from this and my learning lesson in in whatever little influence i may have into the world is this is that It's tough to be a creative person and if you hire creative people all they want to do is make you happy They really do a little kindness a little generosity and just not being a total aggressive a-hole will get you they'll bleed for you and we would Yeah, we would because creative people are hyper emotional. Yeah, right It takes a lot of emotion to create something out of nothing and to create a language from something that is unexplainable. We're not engineers. You don't have a process where you're going two plus two equals four on the x-axis and blah, blah, blah. Creativity is something unexplainable. It's lightning in a bottle. So that takes so much emotion to get that to come forth. So when you have a client just beating you down, beating you down, and this happened early on. Right? Clients were, especially in pre us, right? You know, like when I was directing live action, all I ever heard about was, oh, uh, Pica, you know, the director, he was so mean to clients and then clients fighting with, you know, the directors and screaming at each other. And that was like late nineties. Right. And then early two thousands, it's like people still really aggressive, you know, like kind of do our bidding type stuff. And then over the course of the years, You might still find that now, but it's it's smoothed out a little bit where they're not as aggressive You know, you can't you can't get away with that in this day and age, you know and especially the things that they they used to say I'd be like I remember some of the things I'm like that would be a lawsuit like he told this lady, you know X I was like this wouldn't this wouldn't fly today some of the stuff that happened, you know, but I You're right. It's like just a little bit of emotional, just if clients give a little bit, you know, even with art directors, I'm always like, man, make these guys want to work for you. Right. If you don't get them behind you, the job is going to fall off the rails. Yeah. Right. Like some art directors or some creative directors, they'll just bark orders or be like hyper aggressive. And then I'm like, man, you really need to mix some sugar with your salt. Right. You can't be too salty because no one's going to no one's going to back you at that point. They're just going to be like, oh, this guy's a dick. But then you can't be too sugary because then they'll just, you know, not listen or, you know, just kind of take advantage of you. So you have to find that right balance. yeah so here here's my uh my love letter to advertising so to speak tongue in cheek i think advertising for a really long time was the center of a certain creative universe where some of the most talented people from directors editors colorists two designers, directors were coming together to work to create this singular thing. And they were all handsomely rewarded for it. That time is over because advertising, and you may feel differently, is completely irrelevant. Advertising pushes people away today. So we have had a period where emotionally immature, morally corrupt people were in that space to make the decisions and were completely abusive. To creative people and to their own, to each their own. They're just rewards or waiting for them on the other side of karma on that front. Now, on a management note, though, I think there's a time and place for you to be very direct and clear with what it is that you think and your expectations. But that's not necessarily a management style to motivate people. So there's a guy like Kyle Cooper, Danny Yacht, which you mentioned. They have really freaking high standards. I totally respect them for it. So when you fall short of that, they're going to let you know. Oh, yeah. Conversely, if you do something that meets or exceeds that expectation, they will shower praise upon you because they're being real about it, not just as a management style to try to motivate people and be all stick. What do you want to say to that, Jose? No, I mean, I've heard a lot about Kyle Cooper, you know, and working for Kyle Cooper is one of those things like you're working, you have to realize who you're working for, right? You're working for one of the best there is, or there was, or ever will be. Like he's great. So there's a certain level of expectation. And, you know, and especially even from, say, East Coast to West Coast, Even in our office now, you have to be able to take criticism and constructive criticism in a very direct manner without getting upset about it. Because I don't have... Always tell everyone that you know I work with I'm like you guys need to push me as much as I push you if you don't if you see something that's happening and you need to speak up about it and You need to be very direct and concise and respectful, right? But I'm gonna do I'm gonna press you to get the best out of like if I don't feel something's up to snuff I mean that I just don't sugarcoat that because it doesn't need to be sugarcoated, right? You need to be able to say like look This isn't working because this, this and this. Right. And sometimes when you tell that to people and like I said, creatives are very emotional. Right. We're all very emotional, me included. I have all sorts of different emotions. When you're trying to get, especially on timelines, you're trying to get to a very succinct message and you don't have time to. kind of beat around the bush and and and you have to be very clear and Concise and that's something I even say to my clients don't beat around the bush with us. Just tell us what's going on Tell us what's not working and we're gonna fix it, right? So anyways, it's it goes back again to what I was saying It's like we're all adults here. Yeah, right and but at the same time we have to mix some sugar with our salt can't be too salty and Can't be too sugary. Just got to be right down the middle, direct. And this is what is expected, right? Mm-hmm. Well, here's hope to a more modern style management, I think. And I'll try and sum it up like this with Simon Sinek's thing. He's like, it's not a question of who's in charge, but who's in your charge and to take care of people that way. And then we could build healthier organizations and people who care about one another that were in this for the long haul, not the short term. Yep. So, Jose, I want to thank you. We're way over time here, but I do appreciate you taking me down memory lane here. It was really fun to kind of see what the other side was like. and I wish this conversation happened a lot sooner in our careers when I was still kind of in it but best of luck to you and what you're doing with the TAC plan thank you for taking this time with me and appreciate it thank you hi I'm Jose Gomez and you're listening to the future Thanks so much for joining us in this episode. If you're new to the future and want to know more about our educational mission, visit thefuture.com. You'll find more podcast episodes, hundreds of YouTube videos, and a growing collection of online courses and products covering design and business. Oh, and we spell the future with no E. The Future Podcast is hosted by Christo and produced by me, Greg Gunn. This episode was mixed and edited by Anthony Barrow with intro music by Adam Sanborn. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor and rate and review us on iTunes. It's a tremendous help in getting our message out there and, you know, lets us know what you like. Thanks again for listening and we will see you next time. Marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now, and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads. Go to LibsynAds.com. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N ads.com today.

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