Trigger: Creative InspirationsIntroduction| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:06 | Loc Le: I think, in general, we are a pretty
intense group of individuals.
| | 00:12 | Perry Wang: If you look at our track record the
last couple of years, like almost every alien
| | 00:16 | type of movie, or superhero, or
something like that, we've been able to get
| | 00:19 | involved with it, to some degree.
| | 00:21 | Jason Yim: One of the big changes for us is
that every campaign we have now has to tie into
| | 00:26 | social networking.
| | 00:27 | Anthony Palacios: The attention of someone just to
sit there and play an iPhone game, we have
| | 00:32 | to make really clean concise gaming
experiences that will keep their attention
| | 00:38 | for a limited time but
still be really, really fun.
| | 00:41 | Loc Le: My job is to make
fantasy reality, I would say.
| | 00:43 | Evan Fisk: We created a marker image, and
if you use a webcam, hold up the marker
| | 00:48 | image. 3-D models that we came up
with show up on the screen, and you can
| | 00:52 | interact with them in different ways.
| | 00:54 | Jason Yim: They will start off like a pencil
sketch, like this. They will start to get
| | 00:57 | more and more detailed, and then finally,
they will actually create it in full 3D,
| | 01:01 | with painted assets and stuff.
| | 01:03 | Jason Yim: It's not an A team, B team situation.
All our projects probably run through,
| | 01:07 | get touched by, both offices.
| | 01:08 | Vivid Savitri: I'm actually always pushing my team
harder because I know they can make it.
| | 01:13 | They just don't know it yet.
| | 01:15 | Jason Yim: And we have very little time on this planet
sort of thing, like let's try to make a difference.
| | 01:19 | Carlo Decena: It's sort of reflection of our
values that if we were successful, we made money,
| | 01:24 | we wanted to give back.
| | 01:25 | (Music playing)
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| Workspace| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:09 | Jason Yim: Hi! I am Jason Yim.
| | 00:10 | This is Trigger, our LA office.
| | 00:12 | It used to actually be a ceramics studio.
| | 00:15 | So you will see that these are from the
original ceramic studio. These are ceramic tile.
| | 00:22 | This is actually the first building
that we actually looked at for the company.
| | 00:26 | It just worked out that we fell in love
with the space. We looked at a couple
| | 00:30 | more. We ended up renting this place
for a couple years, and then we just
| | 00:34 | bought it last year.
| | 00:35 | It was relatively untouched.
| | 00:37 | This whole thing is a standalone building.
It has a little dog run on the side. It has this lot.
| | 00:43 | We didn't do anything except for
basically paint and put in a ton of IKEA furniture.
| | 00:47 | Here's, partly, our creative area.
| | 00:49 | Here is Jake, AJ, Tim.
| | 00:52 | We can kind of take a peek
at what Jake is working on.
| | 00:56 | He does a lot of the Disney stuff,
| | 00:58 | so you see a lot of Toy Story things.
| | 01:00 | We are working on Toy Story III, for next year.
| | 01:04 | This is my dog. This is Khan.
| | 01:06 | Had him for like ten years.
He comes to the office everyday.
| | 01:13 | We did Spidey I and Spidey II at my previous
agency and then Spidey III at Trigger,
| | 01:18 | so it's a big franchise for us.
| | 01:21 | So you will see a lot of
spidey stuff everywhere.
| | 01:24 | This is the rest of the creative area and
we can check out what Brian is working on.
| | 01:28 | So, this is actually for Genentech,
which is a pharmaceutical company.
| | 01:32 | So, we might have entertainment stuff
going on one person's desk and then
| | 01:36 | something like this on another desk,
| | 01:37 | but I think we are trying to apply
the same kind of thinking to all our
| | 01:42 | clients and projects.
| | 01:43 | Over here are our producers. Here's Mike.
| | 01:47 | Mike actually does a lot of our
games and iPhone. Here is Evan.
| | 01:52 | Evin actually leads a lot of the Sony stuff.
| | 01:55 | So he is their favorite guy
over there. Here is Perry.
| | 01:59 | He is our Director of Production.
| | 02:01 | Jasmine is our Producer.
| | 02:02 | She is from Singapore actually.
| | 02:04 | Susan is our Account Manager.
| | 02:06 | They handle a lot of, of course,
like the client contact stuff.
| | 02:10 | Susan helps me out on the sales and
putting all of the proposals together.
| | 02:14 | This mural thing on the wall - one of
our old art directors had painted this.
| | 02:18 | It's actually like a big phoenix that
we were putting on our t-shirts and stuff
| | 02:21 | like that, like the, kind of, rebirth idea.
| | 02:24 | And then the office is in here, lots of toys.
| | 02:27 | Everyone has their own collection of stuff.
| | 02:29 | (Music playing)
| | 02:38 | This was actually painted by one of our
old art directors as well, a big digital print.
| | 02:46 | And then our conference meeting
room. We call it the IKEA Room.
| | 02:51 | Actually, everything is IKEA in this
place, which is what happens when you are
| | 02:55 | starting up on your own funds, but it's fun.
| | 02:58 | It's a good place. We have our - this
is not on, but this is our old school
| | 03:04 | Street Fighter machine.
| | 03:05 | It's gone through a lot of wear and tear.
| | 03:06 | It used to be a good time killer for everybody.
| | 03:12 | And this is where we kind of brainstorm,
write up all the stuff on the boards,
| | 03:16 | concept ideas and things like that.
| | 03:19 | That's pretty much the LA office.
| | 03:20 | Welcome to Trigger, Shanghai.
| | 03:22 | So, unlike the LA office, which we found
one office from day one, stuck with it
| | 03:29 | until now, the Shanghai office has
actually changed three times already.
| | 03:33 | So we started with five people,
actually on the other side of town, out in
| | 03:38 | the boonies and stuff.
| | 03:39 | And then we realized that all the fun
stuff is on this side, and we moved into
| | 03:44 | another office and that was
about 20 people at its max.
| | 03:48 | And then now, finally, here, it's 38 people.
| | 03:51 | This office, actually, it's two floors.
| | 03:53 | We custom did the interior and stuff.
| | 03:55 | It was built from scratch for our
needs, so we are very happy with it.
| | 03:58 | And then Vivid is going to finish up the
interview inside the office itself.
| | 04:03 | Vivid Savitri: Hello There! Welcome to Trigger, Shanghai.
| | 04:06 | So this is the first level of Trigger
Shanghai, where we have the development team.
| | 04:12 | So over here is the online game
development team as well as the
| | 04:18 | website development team.
| | 04:20 | So, this is our - I just want to
show you quickly, like this is just the
| | 04:24 | wall that when we went to the company trip,
weekend trip, to an island south of Shanghai.
| | 04:30 | So, a lot of fun, and let's go upstairs.
| | 04:36 | Oh, by the way, not to miss cool stuff,
here is our, actually, the mural
| | 04:42 | is actually showing off
our portfolio of our past work.
| | 04:48 | Over here, we have our 3D modelers and
animators team, our designers and illustrators.
| | 04:58 | And this is also another piece of
extra things that we have in the office.
| | 05:05 | So this is it, the creative
space of Trigger Shanghai office.
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| Trigger Today| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:07 | Anthony Palacios: Trigger is a new media shop that
specializes in the entertainment realm of advertising.
| | 00:17 | We create experiences, not just websites,
not just games but entire campaigns
| | 00:23 | that people can really dive into and
really get a sense of what it is our
| | 00:29 | clients are trying to sell or
what they're trying to advertise.
| | 00:32 | It's about getting people
engaged in what we create.
| | 00:36 | Perry Wang: Really we're a collection of
people who love the projects or people who
| | 00:42 | love, especially, movies.
| | 00:44 | And if you look at our track record the
last couple of years, like almost every
| | 00:48 | alien type of movie or superhero or
something like that, we have been able to
| | 00:52 | get involved with it to some degree.
| | 00:54 | Vivd Savitri: You can really see the difference
when, and I can really feel it in my team when
| | 00:59 | they are genuinely passionate, or like
they really care about the characters in
| | 01:04 | the game, or like the game
itself, or the movie itself.
| | 01:07 | The work comes out so much different.
| | 01:09 | I don't know how to draw the enthusiasm,
like trying, "Hey, you know what? This
| | 01:12 | logo is so cool!" "Yeah, okay," you know?
| | 01:14 | Judd Kim: We have had a chance to do a lot
more integration of some of these motion
| | 01:22 | graphic and animation pieces into a lot of
the larger side campaigns that we are doing.
| | 01:27 | So it's not necessarily a new thing,
but the development, or the amount of the
| | 01:32 | work that's actually going into it,
| | 01:34 | now that, you know, sites are able to be
a little bit larger, a little bit more
| | 01:37 | involved, people have faster computers,
faster connections, we're able to
| | 01:42 | put more information, more data in
there, which, in my case, means more video.
| | 01:46 | And we're able to do some more
elaborate pieces that help set up some story.
| | 01:49 | If it's a theatrical website or if
it's a product site, set up some more
| | 01:54 | demonstrations and so forth.
| | 01:56 | It just allows us to get a
lot more cool stuff in there.
| | 01:59 | Anthony Palacios: We have a broad range of
clients here, not just entertainment but
| | 02:05 | non-entertainment as well.
| | 02:07 | I think our sweet spot is definitely
entertainment and I think that's what makes
| | 02:14 | our non-entertainment clients come to
us is our background in entertainment.
| | 02:19 | Because they know that we can engage
the user, that we know how to make fun
| | 02:23 | stuff, we know how to make cool
stuff that people will actually kind of
| | 02:26 | gravitate towards. And that's the kind
of content that they want for their site
| | 02:32 | or for their marketing needs.
| | 02:34 | Jason Yim: They're both looking for the same thing.
| | 02:35 | They both need agencies that can
basically break through the marketing noise.
| | 02:41 | We have one pharma project with a
company called Watson Pharmaceutical, right
| | 02:45 | now, where they want us to create a game.
| | 02:50 | So we would use the same thinking that
we would use on the entertainment side.
| | 02:53 | We'd try to find the target audience,
which is like, this is, in this case,
| | 02:58 | it's women 35 and above.
| | 03:00 | We are looking at the type of game play out
there that makes sense for that age group.
| | 03:05 | So it does seem strange to go from an
entertainment project to pharmaceutical
| | 03:11 | marketing just because, I
mean, they are polar opposites.
| | 03:16 | On the entertainment side, it's a super
broad audience and you are trying to get
| | 03:19 | as many people and there's almost
no rules about what you're doing.
| | 03:22 | You are just trying to
create an entertaining experience.
| | 03:26 | On the pharma side, it's really
structured and they look at something on the
| | 03:31 | entertainment side and say - and go,
"We want that, but can you dilute it down to
| | 03:37 | "something that will get
past our lawyers?" basically.
| | 03:39 | Loc Le: My job is to make
fantasy reality, I would say.
| | 03:44 | We are a creative agency, but one of
the things that we've always done is to
| | 03:51 | not only be creative but to be able
to face the challenges that come as a
| | 03:55 | result of being creative.
| | 03:56 | In order to be ahead of the pack, you have
to be able to execute as well as design.
| | 04:02 | And so, we have a very good blending of
technology and creative here at Trigger.
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| Becoming Trigger| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Jason Yim: All the way back, I started at UCLA.
| | 00:11 | I went to design school there,
in the graphic design program.
| | 00:15 | There was five of us. There was myself, our math/physics
major, this guy Yush, who was our programmer guy,
| | 00:22 | and then another graphic design
major Sharon Wang and then two art majors.
| | 00:28 | The first agency, out of school, we
started in my apartment called Epoch
| | 00:32 | Communication Design, Inc.
| | 00:35 | So we all agreed that was probably
the worst-named agency ever.
| | 00:39 | During our final year, we did this
conference at Digital World in LA Convention
| | 00:45 | Center, showed all our school work and
stuff and then just got a stack of cards
| | 00:50 | from people that were
interested in web design, work wise.
| | 00:54 | So we thought that that was enough of an
indication that there are enough buyers out there.
| | 01:01 | We pooled all our money
together. It wasn't a lot.
| | 01:03 | I had my car stolen.
| | 01:05 | So the money that came back from the
payment for that car, we put into the company.
| | 01:12 | And we just bought a bunch of
computers and just went for it.
| | 01:15 | The first year was really rough.
| | 01:17 | Like I think like we were
learning everything on the fly.
| | 01:20 | I mean, I was 22 or something like that.
And so the first jobs we had, like we had local law
| | 01:28 | firms or - but we started
working up to kind of larger clients.
| | 01:34 | We did a lot of demo work, when we
didn't have real clients. But it was rough,
| | 01:40 | like we ate - we didn't eat anything except for
instant noodles, for like the whole year,
| | 01:45 | just to keep costs down and stuff. I
think the longest stretch I worked was 35
| | 01:51 | days in a row like 14 hours to 16,
every single day. But it's funny.
| | 01:56 | It's just a great atmosphere.
| | 01:57 | It was just cool to be in it with
these friends that you have known for
| | 02:01 | so long and really trying
to accomplish something.
| | 02:05 | And then it was funny because we, since
we have lived downstairs like me, Yush, there
| | 02:09 | were two rooms downstairs, and then the
office was the next floor up and then
| | 02:14 | another person lived in the loft area.
| | 02:18 | I remember, we used to be sitting on
the computer, and then Yush would come up,
| | 02:21 | like straight out of bed, like in his
boxer shorts, like he hadn't even washed
| | 02:25 | his face and stuff, and just go
straight to the computer and start programming
| | 02:29 | and then just stay there.
| | 02:31 | We first worked with Hans Zimmer on his website.
| | 02:35 | So Hans is an Academy Award winning composer.
| | 02:38 | I think he made his name on the Lion King.
| | 02:42 | But since then, I think he
has done over 100 plus movies.
| | 02:47 | But after we did that website, they are
interested in us kind of doing a joint venture.
| | 02:51 | It was going to be called Media
Revolution and we were, originally, going to
| | 02:57 | do original content.
| | 02:59 | Like we wanted to do kind of branded
entertainment and this was the way back in
| | 03:02 | 95, 95, because on our movie sites, we
were already doing things like animated
| | 03:07 | comic books and online games.
| | 03:10 | We built them out of Shockwave instead
Flash and we were trying to basically use
| | 03:17 | the internet as a story telling
medium, not only as a marketing medium.
| | 03:21 | The goal was to do original content,
| | 03:23 | but that didn't pay the bills.
| | 03:25 | We started doing film marketing, straight away.
| | 03:28 | We were hoping that, because Hans was
involved in the production of film, that
| | 03:33 | we get a lot of contacts through that side,
| | 03:35 | but unfortunately, the film-
making site is quite different from the
| | 03:41 | film marketing site.
| | 03:42 | And with Trigger it was a brand new slate and I think
one thing that was really important, right
| | 03:47 | out the gate, was to be
different from previous agencies.
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| Team & culture| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Jason Yim: When I first started, I was doing
the sales stuff, trying to manage the
| | 00:13 | company but also doing a
lot of the design work myself.
| | 00:16 | I used to enjoy it, but when we hired
Anthony, and he is so much better than me
| | 00:24 | at it, it got to a point where it's
just - I mean it's just - it was cool to
| | 00:28 | recognize that and just say like, "Whoa!
| | 00:30 | "These guys are really good at what they do."
| | 00:32 | I'll do what I am good at, and then
they do what they are good and then we all
| | 00:36 | balance out that way.
| | 00:37 | Anthony Palacios: Each one of those guys, I have been
working with them for probably 9 plus years,
| | 00:44 | so working with somebody that long,
they more or less become family.
| | 00:48 | They are more like my brothers
than they are just co-workers.
| | 00:51 | Knowing that they are there, they have
got my back, essentially, that's really
| | 00:59 | reassuring and that leaves me to be
able to focus on what I need to focus on,
| | 01:03 | which is the creative and making sure that
we've got that high level that Jason is
| | 01:08 | looking for from a creative standpoint.
| | 01:10 | Jason Yim: With Perry, who is our director
production, him and I are very different in
| | 01:16 | personalities in that Perry is very
structured, very organized, kind of risk
| | 01:24 | adverse, which is perfect for
the Director of Production role.
| | 01:28 | So he works remotely out of Portland,
| | 01:30 | but he can still kind of manage his
team here, and also manage like all the
| | 01:35 | pieces of trying to resource
manage two offices in two countries.
| | 01:41 | So that's a huge role and I think
he provides the kind of the structure
| | 01:47 | that's needed to operate.
| | 01:50 | Perry Wang: The thing that actually makes
it work is the fact that I have worked
| | 01:54 | together with Jason, Anthony, Loc,
Judd for so long, the other founders.
| | 02:01 | So because of that, it gives me a
little bit of that built-in trust.
| | 02:06 | They are not worried, "Is Perry
asleep up there, like what's he doing?
| | 02:10 | "Is he really, like, working
from the beach?" or whatever.
| | 02:15 | So there is that confidence that I am
doing what I need to be doing everyday.
| | 02:19 | Jason Yim: I might be at a client and we
might be brainstorming on the fly and I'll
| | 02:23 | pitch something, and I always have the
security to know that Loc will figure it
| | 02:28 | out when I get back the
office, like, actually how to do it.
| | 02:33 | I try to keep this stuff within, I think,
realm of possibility,
| | 02:37 | but it's funny to,
like, come back in and say, "Hey!
| | 02:41 | "Guess what we sold to the client?"
| | 02:43 | "We sold this crazy idea, of this, this
and it connects with that." And then Loc
| | 02:47 | will be kind of sweating a little
bit and then he will figure it out.
| | 02:50 | Loc Le: I think, in general, we are a
pretty intense group of individuals.
| | 02:56 | We all know what needs to be done
at the end of the day. We are all adults.
| | 03:00 | We are responsible for the work that we do.
| | 03:03 | But the most important thing is that there
is always more than one way to do something.
| | 03:07 | At the end of the day, we know exactly
what we want at the end of the day.
| | 03:10 | Jason Yim: With Vivid in China, she was
actually the first kind of creative person
| | 03:15 | that I met out there.
| | 03:16 | There is some things about me and
her that are quite similar that way.
| | 03:19 | I think we are quite aggressive about
trying to do things at a different - trying
| | 03:26 | to push creatively - but her
specialty is more on the gaming side.
| | 03:34 | So she loves building games and the
team that she has assembled are all gamers.
| | 03:40 | Everything is like a
labor of love, which is cool to see.
| | 03:43 | So instead of just asking them to meet
the minimum requirements, they are really
| | 03:50 | going above and beyond on every single project.
| | 03:52 | Vivid Savitri: We work closely as a
team and we brainstorm together.
| | 03:56 | The fun part about this is, actually, I
instill this attitude that like, "Look, if
| | 04:01 | "it is only difficult then sorry, mate.
| | 04:04 | "You've got to suck it up and do it." And
then so they start to get used to that
| | 04:10 | sort of demand and I am always
trying to - actually I am not trying - I am
| | 04:19 | actually always pushing my team harder
because I know they can make it. They
| | 04:23 | just don't know it yet.
| | 04:25 | Jason Yim: Carlo on the finance side, I
think that was, like we figured, if you
| | 04:31 | work hard enough and you are creative
enough, that you will make money and
| | 04:38 | that is not the case.
| | 04:41 | I mean like some years were really
rough and we were really flat and some
| | 04:45 | years we lost money.
| | 04:46 | So as a big difference for
Trigger, we said, like, "Hey!
| | 04:48 | "Going into this, we need to know how,
every year, we are going to be profitable."
| | 04:58 | So Carlo spends a lot of time on the
spreadsheets, planning that stuff all out.
| | 05:03 | So each year, we move forward,
knowing that it works on paper.
| | 05:09 | So, worst-case scenario, if you follow
everything that's on this Excel doc, at the end
| | 05:14 | of the year, you have some money left over.
And that's really made a huge difference.
| | 05:18 | Carlo Decena: This company officially
started in 2005, but the team really was not
| | 05:25 | complete until early 2006.
| | 05:28 | I guess after Jason left that
previous company, a lot of people just called
| | 05:32 | and wanted to work for him because they had a very
good experience with him, me included. It's funny.
| | 05:39 | If I were to choose people to start up
a company from that group of people, I
| | 05:45 | would choose this team.
| | 05:46 | Loc Le: We are very picky, in terms of the
staff that we choose, because we know
| | 05:52 | that choosing the right people is
more important than choosing the first
| | 05:55 | person that's available.
| | 05:57 | And we train, nurture and guide our team,
so that they can grow with us as a company.
| | 06:03 | I have been with Jason for nearly 10
years, and with the other founders here.
| | 06:09 | We have all worked together for a long
time and in order to keep this culture of
| | 06:13 | ours, we know what to look for because
every person has their own personality.
| | 06:18 | But the personalities that we look
for are ones that drive people to be
| | 06:25 | passionate about the work that they do and to
really love what they do at the end of the day,
| | 06:30 | no matter how much work is required. But
the main thing is that they come out of
| | 06:36 | it knowing that they did something important.
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| Working in Shanghai| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | (Woman talking on phone)
| | 00:11 | Jason Yim: The workflow between the US and
China offices, some of it was kind of
| | 00:15 | designed and some of it kind of happened
organically, but it's not A team, B team situation.
| | 00:23 | All our projects probably run
through, get touched by both offices.
| | 00:27 | I would say it's easier on the
programming side because I think it's much more
| | 00:31 | yes/no, black and white sort of thing,
but creatively, it's really difficult.
| | 00:35 | Over here, if we were talking to an artist
and said, "You know how like, the Tie
| | 00:39 | fighters flew in the scene in
StarWars, that kind of feeling?"
| | 00:45 | And everyone here would get it instantly.
| | 00:46 | So you can reference movies and stuff.
| | 00:49 | If you are working in China, initially,
you couldn't do that because we just didn't
| | 00:52 | have the same touch points
with the creative staff there.
| | 00:56 | In addition to, of course, the cost
advantage of Shanghai, like the other
| | 01:01 | reasons why we move there were Shanghai
is like the cosmopolitan centre of China.
| | 01:06 | So we thought that before the partner
we were working with was in Shenzhen,
| | 01:11 | which is Southern China, so we found that
the town pool there was quite a lot smaller.
| | 01:16 | But once we moved to Shanghai, we
found that there is a lot of expatriates, a
| | 01:20 | lot of Europeans and stuff, so we have
like French designers and there is also a
| | 01:24 | lot of universities there.
| | 01:25 | So right now we are running internship
programs where we are pulling artists and
| | 01:30 | illustrators and stuff just from the
local universities and then there is also
| | 01:33 | the exposure to media because
it is such a cosmopolitan city.
| | 01:38 | I mean you go down the street and
the buses all have plasma screens.
| | 01:43 | Every taxi will have a
plasma screen in the backseat.
| | 01:47 | Even on the river, they will have
these giant barges that have a massive
| | 01:52 | screen that's just floating down the river,
playing at, and you don't expect that out of China.
| | 01:58 | But I think like, from, like being
inundated with media, that's the best place.
| | 02:05 | And that speaks to the idea of
exposure, like we need our artists and
| | 02:09 | programmers and stuff to understand
what's considered cool, what's good motion,
| | 02:16 | what's good design and the only way to
do that is you can't force-feed that.
| | 02:20 | They have to see that on a day-to-day
basis when they are taking the bus to work
| | 02:24 | or relaxing on a weekend, and stuff.
| | 02:27 | Vivid Savitri: In Shanghai, we, like, contrary to what
a lot of people believe, we don't work 24x7.
| | 02:34 | Some of us are just, like, here just
because we love the games and everybody in
| | 02:41 | this office, like almost everybody at
the office, they have their own game device
| | 02:46 | for Nintendo DS, Sony PSP
and that's how they are.
| | 02:50 | And like, for us, for lot of us here,
actually, it's a passion because we
| | 02:58 | actually love games. We
love toys. We love movies.
| | 03:03 | I grew up with superheroes, I mean,
so and that's enough sign, right?
| | 03:08 | Anthony Palacios: I think you do have to make
a lot of references to film or to
| | 03:15 | common experiences.
| | 03:17 | We can make comparisons to a site that
we just finished a few years back. "Oh!
| | 03:23 | We should make it, something move
| | 03:25 | "kind of the same way
that we did on this project."
| | 03:27 | If we say, "Let's make it look cool," then
everything is very stoic, everything is
| | 03:32 | very smooth, but not necessarily
like cool, the way we want it to be cool.
| | 03:36 | So there is a lot of visuals
that we'll trade back and forth.
| | 03:40 | A lot of storyboarding happens.
| | 03:42 | A lot of rough Flash animatics will be
done here, in house. We will show those
| | 03:48 | to the Shanghai team as well.
| | 03:50 | Judd Kim: In my case, doing motion graphics
with someone in Shanghai, I might do the
| | 03:55 | storyboards over here and set down
the initial concept and maybe some art
| | 03:59 | direction of setting up what the
elements are going to look like and then it's
| | 04:02 | up to the resource over there to be
able to be execute on the animation.
| | 04:05 | So as far as day-to-day interaction
with them goes, they will often be sending
| | 04:08 | me rough starting with animatics and
then full sequences and I can give feedback
| | 04:14 | to them on a daily basis.
| | 04:16 | Then they've got that day to hit the
revisions, send another render back to me,
| | 04:22 | I will be able to review that the next
day and there's a continuous cycle until
| | 04:25 | we have got something really tightened up.
| | 04:26 | We have worked at a system where a lot
of the work can actually be done over
| | 04:30 | there, reviewed over here, and then just
continuously worked in that 24-hour work cycle.
| | 04:34 | Vivid Savitri: I am a glutton for a self-
punishment, which means that I am always
| | 04:40 | aiming for perfection.
| | 04:41 | Of course, we all know that it doesn't exist.
| | 04:43 | Sometimes I have to stop myself, well
actually, no, actually other people have to
| | 04:49 | stop me because I go over the scope just
because like "Oh! Come on. You can't kill that!"
| | 04:59 | But then like I may be like "All right,
so, let's do this" and so to the team
| | 05:03 | brainstorm and always like things. I
think I am Nazi when it comes to like
| | 05:09 | paying attention to details, but then
not to lose sight on the big picture as
| | 05:15 | well is another challenge.
| | 05:18 | Loc Le: You can ask one individual here and
another individual in the Shanghai office.
| | 05:22 | These days we are pretty good meeting
right in the middle in terms of what we want.
| | 05:26 | We have gotten our communication to a
level that, in so short an amount of time,
| | 05:33 | that I am very surprised how well it
works between Los Angeles and Shanghai.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Client relationships| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Jason Yim: Our clients, I'd say,
predominantly are entertainment,
| | 00:11 | so all the studios. Work with Sony. We
work with MGM, Paramount, Fox, Warner
| | 00:19 | Brothers, India. And non-entertainment
clients, we work with Red Bull on their
| | 00:23 | Motorsports, Nike, out of China,
Jenny Craig, where we do their social
| | 00:29 | network, Twitter stuff, Facebook stuff,
then also iPhone, now, for Jenny Craig,
| | 00:36 | some pharmaceutical companies, which
is interesting because it's like so
| | 00:39 | opposite from entertainment.
| | 00:41 | But we actually, initially, had
tried to land more clients out of China.
| | 00:46 | We have Nike out there. We did some
other projects out there too, but when we
| | 00:51 | first started pushing on the biz
dev side in China, it's really interesting,
| | 00:55 | it was like the web side in the US, but
in '96 or something. It was like Wild,
| | 01:03 | Wild West, like the clients had just,
weren't - it's not a very mature market
| | 01:09 | yet, and it was also very,
very price competitive.
| | 01:12 | So what we found was if we sold a
project in the States and we built it in
| | 01:19 | China, then we keep these
margins that were healthy.
| | 01:23 | If we try to sell in China, we were
competing with China prices of the other agencies,
| | 01:29 | so we would lose a lot of bids just
because of that, that we were significantly
| | 01:34 | more expensive than anyone else.
| | 01:36 | The second thing that we found, which
was really interesting, was that it was so
| | 01:40 | loose that we would go in and we
would present all the stuff that we have
| | 01:44 | done, and they would say, "That's really great
stuff, but we don't believe we actually did it."
| | 01:50 | That was like - that's almost
a common - not, I won't say common
| | 01:54 | practice, but it does happen
sometimes in China, where people would be just
| | 01:57 | assembling a portfolio and showing
stuff and not actually be responsible for
| | 02:02 | creating that portfolio.
| | 02:03 | So we ran into things that
you would never run into here.
| | 02:07 | As Trigger, I think, evolved and matured,
definitely our client relationships
| | 02:13 | changed in the same way.
| | 02:14 | Typically, when we first start with
a client, it's, I mean, it's quite
| | 02:19 | competitive in the film-marketing world.
| | 02:23 | There is a few big shops. There is a lot of
medium shops and there is a ton of tiny shops.
| | 02:29 | So, initially, we would be pitching a lot,
like we would have to do a lot to win
| | 02:33 | a piece of business because everyone else
was doing a lot to win that piece of business.
| | 02:37 | You do a big PowerPoint presentation.
| | 02:40 | You actually might do a motion
graphics demo to show how a game might work.
| | 02:45 | But it's a lot of upfront work invested,
but over time, as our clients trusted us
| | 02:53 | a lot more, it became much
more of a shorthand process.
| | 02:57 | So, with Sony, for instance, it
got to point where they would just
| | 03:02 | assign the work to us.
| | 03:04 | They would know they wanted to work
with us on this specific movie because our
| | 03:11 | thinking just matched.
| | 03:12 | So, they would either give us a budget
to start with, or we would come in and read the
| | 03:19 | script and just come up with ideas and
then try to fit it into a certain budget.
| | 03:23 | But there would be no pitching and that
actually helps, I think, the quality of
| | 03:27 | work, because instead of burning a month
and a half, or a month, kind of thinking
| | 03:35 | in your own world and a lot of time
and effort mocking up an idea that 99% of
| | 03:41 | the time never would make it to the
light of day, exactly how you pitched it,
| | 03:47 | it just started off as a
very collaborative effort.
| | 03:49 | So, we might come in with a
Word document, not even a document.
| | 03:55 | It's like one page of bullets and say,
"This is what we think about the campaign
| | 03:58 | "in general." And we just sit in
the room and just discuss it.
| | 04:02 | This is not so good. Add this to it.
And then, from there, we could build it out
| | 04:07 | to a longer document. We'd actually
start doing wireframes, get to a point of
| | 04:13 | like kind of filmmaker presentation so
that the directors or key cast would, or
| | 04:20 | producers, would agree to the campaign.
| | 04:24 | But that works much better
than pitching project-by-project.
| | 04:32 | Now it's gotten to a point for 2010 that
we are actually - we'll sign a deal for
| | 04:38 | multiple movies at the beginning of the
year, and at least get, like, a baseline
| | 04:42 | of work sold for the entire year.
| | 04:46 | I think that's a huge, huge show of
trust from the client, that we definitely
| | 04:54 | appreciate, but - and their benefit is that,
we can actually dedicate a team to it.
| | 05:00 | and know what they will be working on
from day 1 to December 31st for the next year.
| | 05:10 | With other clients it's slowly
moving in that same direction.
| | 05:14 | So, Sony is kind of the leader on that
side, on that relationship side, but other
| | 05:19 | clients are kind of catching up, in a
way. The pitches are just getting much
| | 05:24 | smaller. We are just getting down
to Word documents, at a certain point.
| | 05:29 | But new clients, we still have to
do the full dog-and-pony show.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Wireframing projects| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | (Multiple gun shots)
| | 00:16 | (Suspenseful music playing)
| | 00:26 | Jason Yim: We would sketch something super
simple, like this, for a sequence and then
| | 00:34 | that's actually sent to our artist in China.
| | 00:40 | It will come back quite finished, and each
step being approved by the client, of course.
| | 00:49 | I think Spidey is a great example of kind of
a comprehensive web campaign that we've done.
| | 00:55 | As a team, we've worked on Spidey 1,
Spidey 2 and then as Trigger, Spidey 3.
| | 01:01 | This is an example of the original
concept that went to Sam Raimi and to the
| | 01:08 | executives of Sony, just to pitch the concept.
| | 01:10 | Then, from there, we would actually do
something a little bit more detailed.
| | 01:16 | So these are production wireframes that
show how the site will actually function.
| | 01:21 | Anthony Palacios: So, this isn't exactly a 100%
accurate representation of what the site is
| | 01:26 | going to look like, but it at least
gives the client a sense of where things are
| | 01:32 | going to be in space and
in relation to one another.
| | 01:35 | Jason Yim: Then, from there, we'd actually
get to kind of these comps that are then
| | 01:43 | shown to the client for final
approval before we build everything out.
| | 01:46 | Then we go ahead and animate
everything in After Effects and Flash and stuff.
| | 01:52 | Then, from there, we go on to a full site.
| | 01:54 | (Music playing)
| | 02:11 | Anthony Palacios: One of the great things about
working with Sony is that there is a lot of
| | 02:15 | collaboration, just concepting
different ideas of how the information flow is
| | 02:19 | going to break down on the site.
| | 02:22 | So, to kind of make things a little bit
easier and kind of get everyone's head
| | 02:26 | wrapped around that concept, we at
Trigger, here, decided that it would just make
| | 02:30 | most sense to kind of lay that out in a
visual sense, so that we can actually show
| | 02:36 | the client and the film makers what
that thought process was, rather than just
| | 02:42 | writing it up in a long doc.
| | 02:45 | Jason Yim: So, again, I think, the importance of the
wireframing is that everything is architected.
| | 02:49 | It's thought all the way through, even
before we start building a single piece
| | 02:54 | or putting pixels onto the graphics.
| | 02:57 | For instance, on Wolverine, we started
designing and building the game as they
| | 03:01 | were shooting principle photography,
| | 03:03 | so we had to look at a little bit
of the opening sequence that showed
| | 03:09 | Wolverine fighting through different battles
over time, and that's what we based the game on.
| | 03:13 | From a couple of screen grabs and our own
research, we'd start creating these 3D models.
| | 03:19 | At the same time, a different team would
be designing the actual user interface
| | 03:25 | for the actual game screens and the 3D
work would also continue with sketches of
| | 03:30 | the game map and stuff.
| | 03:31 | So, you can see that these are quite large.
| | 03:32 | We'll start off like a pencil sketch
like this, done mostly by our Shanghai team.
| | 03:39 | They'll start to get more and more
detailed and then, finally, they'll actually
| | 03:42 | create it in full 3D with
painted assets and stuff.
| | 03:46 | There is quite a lot of
work that goes into the game.
| | 03:50 | Every animation from how the
characters are fighting and stuff is also
| | 03:54 | storyboarded, sketched out, and
shown to the client for approval.
| | 03:59 | The same amount detail goes into an
iPhone game, very simple wireframes that show
| | 04:05 | how each of the screens will work.
| | 04:09 | Then once all this is approved, we'd
actually move to design comps that show
| | 04:15 | every single screen.
| | 04:17 | Then, that would actually end up with the
actual game, after a lot of programming.
| | 04:28 | Anthony Palacios: A lot of magic.
| | 04:29 | Jason Yim: Yes, and it's all working.
| | 04:32 | It's taking GPS, your starting
location, mapping out how to get to Tibet.
| | 04:37 | It's had 500,000 downloads so far.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| New frontiers: social media| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Jason Yim: One of the big changes for us is
that every campaign we have now has to
| | 00:11 | tie into a social network, and typically, in
the States, that would be Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.
| | 00:18 | In fact, we've run some campaigns
that exist only on the social networks.
| | 00:21 | So it's no longer enough to, again,
market to a single person and convince
| | 00:27 | them to go to a film.
| | 00:29 | The goal is to market to that single
person, make them like an evangelist for
| | 00:32 | the film and get them to pass the
message on to all of their friends.
| | 00:36 | When Facebook really kind of hit its
critical mass, the studios actually
| | 00:43 | started to put advertising
dollars into the social networks.
| | 00:47 | That's when it really affected us.
| | 00:49 | Loc Le: What differentiates us from other
companies is the fact that, on a small
| | 00:54 | scale, we prototype a lot of the
things we do, especially when we're working
| | 00:58 | with newer technologies.
| | 01:00 | Two years ago, we got into social media.
| | 01:04 | We prototyped a lot of our Facebook
apps, including the functionality, just to
| | 01:09 | make sure we could do it on the level
and scale that we wanted to, before we
| | 01:14 | actually pitched it to a client.
| | 01:17 | Compared to a lot of agencies that say
they're the most creative or they have
| | 01:22 | the best pricing, I think, in terms of
that respect, we can say we do the same
| | 01:28 | thing, but what we have to offer is on
a different level where we actually have
| | 01:34 | a portfolio that shows that
we've done all these things before.
| | 01:39 | Perry Wang: It started off with a Facebook application.
| | 01:42 | So we created one just to take some of our old
Flash games and put them in as Facebook apps.
| | 01:50 | That was a natural first step for us was
to take games and just put them into social.
| | 01:55 | But as we're working with clients like
Jenny Craig, that experience that we've
| | 02:02 | had in that social area becomes
that much more valuable to somebody like
| | 02:05 | Jenny Craig because it might be there first
time where they're stepping into social media.
| | 02:11 | They kind of want to know what's been
done before, what works, what doesn't
| | 02:13 | work. We're able to bring that to the
table. We'll say, "Well, here's what
| | 02:18 | "you should probably do in
Twitter, or MySpace, or YouTube.
| | 02:22 | "Here's what will work in
Facebook. Here's what won't work."
| | 02:25 | With Jenny Craig, we've had the
opportunity to manage their Fan page for, I
| | 02:30 | think, almost a year now.
We've been managing that.
| | 02:32 | So, we're constantly pruning it. We're
saying, "Okay. Who's responding? What are
| | 02:39 | "the comments for today?"
| | 02:40 | We look at those every day and we make
sure we respond to them properly, but
| | 02:43 | we'll additional content to keep sure,
to keep it fresh, to make sure the
| | 02:47 | community is continuing to talk and that
they're still engaged, they're still interested.
| | 02:54 | Anthony Palacios: You know, Facebook, that's part of
almost everyday life on the Internet.
| | 03:00 | Internet users are fully aware of
Facebook, and it's a really useful tool for
| | 03:07 | our clients to get
messaging out in a more subtle way.
| | 03:10 | It doesn't necessarily come
off as marketing to people
| | 03:15 | if their friends are telling them about
a cool film that's coming out, or a cool
| | 03:18 | brand that just released a really great
product. So, it's become huge for us and
| | 03:24 | our clients to come up with fun
ways of interlacing Facebook with their
| | 03:32 | marketing initiatives.
| | 03:33 | So what we've done in the last few
years or so is create games for Facebook,
| | 03:41 | and having the game leaderboards tie
into Facebook so that people can then
| | 03:48 | compare their high scores to their friends.
| | 03:50 | So it gets people engaged into the
same media message without really knowing
| | 03:59 | that they're kind of
being in this marketing realm.
| | 04:03 | I think, one thing that's going to be
huge, probably in the next coming year, is
| | 04:09 | going to be Facebook Connect, where just,
I think, logging into Facebook, you can
| | 04:15 | then be directly connected
to another website, online.
| | 04:20 | Before, there used to be the situation
where people were really hesitant to have
| | 04:24 | to register and login and
create an account for a game.
| | 04:28 | But now, with Facebook Connect, if you
have a Facebook account, you can just use
| | 04:33 | that account for a game.
| | 04:35 | So it's less of a barrier for people to
get involved and to become a part of a
| | 04:42 | bigger community within a
game or within a website.
| | 04:46 | So, I think that's really the big
appeal for our clients is getting people
| | 04:51 | connected with the least
amount of barriers as possible.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| New frontiers: mobile| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Jason Yim: iPhone has, especially this
year, has become a huge component of
| | 00:13 | marketing campaigns.
| | 00:15 | Before that, we have tried to run,
like, SMS campaigns, but because of how the
| | 00:21 | mobile eco-system around the world is set up,
there is no one-size-fits-all sort of approach.
| | 00:27 | Literally, you would have to
run every individual market.
| | 00:30 | You would have to have another carrier
relationship, another relationship with
| | 00:34 | the middleman for the SMS outbound
messaging and all that sort of stuff.
| | 00:38 | And on the Nokia, there is twelve phones
that this will have to work for and you
| | 00:43 | would have to tweak it for every single phone.
| | 00:45 | So that's, basically, time and cost prohibitive.
| | 00:50 | So the clients weren't really
pushing for that, until the iPhone.
| | 00:54 | And the reason why the iPhone works so
well is that, as a developer, you create
| | 00:58 | one iPhone game or application.
| | 01:03 | You can build the multiple languages into
it and that one packet gets sent to Apple.
| | 01:09 | They check it, QA it, approve it
and they launch it, within all their
| | 01:15 | stores around the world.
| | 01:16 | And then, suddenly, it's a
campaign that's working globally.
| | 01:20 | So it's the first time, I think for
ourselves and our clients, that you can
| | 01:25 | actually get content on a person's phone.
| | 01:26 | So, instead of a text message that can
be deleted, instantly, it's something
| | 01:32 | that's twenty minutes of game play,
shows the characters, shows the world that
| | 01:38 | this movie is going to be about.
| | 01:40 | At the end of 2008, we were
talking to our client at Sony.
| | 01:46 | And he was saying that "If you guys
want to grow, next year, iPhone is
| | 01:51 | "really important to us."
| | 01:52 | So we, literally, hired our first
iPhone guy two months before any work
| | 01:58 | started coming in, just to prototype,
and we found that that approach has been
| | 02:03 | really successful for us.
| | 02:05 | We did the same thing for social media.
| | 02:07 | When we knew that our clients would
be interested in it the next year, we
| | 02:12 | actually started hiring, started
developing on those platforms so that when the
| | 02:19 | clients were ready to go, we could bring
something to the table that was already
| | 02:22 | functioning and could prove our expertise.
| | 02:25 | Loc Le: We started with iPhone development
about 8-10 months ago, and in that time we've
| | 02:30 | have released about six iPhone apps, already.
| | 02:33 | And, in doing so, we learned that by
prototyping, we were able to eliminate a lot
| | 02:39 | of the issues that a lot of companies
would encounter along the way because they
| | 02:45 | never got to the point where a problem
would exist before they can solve it.
| | 02:50 | And sometimes we had to actually come up
with solutions before there was an answer.
| | 02:55 | So we tried to think modularly,
where this solution makes the best sense,
| | 03:01 | but in case the client changes his or
her mind or the other vendor decides to
| | 03:06 | do this instead, we are going to
develop the game so that we can change our
| | 03:11 | feature set very quickly.
| | 03:13 | Anthony Palacios: The attention of someone just
to sit there and play an iPhone game, they are
| | 03:18 | doing it at the coffee shop, at the
bus stop, on the street while they are
| | 03:22 | waiting for the light to change,
| | 03:23 | so we have to make really clean, concise
gaming experiences that will keep their
| | 03:29 | attention for a limited time, but
still be really, really fun.
| | 03:32 | So I think that's a unique challenge
for us is creating these really quick, fun,
| | 03:37 | engaging games that'll make
an impression on the user,
| | 03:40 | but not necessarily be
like really, really in depth.
| | 03:43 | So, we'll tend to focus on the heavier
gaming aspect on our online games, our web games.
| | 03:50 | Jason Yim: We are starting to move
into non-entertainment iPhone apps.
| | 03:54 | The first one we will launch is actually
for Jenny Craig. This will be a dining guide.
| | 03:58 | So they have a book that their members receive
| | 04:04 | that's very well researched.
| | 04:06 | It covers a lot of the chain restaurants
and stuff, and it breaks down everything
| | 04:13 | on their menu, calorie counts, and
stuff like that, and what they recommend and
| | 04:17 | what they don't recommend.
| | 04:19 | For the non-entertainment side, it
becomes more about creating a useful tool
| | 04:24 | versus an entertaining experience.
| | 04:26 | It's not a sit down for twenty
minutes and have the coolest experience.
| | 04:29 | It's more about, I hope they use it
one minute a day, every single day for
| | 04:34 | as long as possible.
| | 04:35 | I think we have had enough success on
the marketing side, on the iPhones, that we
| | 04:40 | think that we would like to
push into the retail side.
| | 04:45 | For the marketing iPhone games, we
basically bid and get a project fee to build
| | 04:53 | the game and it doesn't
matter how successful it is.
| | 04:55 | We just get whatever we
bid for in the beginning.
| | 04:58 | On the retail side, the deals are more
like the partner is going to provide the
| | 05:04 | intellectual property, so we'll get a
character. Instead of us paying for it, we
| | 05:10 | are exchanging kind of development time for it.
| | 05:13 | We are really excited because it's a
first time we are going into retail.
| | 05:18 | The idea that, I think on the service
side, to be any good, you have to be right
| | 05:24 | like, nine out of ten times.
| | 05:27 | Anything less than that and you are kind
of mediocre and you'll start losing clients.
| | 05:32 | Now, hopefully on the retail side,
like, if we can do five of these deals and you
| | 05:39 | are just paying one of them,
that's a game changer for us, I think.
| | 05:43 | So we are really excited about that,
and I think there is, our advantage is we
| | 05:48 | have the client relationships.
| | 05:49 | We have proven that we can build these
games on the marketing side. We'll double
| | 05:56 | the development time on the retail side,
so that the games are more fleshed out,
| | 06:03 | they are much longer game play,
more value for the user, and try it, both with
| | 06:11 | Asian based IP and US based IP as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Developing games for the web| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Vivid Savitri: My friends and I, when we were
kids, we used to play with these, like,
| | 00:11 | figurines, and my cousins. And then,
because I am the only girl, I ended up with
| | 00:17 | the weakest character, which was wolverine.
| | 00:19 | Seriously, this guy has no
super powers. I mean, okay.
| | 00:23 | It has super powers, but it's not a
thing that he can do to help others, really.
| | 00:29 | So I always ended up with wolverine
and so then, like, so, "How can I win this game?"
| | 00:35 | So, I had to have to, like, start digging
up, alright, like, "So this guy can do
| | 00:39 | "this, this, this, this."
| | 00:40 | So, I didn't know the word 'research' at
that age, but then that's what I so oft did.
| | 00:45 | So, my team and I, we are now working on that.
| | 00:49 | We create snippets of a period of
wolverine's life, but it's actually
| | 00:57 | barely covering the movie.
| | 00:59 | We did the sketches of characters.
| | 01:02 | We did the world sketches.
| | 01:04 | We did the action sequences, the storyboards.
| | 01:08 | (Music playing)
| | 01:11 | Basically, for our games, we always try
to create all the assets by ourselves and
| | 01:19 | the clients ask us to design an original
concept of robots on top of the movie
| | 01:26 | robots that exists, and we create, like, a
simple tool to customize your own robot
| | 01:31 | and basically, this is like a fun tool
for non-hardcore fans of Transformers.
| | 01:39 | I remember when we worked on
Transformers, we know that the deadline is very,
| | 01:42 | very tight because it came to
our desk at the last minute.
| | 01:46 | And then I asked my team, "Hey guys.
All right, we have got this project, so,
| | 01:50 | "it's all up to you.
Do you want to do it or not?"
| | 01:53 | And then everybody looked at me, at
least everybody on the second floor, looked
| | 01:57 | at me and was like, "You've got to be
insane not to say 'yes' to this project,"
| | 02:00 | because Transformer is huge is China.
| | 02:05 | So on the day when I had briefing, like,
I told the team, "All right, okay. So,
| | 02:10 | "anyone who wants to work on
Transformers, come and see me downstairs." And
| | 02:16 | everybody on the second floor crammed in
that tiny meeting room and I'm like,
| | 02:20 | "Look, I meant anyone, but not all of you,"
so, like, we all end up working on it.
| | 02:27 | I have to believe, and I have to really
like the game because if I don't really
| | 02:31 | like it, it's hard for other people to
like it and if you are enthusiastic about
| | 02:37 | your work, about what you do, it's
contagious and that's the kind of spirit and
| | 02:43 | that's the kind of energy that
I want to instill on my team.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| District 9 campaign| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Evan Fisk: In winter of 2007, we
talked with Sony Picture Studios.
| | 00:14 | They had a new project, based on a short
film, about aliens landing on the planet
| | 00:19 | Earth, and they wanted this big digital
campaign to kick off at Comic-Con Festival
| | 00:23 | or Convention in San Diego, California for 2008.
| | 00:27 | So we read an early
script treatment of the movie.
| | 00:29 | We figured out what it was about.
| | 00:31 | It's about aliens living in slums.
They are oppressed and that's about all we
| | 00:35 | knew about the film.
| | 00:36 | From there, we were tasked with coming up
with this campaign that would be sort of a
| | 00:40 | teaser campaign for Comic-Con, where
we didn't know much about the film.
| | 00:45 | The film hadn't started shooting yet,
but we needed to come up with something
| | 00:48 | good and interesting for the ComicCon
crowd, the cool, geeky, intriguing type of
| | 00:55 | online marketing campaign for the movie.
| | 00:57 | So, we'll start with the first
site that launched, which was D-9.com.
| | 01:03 | We launched this site in July 2008, and
it was meant to be an introduction for
| | 01:10 | people to the world of District 9.
| | 01:12 | So we've got an introduction to the
site from this woman speaking out here.
| | 01:15 | (Woman: Welcome to Multi National United's
Local Alert System for crime updates and)
| | 01:19 | (Woman: news reports in District 9)
| | 01:21 | So, throughout the campaign, we have
this theme of - you can be a human, who
| | 01:24 | works for this giant corporation called
MNU, or you can be a non-human, which is
| | 01:29 | what our aliens are called.
| | 01:30 | So when we launched this, there is
not a lot of branding about the movie.
| | 01:34 | It just a place where if you click
on some of these things, it says,
| | 01:38 | "A convenience store was looted by a non-
human, the MNU is looking for suspects."
| | 01:43 | So there is a lot of different parts of this.
| | 01:45 | It doesn't tell a lot about the film, but
there is a lot of content sort of hidden in here.
| | 01:49 | So we launched this site and a few others
to go with it to create some interest in
| | 01:52 | the world of District 9, to let people
wander around, make up their own stories,
| | 01:58 | see what's there, see what's not there.
| | 02:00 | and introduce the concept of the film
even before any footage or any actors had
| | 02:05 | been signed on to play the roles.
| | 02:07 | So, all this was sort of us guessing
what might happen and then we filled in the
| | 02:11 | pieces later once assets and designs
and everything became available too.
| | 02:15 | Anthony Palacios: I mean, I think the idea behind
this was really to generate more questions
| | 02:20 | than answers, something to get the
Comic-Con crowd talking about the film, and
| | 02:25 | wondering what exactly the film was
going to be about, and who the aliens were,
| | 02:30 | when they came, and having just
various occurrences happening throughout the
| | 02:34 | map, creating something where someone
could sit there and actually investigate
| | 02:39 | for 5, 10 minutes.
| | 02:42 | It did generate a lot of buzz on message
boards or stuff for film fans.
| | 02:47 | Male Speaker: Our challenge was creating this company,
making them seem real, in the world.
| | 02:53 | I think the whole campaign, itself, really
lent itself well in creating questions
| | 03:00 | in the user, like, "What is this?" You know? And
that created them to want to go view the film.
| | 03:08 | Evan Fisk: So in 2009, there was a lot of
underground buzz, but it was time for people
| | 03:14 | to know this was actually a movie, and
to have some idea of what was going on,
| | 03:17 | so the campaign shifted quite a bit.
| | 03:20 | It was in 2009, early in 2009, in the
spring, when we started adding links to
| | 03:25 | every site from every other site.
| | 03:28 | We kept a lot of these sort of
parallel universe narrative going. We made it
| | 03:32 | easier for people to access,
| | 03:32 | so if it wasn't just people who
happened to be at Convention in San Diego at
| | 03:35 | Comic-Con, there is still a way for
people to interact, to start out, to explore,
| | 03:41 | and to get an idea for the
context for this all information.
| | 03:44 | We added new blog listings.
| | 03:45 | We also started to do some of the more
mainstream campaign elements, the biggest
| | 03:51 | of which was probably our District 9
MNU Alert Game. So this is the game.
| | 03:56 | You can play, again, either as a MNU
officer or as a District 9 alien and you are
| | 04:02 | in the slums of District 9, where these
aliens have to live, and it's your job,
| | 04:06 | if you play as an MNU officer, to run
around and shoot and arrest everybody.
| | 04:12 | So this lets you, sort of
choose how you want to play.
| | 04:14 | You can either be the secretive aliens,
sneaking around past curfew or you
| | 04:19 | can be the big, bad, powerful corporation with powerful
guns, who goes around shooting harmless little aliens
| | 04:26 | who don't know where they are.
| | 04:28 | The other thing we launched was the
Multi-National United Training Simulation,
| | 04:33 | which was an augmented reality
experience, told from the point of view of an
| | 04:37 | MNU officer, who is training you to go in the
field and have to deal with these unruly aliens.
| | 04:42 | Tell you how to arrest them, tell you
what their behaviors might be, and sort
| | 04:47 | of lets you know what to expect if
you are trained as a soldier to complete
| | 04:52 | this type of mission.
| | 04:53 | So, for this, we created a marker
image and if you use a webcam, which I have
| | 04:58 | right here, hold up the marker image, 3D
models, that we came up with, show up on
| | 05:04 | the screen, and you can
interact with them in different ways.
| | 05:07 | So, one example is you hold it up right
now and the MNU officer repels down a wall.
| | 05:13 | You can click it again to replay the
animation as many times as you want.
| | 05:18 | So with this, we created these 3D models.
We did the full 3D animation for this.
| | 05:22 | There's sound effects.
| | 05:23 | You can also turn it on, so it will
narrate to you and tell you more about
| | 05:26 | what you are viewing.
| | 05:28 | Because it's in 3D, as you turn the
marker with the augmented reality, you can
| | 05:32 | see around the model, and the closer
you hold it to the camera, the larger it
| | 05:36 | gets, the more detail you can see.
| | 05:37 | So, this was a fun toy, and again
this brought us back to Comic-Con 2009.
| | 05:44 | By this time, we had launched a
lot of the other campaign elements.
| | 05:48 | People know it's a movie.
| | 05:49 | People are excited about it.
| | 05:50 | They were screening the film at Comic-Con.
| | 05:52 | You could get one of these, and then, when you
go home from the convention, you can sit
| | 05:55 | in front of your computer and play with
this and learn a little bit more about
| | 05:58 | the back story, but really just sort
of immerse yourself in the experience a
| | 06:02 | little bit more, too.
| | 06:03 | This was our first augmented reality
project and I think it was very
| | 06:07 | successful, by all of our accounts, and
this is also the same image you saw,
| | 06:12 | plastered on bus stops around
Los Angeles and other large cities.
| | 06:17 | They had these on banner ads.
| | 06:19 | They had them on some of the movie posters.
| | 06:21 | So, we used some of this
artwork that already existed.
| | 06:23 | We use an image that was familiar.
| | 06:24 | We made it a way to make it
interactive with our 3D augmented reality stuff.
| | 06:29 | Anthony Palacios: Everybody here, we're all geeks at heart,
| | 06:32 | so anytime we see something out there or
hear about something that's coming out,
| | 06:38 | we'll discuss it informally, in
meetings or "Hey, you've got to check this out.
| | 06:44 | "This is something that's coming out
for the iPhone, next release, four months
| | 06:49 | from now," or anything like that.
| | 06:50 | We'll just keep it on our radar as
something that we'll definitely want to investigate.
| | 06:54 | Jason has an amazing way of talking to
the clients and bringing these types of
| | 07:00 | technologies up in meetings without
necessarily, like, just pushing it on them
| | 07:07 | for the sake of pushing it on them, to
sell it, but as something that would
| | 07:10 | really make sense for their campaign.
| | 07:13 | And the trust, I think, that we've all
built, as a whole, with our clients, that
| | 07:16 | they are willing to say,
"Yeah. You guys have at it.
| | 07:18 | "Show us what you can do with
it and we'll see what happens."
| | 07:25 | Nine times out of ten, we are able
to show them something that's really
| | 07:29 | captivating or that's really interesting
to them that they feel, like, "Yeah. This
| | 07:32 | "is something we definitely
want to do and push through."
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Career Paths| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Perry Wang: So, I graduated UCLA, Visual Arts.
| | 00:11 | I started off in Economics.
| | 00:13 | That was my major and I chose Econ
because I asked my dad, "What should I do?"
| | 00:18 | He said, "Business is good."
| | 00:20 | So I checked that box. I got
into UCLA and started there.
| | 00:23 | And I knew right away.
| | 00:24 | It wasn't a good fit for me.
| | 00:26 | When I'd go to the library, the only
books I'd check out were the books about how
| | 00:29 | they did stop-motion animation for the
films, old school films, or how they did
| | 00:34 | the effects on Star Wars or something like that.
| | 00:37 | I used to ask my dad about it, and he
said, "There is, actually, no way you can
| | 00:40 | make money doing anything with art,
maybe architecture," so I said, "Well, maybe, but
| | 00:46 | "does that involve Math?"
| | 00:47 | And he said, "Yeah.
It does involve Math."
| | 00:49 | And I was like, "Oh, I can't do
architecture. How about an artist?"
| | 00:53 | And he said, "You are not going
to make money being an artist."
| | 00:55 | I tried it anyway. I found out, on my
own, there was this thing called graphic
| | 00:59 | design and you make logos, and you
actually make packages, and you create these
| | 01:04 | advertisements, and I said,
"That's what I want to do."
| | 01:08 | So, I graduated with a graphic design
degree from UCLA, and I started as a
| | 01:13 | designer, and I was a designer at
Media Revolution for about two years.
| | 01:18 | One day they sat me down and said,
"You could continue down the path of
| | 01:22 | "designer, but it probably stops short,
or you can become a project manager."
| | 01:30 | And, at the time, there really wasn't
any precedent for project management in
| | 01:35 | the interactive space.
| | 01:36 | If you were to go online and buy a book
on project management, it would be like
| | 01:40 | aerospace project management or hardcore
software project management and neither
| | 01:47 | of them seemed to really
apply to what we were doing.
| | 01:50 | So I had to kind of make it up as I went.
| | 01:52 | Anthony Palacios: My personal history starts
out in the 909, San Bernardino.
| | 01:58 | I took a vastly different path than
some of the other guys here.
| | 02:03 | I went to Cal State, San Bernardino.
| | 02:05 | I didn't really know what I wanted to do.
| | 02:08 | I just knew I had to go college.
| | 02:10 | Within probably two years of school,
I was still kind of lost, not sure what
| | 02:16 | direction I wanted to go to.
| | 02:18 | A friend of mine then said that they were
going to take a few classes in graphic design.
| | 02:22 | And that's when it really hit me, "Oh, wow!
| | 02:24 | "I could actually get paid to
actually do something that I enjoy doing."
| | 02:27 | I had always taken art classes in high school.
| | 02:30 | I just didn't really think that it would be
something that would make sense as a career.
| | 02:34 | At that point, that was, I'm going to date
myself here, but 1996, which really
| | 02:42 | internet boom hadn't really started
then, but that was kind of the doorway,
| | 02:47 | early ages of 'wow we could
put graphics online now'.
| | 02:51 | So, I found that as being an
opportunity for me to really go into some
| | 02:56 | uncharted territory.
| | 02:58 | So, I joined a company in San
Bernardino that I was doing a lot of just
| | 03:04 | local business sites.
| | 03:06 | From there, I stayed for a couple of years,
just learning how to hand code sites,
| | 03:11 | the early stages of Flash animation, and
then I just really realized that my love
| | 03:16 | for pop culture, for film, it
wasn't going to happen there,
| | 03:22 | so I just applied, like crazy, to LA
studios that where doing movie websites.
| | 03:28 | There was a Flash Game for
Independence Day that just kind of blew me away.
| | 03:33 | That's what I want to do.
| | 03:35 | So I looked them up.
| | 03:37 | It was Media Revolution.
| | 03:39 | Jason Yim was the guy that interviewed me.
| | 03:42 | We spoke very little about the actual projects.
| | 03:45 | It was more of what interested me.
| | 03:46 | So he was, "Do you like video games?
| | 03:49 | "Do you like Star Wars? Do you like cars?"
| | 03:53 | So, at that point, I kind of knew
like, this was probably the guy that I
| | 03:56 | wanted to work with.
| | 03:57 | He wasn't asking any hard questions.
He was asking me all the easy ones.
| | 04:00 | Loc Le: Out of school, actually during
school as well, I started working with Jason
| | 04:04 | at Media Revolution.
| | 04:06 | I worked with him for 6 years.
| | 04:08 | I started in quality
assurance and moved into development.
| | 04:13 | That's what I wanted to do for a very long time.
| | 04:16 | From there, when Trigger started,
I got into networking, as well.
| | 04:22 | Even today, I still do development, but
I handle it more on a managerial level.
| | 04:28 | Vivid Savitri: I studied in University of Australia.
| | 04:30 | I studied communications,
like Visual communication.
| | 04:34 | It's a kind of a major where you,
actually, you don't know what you want to do.
| | 04:40 | I didn't even know that what I am doing
now is actually - you can do what I do
| | 04:45 | now, and actually get paid for it,
because I was, to be honest, I was a recovered game
| | 04:52 | addict, and now I am
actually working and making games.
| | 04:56 | I mean like, I don't know how.
Is that ironic or no?
| | 05:00 | Carlo Decena: I am a graduate of Accounting
and Finance in the Philippines.
| | 05:04 | I worked for City Bank.
| | 05:08 | It's - from the corporate world going to
here is - yeah, it's a bit strange, right?
| | 05:15 | My school years, I had an
internship at a company, which was affiliated
| | 05:21 | with Media Revolution.
| | 05:23 | So I spent a summer there. For
some reason, they liked me, so I was
| | 05:30 | offered a job, the year after.
| | 05:36 | It was a good change for me, I mean,
coming from City Bank, which is a big
| | 05:40 | structured company, and joining sort of
a - I wouldn't call it start up then,
| | 05:45 | but sort of start up feel.
| | 05:48 | And it was fun for me. I
liked it and so I, you know.
| | 05:52 | For me, it was not really the
industry that I was looking for.
| | 05:56 | I mean, finance is finance and so it
was just an extra that it was sort of
| | 06:02 | a fun industry.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Giving back| 00:00 | (Music playing)
| | 00:08 | Jason Yim: One thing that was really important,
right out the gate, was to kind of get back.
| | 00:13 | And we have, I think, very little time
on this planet, sort of thing, like, let's
| | 00:18 | try to make a difference.
| | 00:20 | So Trigger change came from that. All
the full time staff can choose their own
| | 00:26 | charities that they think are worthwhile.
| | 00:29 | Judd Kim: So that started when we were just
seven of us, the first year, each making
| | 00:33 | donations to whatever cause
we felt was most deserving.
| | 00:37 | That's carried through now, even
as we've grown, several years later.
| | 00:41 | I don't think there has ever been a
single case of someone saying, "Wouldn't that
| | 00:44 | "money be better served going somewhere
else, into our pockets or back into the
| | 00:49 | "company or something like that."
| | 00:50 | Carlo Decena: No one complained or anything.
| | 00:52 | It was sort of a reflection of our
values that if we were successful, we made
| | 00:57 | money, we wanted to give back.
| | 00:57 | Jason Yim: At first though, it was surprising.
| | 00:59 | It was surprising that a little money
could go a really long way in developing
| | 01:06 | countries and staff.
| | 01:08 | So, trying to build a school in the
States would cost like hundreds and thousands
| | 01:14 | of dollars, or million of dollars, and stuff.
| | 01:16 | You could do it for significantly
less in Africa or Southeast Asia, so we
| | 01:21 | started with a schoolhouse in Mali, in Africa.
| | 01:24 | They use it for school classes
during the day and then it's like a
| | 01:28 | community center at night and stuff,
and it continues to help, even after the
| | 01:32 | funds have been drained.
| | 01:33 | Then, in 2006, we worked on a - there
is this AIDS orphanage in Cambodia.
| | 01:40 | They have these kind of dormitory
clusters and they had eight clusters in total,
| | 01:45 | to house 200-300 kids.
| | 01:48 | So we were responsible
for one of those clusters.
| | 01:51 | In Cambodia, when kids have AIDS or
their parents die from AIDS, culturally, they
| | 01:57 | just get booted out of the family,
like out onto the streets and stuff.
| | 02:00 | So this orphanage not only provides the medication
that's needed. And they were - when it
| | 02:06 | first started, they were importing it
directly, like, he would have to go to
| | 02:11 | Thailand and buy all the stuff and
truck it back to Cambodia because there
| | 02:15 | wasn't even medication available in the country.
| | 02:20 | It's gotten to a point where the survival
rates are so high for these kids, and the
| | 02:23 | education level is actually almost
better than what they can get locally,
| | 02:29 | that now they are starting to worry
about college education for these kids.
| | 02:33 | So it's almost like you solve a
problem and then it begets another problem and
| | 02:37 | we have to raise funds to
solve that, and stuff like that.
| | 02:39 | So, the next year we did two
ranger stations, also in Cambodia.
| | 02:45 | So these are anti-poaching stations.
| | 02:48 | That's pretty cool.
| | 02:49 | It's like, they fit, like, 12 rangers inside,
like cooking facilities and everything.
| | 02:55 | It's, like, their, like, a base camp
that they can then run patrols out of, to
| | 03:00 | stop hunting and to stop
deforestation and stuff like that.
| | 03:04 | Our relationship with CARE started as us
being a donor on these buildings and stuff.
| | 03:10 | We had done a project for Stand Up To Cancer.
| | 03:16 | It was a kind of entertainment-driven charity.
| | 03:20 | They did a roadblock on ABC, NBC, CBS.
| | 03:23 | It was a telethon for cancer research and
they raised $100 million plus over a weekend.
| | 03:29 | It was pretty amazing.
| | 03:31 | For them, we worked on their social strategy
from day one, very early on, so we did
| | 03:38 | giving through Facebook. We did this
application called a Stand where you could
| | 03:42 | very easily kind of upload your personal story,
| | 03:48 | upload your photo into this giant wall.
| | 03:50 | So, the overall theme was to personalize
these huge numbers. 6 million Americans
| | 03:57 | die of cancer every year.
| | 03:58 | So we wanted to put like a face
to every one of those numbers.
| | 04:02 | The giving system was done in the same
way where instead of just asking people
| | 04:06 | to donate money through Facebook,
we asked them to give something up.
| | 04:10 | We asked them to give up a cup of coffee.
| | 04:11 | We asked them to give up
a CD, a book or something.
| | 04:14 | So it was trying to make
all of these like relevant.
| | 04:17 | As soon as they did a donation, it would
challenge all their friends and ask them,
| | 04:24 | it'll say, like, "Jason gave up a cup of
coffee. Are you willing to do the same?"
| | 04:27 | So, from that experience, we started
talking to CARE and seeing if we could
| | 04:34 | volunteer to work for them as well,
| | 04:36 | but they're a much larger
organization, again, like 10,000 people,
| | 04:39 | so the pitching process to get into
CARE was longer and harder
| | 04:45 | than for us to win, like,
big entertainment clients.
| | 04:50 | It was funny to work so hard to not make any
money out of it, but I think it's worthwhile.
| | 04:56 | So, all this stuff that we've
learned from, like, film marketing and youth
| | 05:03 | marketing and stuff -
| | 05:04 | it was cool to apply it to something
that would actually help people, versus to
| | 05:09 | sell tickets or sell a product and stuff.
| | 05:12 | Again, using the same Flash programming
skills, the same animation skills, the
| | 05:16 | same motion graphics, the same music
composition, storytelling, all of that, but
| | 05:22 | instead of trying to sell a movie ticket,
we're trying to get people to change
| | 05:26 | the world a little bit.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| | Interview with Lynda |
|
