Forma Turns 1

Wow.

I can't believe it. Forma Pictures is officially 1 year old.  What was once a crazy dream is now entering a new year of existence.

When I started this thing last summer, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. All I knew was that I had to do it. It's hard to explain unless you've felt what I'm talking about. I just had to go for it.

One thing I can attest to is that I have no regrets. This past year was the happiest year of my life. I'm pretty darn grateful that I got the opportunity to live it. If I can manage to keep this crazy train going another year, I will almost feel greedy.

I've learned a lot this year too. Like, I'm surprised by how much I didn't know about running a business last year. Still, the greatest takeaway I've garnered is this: go for your dreams. I was terrified when I decided to do this, but it was worth enduring that fear. The joy outweighs whatever cons crop up from time to time.

And so I march on. :)

Bailey

A Whole New Project

I've got some cool news. This week I began working on a new animated video project with the good people at MatterHackers. The last video I made with them was so fun to make. And it came out a year ago...

Well, we're excited to be working together again. It's going to be a difficult one, but it has the potential to be good. The mission that they have is special and inspiring. It gives these video projects real meaning. They also have a mature understanding of the artistic process and we trust each other to do our jobs well. I couldn't ask for a better situation.

So far I've been looking for the music and writing the story. As of now, I've listened to over 1,200 potential (and relevant) songs. It's really tough when I find a song that's almost right, but not quite. The story is coming together too, but it still lacks a certain feeling. Writing is hard!

Lastly, I'm going to do my best not to kill myself working on this project. I have a 20-mile marching schedule in place. Slow and steady, baby.

Bailey

The Crucible

I'm in still in a metaphorical crucible right now. I was having lunch with a friend and former colleague of mine and it dawned on me this stage in my career is what I'll later consider to be the dark times. But there's no way around it. I have to go through this to get where I wanna be.

This isn't complaining, it's just an acknowledgement of how much more I have to experience and learn. It's not like I'm a baby to this industry either. I've been working for years and years. But it really just takes that long, or it can, depending on luck.

The thing that I'm "waiting" for is when I'm at a level in both skill and presence where I don't have to struggle so hard each day to work on the kind of projects that satisfy my heart. More than anything, I just want to work on meaningful projects. And high quality ones too.

The following may sound braggadocious, but believe me, it's not. I sometimes wonder what it would be like not to care so much about the stuff I work on. Maybe I would be happier overall? While passion has its benefits, I think that the negatives should be discussed too. Here's how I break it down: Passion means that you want things to be a certain way, you want them to be what you envision. This means that you have expectations about how things should unfold, and therefore happiness is conditional. And when situations don't fit this, frustration naturally arises. In my experience so far, it has been very difficult for me not to be affected by this sequence. Passion is a double edged sword. That said, I'm grateful for it.

My new thought this week is that each hardship I endure (of varying degrees of pain) is toughening me up. I've noticed that I can better handle things that used to cause me a lot of stress years ago. Every embarrassment, failure and mistake I make create opportunities to learn. So as long as I keep at it and continue to work hard, things should get easier.

Or so I hope.

Bailey

Music Addict

Music is my muse. I can't imagine a life without it, and I can't imagine running a business where music isn't an integral part of the creative process.

Besides the really high end projects that are out there, I feel like music is underutilized in most videos. It often plays the role of a filler element.

Forma Pictures is all about creating music-driven storytelling. At the start of all of my projects, I like to spend as much time as I can with just the music. It's more than something nice to have, it's essential. It's the voice of a video, and as such it deserves lots and lots of attention.

The visuals are important too. I'm a designer working in this time-based medium, so I believe deeply in visual storytelling. But the cool thing about this medium is that it unifies visuals and sound. So, I think more people should take advantage of this wonderful union.

Think of it like this. A painting can be beautiful. One can gaze at the brush strokes of a master and appreciate the beauty of design. Next we have animation, and that's like pure magic. It's when designs are given life and a whole world of possibilities open up. Lastly, when you add music to all of this, the results can be heavenly. It elevates the art to dizzying heights. Multiple art forms, working as one. Delicious.

So, to all of you visual creators out there: don't forget about music! Composers are our greatest allies in our quests to make great works of art. Take care of them, give them cookies, and keep them close. Then go out and make things that are greater than the sum of their parts.

Bailey

Quality Crusades

Before I begin this post, let me make it clear that I am still not at the artistic level that I want to be one day. When I talk about quality, I talk about how badly I strive for it. I would never assume to say that I've creating anything truly great. This is just about the intense struggle for quality.

I often feel like a lone crusader in the fight against mediocrity. I've worked with a number of great people who are passionate about quality above all else, but most of my days are still spent alone in this seemingly unending struggle.

Everyone says they want high quality work, but when it comes time to spend the required time and monetary resources on it, you'll find a select few are able or willing to do it. Some businesses and people simply aren't in a financial position to commit to extremely high quality projects. That doesn't bother me, and I completely understand that. What bothers me is when people have unreasonable expectations about how much quality costs.

When I became a freelancer, I started frequenting job posting sites. What I found unsettling was how little the clients were offering to pay. I saw dozens of people asking for weeks of work for absurdly low dollar amounts like $400. If you do the math, that’s not even minimum wage. And quite frankly, artists should be insulted that their craft is so undervalued.

These days some (but not all) of the people I attempt to work with still have incorrect expectations. To be fair, most of them aren't looking for something great, they just want something. But why? I guess that regardless of how primitive the art is, it's still valuable for their company.

All I can say is that I will live and die by Quality. My company will either fail or succeed based on how good my art is. If I can only book projects that don't give me enough time or resources to make something worthwhile, my company will suffer. I need quality stuff for the portfolio. More often than not I use my personal works to fill this void, but I'd love to make a living making work that will promote me. So, you see, quality may not be necessary for every video project out there. But polished works are critical to Forma Pictures. Quality is the best business plan, after all.

This is why I will fight for quality. Everyday. Ad infinitum.

Bailey

P.S. If you are a client, I implore you to really consider going for quality not just for my sake, but for yours.  Just ask yourself if your customers and potential business partners will be delighted, motivated, inspired, or intrigued by average art.

The Fire

The passing of Time is probably the best and worst thing that happens to all of us. No one can escape it.

I often think about how much time I have left to live, assuming I stay healthy and injury/death-free until I'm lucky enough to die of old age. But even with a best case scenario like this, the time I have left is still too little. It's rather unsettling.

I know most people either don't or try not to think about the end of the line, but I try to use the knowledge that one day I'll die to my advantage. It may seem morbid that I think about death every day, but the truth is that knowing I'm going to die one day really motivates me to make the most of the time I have left. And I wouldn't write about it in this blog unless it had something to do with business and my career.

Take at look at this graphic. The ratios are correct. Your own personal graphic might look very similar to mine, depending on how much older or younger you are than me.

Some of you might find this interesting or maybe depressing. How does one actually utilize this knowledge?

Well, what I've done so far is learn to prioritize things in life. There are things I've never done or will ever do because they don't help me have a fulfilling life. Everyone has different needs in life, so I won't venture to say what's good and what's bad. And we each have different career ambitions. I'm sure there are people who would find what I do boring and meaningless. It's all subjective (unless it's harmful).

On a day-to-day basis, I cease doing activities that don't support my long term goals (business) or immediate needs (eating lunch). It's trial and error, but I eventually root out those things that don't help me live the life I want to live. I recommend this book for more on the subject: Eat That Frog!

If you have any thoughts on the matter, I'd love to hear about them. Comment some ways that you live with and manage time. :)

Bailey

Movin' Right Along

It's been business as usual this past week. Every day there's been development going on for the 3 aspects of the business strategy. I think I've talked about it before...original works (the flywheel), collaboration, and client work (for now). It was a good week for all of them.

Hunted reached a milestone, which I talked about in the Hunted Blog, but it's worth mentioning here too (for those of you who don't read it). So, yes, Hunted is coming along. A new and improved version of the layout has been completed. 

Some screen captures of the layout scenes. I'm using 3Ds Max.

Bailey

No Original Ideas

This was an especially productive week for my original short film (Hunted), side projects, and even client work. In addition to all of that, I was thinking about my next edited short, and I had this idea that I thought was extra clever. After a few hours of work on it, I decided to see if someone else had tried something like this before, and sure enough someone already had. What's more, they had used the same music! My enthusiasm drained, and I paused the video. But then I decided to watch the rest of it, to see how good it was. Alas, the video was mediocre. Whoever had made it had taken the easy way out for most of the video, and hadn't spent the necessary time to develop a good edit.

So, I was left with a conundrum. Here was this cool idea, just exploding with potential. And while I was beaten to the punch by nearly 4 years, I felt deep in my heart that I could deliver something worth watching. If this unknown creator had made something excellent, I would have been forced to tip my hat in respect and move on to a different idea. But I can't. This idea is just teeming with potential glee, and no one has delivered on it yet.

After sleeping on it, I decided I'm going to make it anyway. This is a side project, so I won't feel too bad if it's not successful, or if people criticize me for repeating an idea.

Here's a teaser of what the "idea" has to do with (yes, I'm being somewhat secretive):

I'm planning a release in June or July, depending on my schedule. :)

Bailey

Gaining an Audience

This week I have some observations on gaining an audience as an artist. These days social websites play a role in this process. However they have a way of confusing and tangling us up over what's actually important, and what we really want as artists.

Around the time I started Forma Pictures, I decided to use Twitter more. Because in addition to it being a great resource to me over the years for learning (I follow great people), I thought it would be good to share and reach out to the community at large. To be clear, all of my tweets are in some way related to art and the profession (since 2009). I reserve personal stuff for direct texts with my friends and family. But check out the last 3 years, you can see the shift in my tweet strategy:

Bailey's Lifetime Tweets

Bailey's Lifetime Followers

You can see when I made the decision. Sometime in August of last year I decided to tweet everyday. I did my best to post and talk about great content. I aggregated pretty videos and learning resources that inspired or interested me. I also posted more of my work and engaged with people. However I recently decided it wasn't worth the time investment (1-2 hours) each week to do that. So, now I'm less regimented. But the negative effects of that have been non-existent. Case in point: in the last month I've had a 32% decrease in tweets and 10% fewer profile visits. However, in that time I've still managed to have a 20% increase in mentions and an 7% increase in followers.

Conclusion: Consistent activity does not necessarily result in more viewer engagement. More activity will naturally result in an engagement increase (nothing happens if there's nothing to engage with). But the biggest determiner in gaining a following, in my experience, has been to get retweeted by established personalities. That's basically Twitter's version of the trusted referral concept that we already know in business, which makes sense. Whenever I've been retweeted or favorited by known comedians or artists, I get an immediate bump in interest.

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That's all well and good, but the real lesson I've learned this year is that gaining an audience of like-minded people takes a long time. Years even. And the best people I have in my circles are due to direct contact methods. And while I've never been one to obsess over it, I have found myself yearning for a larger audience. It's only natural for artists to want to share with people. For me, that's what art is all about.

The obvious behavior is just to concentrate on the work. Thinking about a social presence is fine, but I think one can spend too much time on it until it turns into a distraction. Still, I understand the frustration of a lackluster viewer base. Hopefully my strange art sensibilities will begin to strike a chord with more and more men and women. Because what I really want is to continue to expand my close-knit community of lovely people to share and collaborate with. And as I release more and more content, I expect things to come together.

It just takes time. And referrals. Call to action for the day: if you like me or my work, talk about me to others. It helps me more than you think. Those who have been lovely enough to refer me have helped me pay real bills. I love those people (you know who you are)!

Bailey

Follow @bkalesti

P.S. The blog that you are reading was also part of my strategy. It was a way for me to post more content between my films. However, the metrics on this blog are extremely weak, that is, very few people read it and even fewer people engage with my site past the blog (one of the goals). Nevertheless, I'm keeping the weekly blog because it turned out that it had a very positive impact on me. So, even if 0 people read this, it's still highly beneficial to me and my career.

Working and Feeling Good

This week was a straightforward week of working. I continued to steadily march forward with my 3 primary business objectives. Some work I can't show, other work has it's own blog already, and the other thing is less showable. So, yes, nothing to look at today. 

But that won't stop me from chatting with you for a bit. :)

I'd like to restate just how happy I've been, owning and working for my own business. My goodness. The level of satisfaction and calm that I possess absolutely dwarfs the last seven years of my career. My choice to objectively listen to what I want was the best thing I've ever done in my life. It sounds hyperbolic, but it's true. Sometimes I start to feel bad when I tell people how happy I am, because maybe it comes off as boastful. But to hell with that. I am happy. I think I've earned it.

The thing that would make me even happier would be to help or give confidence to others to go out and get what they need. A number of my closest friends have also gone out on their own, and they too seem much happier. Owning a business isn't for everyone, I know, but lots of people I know complain about working at a big company. All I can say is to listen to your heart. You may not like what it has to say, but it won't lie to you.

If anything, I'm the epitome of this idea. I was actually pretty happy with where I used to work. I was an artist working with great minds. I also happened to live in one of the nicest and safest cities in America. And to top it off, I had great friends and family all around me. And to top the top off, I made pretty good money. What could be wrong?

My heart. That damn heart of mine didn't just want something else, it needed it. It wasn't money that I wanted. It was a more fulfilled and satisfied type of happiness, specific to me. In my case, it meant I needed to do things my own way (among other things).

Of course, this is the same story I tell everyone. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so. If you feel like something is amiss in your life, go out and fix it. Remember: good is the enemy of great. It takes time and effort to figure it out, but it's worth. It's so, so worth it.

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And as a reminder, there are 2 blogs on this site. The one you're reading, which updates every Friday. And the other one is about my short film. That one one updates every Tuesday. So go read about Hunted if you haven't in a while. Because dude, there's always stuff to look at. Last Tuesday, for instance, I showed some screenshots of me working on the finale for the film. Cool stuff is happening!

Bailey

More 20-Mile Marching

This has been a good week. Now that I'm feeling really good about what my objectives are, my mind can just focus on getting things done. Knowing what not to do is a freeing experience. I recommend it.

In addition to this, I decided to keep better track of my 20-mile marching. I have 3 calendars on my wall, and each day I get to add a satisfying x when I hit my minimum performance goal. Why 3 calendars? Each one represents some aspect of my business strategy. So far so good.

Speaking of 20-mile marching, I decided it was time to dedicate an article to the subject. I wrote about it in the blog last January, but now it has a permanent home in the Learn section of the site. If you've never heard of this concept, or are a little hazy on the details, go read it! I tried my best to make it easy to understand. My hope is that it is a useful resource that people can refer to or send to their friends. I even made a poster that people can print out. :)

Bailey

Change

Up until now I've thought about this business as a two phase business strategy. Phase one would focus on contract work as a revenue source. Phase two would be when all efforts focused on developing unique IPs for revenue. However, I've been wondering if this is the right approach. And, more importantly, when would I make the switch? Of course I have years of failure ahead of me, but that's expected. So why not start developing IPs faster? I've had them on slow burn while I've been doing client work, but is that really so smart? In the end, I want to make sure I'm turning the right flywheel (read Good to Great for more on that).

First of all, I've discontinued doing the daily animation sketches. I did a two month run, but I figured out that I want to be doing more interesting and high quality things with that time each night. The good thing was that the sketches resulted in a lot of new knowledge, so it wasn't for nothing.

Secondly, Forma Pictures will remain open for business as a freelance shop. However, more time this year will be devoted to developing original works. I don't know when I'll have this chance again, so I'll be damned if I'm not going go for the gold (successful, self-sustained business). Worst that happens is I learn a crap ton, faster.

These decisions I made this week, and more like them, took a lot of effort (and help from the people I trust) to come to. I'm not afraid of failure. I'm more afraid that I could end up getting good at something I don't fully want to be doing. Here's where I'm at...

“Forma Pictures will develop original art, animation and music in the service of creating stories. We will own these characters, worlds, and ideas. The goal is to create and own meaningful properties.”

The format is less important, but they'll be short films and serial episodes for now. This won't be easy, but that's the direction. After writing all of the options out and staring at them for days, I feel confident in what I need to attain. Monetizing is going to take time to figure out, but working on and owning meaningful works of art is what I want to have 10 years down the line. In summary, I have my 3 circles mostly figured out. However, my economic engine is a tad weak. Still looking for a more effective method of cash flow. That precise profit per x eludes me.

As always, when I write publicly like this, I worry that I'll come off as a bumbling idiot. Or worse, arrogantly. If you know me, then you'll know how much I fear hubris. It's the poison that ruins people and businesses (not to be confused with confidence). But the truth is that I'm on a journey, and it is one that has largely been solitary. And on this journey, I've been learning the hard way about what works and what doesn't. But more importantly, I'm discovering more about who I am and what I want to accomplish. I hope that the mistakes, insights and stories I share have some value to you, the reader.

Remember, you can always reach out to me about anything (info@formapictures.com). Let me know if you think I'm being dumb, going down the wrong path, or maybe you like something I've made. I love feedback, however brutal it may be.

Bailey

P.S. My media recommendation this week is the podcast called StartUp. It documents the beginning of a real business. They make mistakes, but they usually figure it out. Makes me want to do something like that! CHECK IT.

A Bay, Bai Holiday

What a week! I was on vacation for the first time since I started Forma. I went to San Francisco! Here's some of what I did (like seeing Pixar):

Calvin and Hobbes

I had the opportunity to see a real Calvin and Hobbes painting by the one and only Bill Watterson. What you see here is an actual photo of the real thing. I was beside myself!

A portion of the full painting.

I think I stared at this painting for at least fifteen minutes. Bill Watterson is one of the handful of artists whose work inspired me to pursue art. So, it was meaningful to me in a big way.

Industrial Light & Magic

For years I've wanted to head over to the Presidio to check out the place that I've admired for ages. So, I finally did! It was absolutely gorgeous. I can say it is one of the most beautiful campuses I've ever seen. Wonderful, clean landscapes combined with stunning architecture, bay views, and the looming Golden Gate Bridge give ILM a very lovely home.

It was a gorgeous day too.

Pixar

I had the rare opportunity to see Pixar Animation Studios. I was pretty excited because Pixar is, well...Pixar! Their movies were inspiring to me as a kid, just like they were for so many of us. My friend and collaborator Colin Levy (who works there) was kind enough to show me around. Thanks, man!

Yay!

I got to see a lot of cool things they had there, like a giant Luxo Jr. lamp, beautiful facilities, and the big paintings that adorned the interiors. There were things I wasn't allowed to see or photograph, but what I could see was pretty darn neat.

Yikes!

Colin is on the left. I'm on the right.

The campus was beautiful, elegantly designed, and altogether playful. But the best thing, of course, was getting to hang out with Colin. Pixar was a nice backdrop, but ultimately it was the excellent conversation that made the day great. What a stellar dude! He's a layout artist at Pixar, but he's also directed a bunch of short films on his own. Go check out his work if you haven't yet. :)

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Overall, I had a great time. I saw a lot, hung out with good friends, and spent some time with family. In keeping with my 20 mile marching mantra, a vacation was just what I needed. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my work that I forget to slow down for a little while. And I can say that it did me good. Lots of thinking time, inspiration, and relaxation.

So, I'm back to work now. Lots to do! :)

Bailey