Troika Design GroupIntroduction| 00:06 | Kristen Olsen: Troika is a design company
that specializes in branding for television.
| | 00:14 | Mark McConnell: We pride ourselves in
being a studio that solves each project
| | 00:21 | from a unique point of view,
a creative point of view.
| | 00:27 | Male 1: It's really groundbreaking
whenever you look at some of the other
| | 00:29 | networks. It's shot completely
different, a lot of contrast in the face,
| | 00:34 | lot more dramatically. So we thought
that that was pretty groundbreaking.
| | 00:40 | Male 2: What we do differently than
just writing things up in a doc is we
| | 00:43 | think about things visually.
| | 00:49 | Kristen Olsen: One of the coolest
things about Troika is we have a lot of fun,
| | 00:53 | but we are also a really well oiled machine.
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| This is Troika| 00:09 | Kristen Olsen: So what is Troika?
Troika is a design company that specializes
| | 00:13 | in branding for television. We do
network packages. We have just launched the
| | 00:19 | new look for Fox, ABC, Oxygen, Starz.
| | 00:23 | Mark McConnell: ESPN Sportscenter.
| | 00:25 | Kristen Olsen: TruTv, just to name a few.
| | 00:29 | Mark McConnell: Now Troika is located
on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. We are
| | 00:33 | about 25 people. We have got
designers, animators, producers.
| | 00:40 | Kristen Olsen: Creative Directors,
editors. Troika is a really collaborative
| | 00:44 | environment. We have separate rooms
where animators are grouped together,
| | 00:50 | designers are grouped together and we
do that so that people can share work,
| | 00:55 | share ideas, brainstorm together.
It's not about working individually;
| | 01:00 | it's really about everyone jumping in together.
| | 01:03 | Mark McConnell: We tend to focus on
teams. Every project will have a team
| | 01:08 | that's comprised of a mix of an
Executive Creative Director or Creative
| | 01:12 | Director and then designers and
animators and whatever else is needed
| | 01:15 | underneath that. We work with our own
staff as far as we can and then we also
| | 01:21 | rely on a lot of freelancers from
the creative community in Hollywood.
| | 01:25 | Kristen Olsen: Projects also have an
Executive Producer, a Producer and a
| | 01:30 | coordinator assigned to them. So
there are layers of support from the
| | 01:36 | Production Department. We put
together the budget and the schedule and we
| | 01:41 | correspond with the client to make
sure that our goals are clear, so that the
| | 01:45 | project is being handled in an
organized fashion. Troika really prides
| | 01:49 | themselves on being creative and also
being very professional. Our clients
| | 01:55 | really appreciate all the time and
effort that goes into a well-organized
| | 02:01 | project. I would say that one of the
coolest things about Troika is we have a
| | 02:06 | lot of fun, but we are also
a really well oiled machine.
| | 02:10 | We have our staff members as well as
freelancers that we work with. Some of our
| | 02:15 | freelancers have been here
since the very beginning.
| | 02:18 | Mark McConnell: Perma-lancers.
| | 02:20 | Kristen Olsen: So we have a lot of
experts that we call in depending on what we
| | 02:24 | need for the project. But regardless
of staff or freelance, everyone really
| | 02:29 | enjoys working together.
| | 02:30 | Mark McConnell: It's about creating a
positive working environment, so that
| | 02:35 | people can concentrate on the work
at hand and enjoy the work at hand.
| | 02:39 | Kristen Olsen: And there aren't too
many companies like Troika out there. So
| | 02:44 | it's a privilege to be able to work
here and to be collaborative with such
| | 02:50 | great creative people and
to produce such amazing work.
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| Workspace| 00:10 | Chip McKenney: Hi. Troika Design Group.
It's our building, it's our offices.
| | 00:14 | We have 10,000 sq. ft. here on
Melrose Avenue. We are sort of in Hollywood,
| | 00:19 | but we are little bit on the edge of
Hollywood as well and we chose this
| | 00:22 | location primarily because it's
centrally located mostly for our workers.
| | 00:27 | So I will take you through it.
| | 00:30 | The first building, is as I said the
studios, consist of 10,000 square feet.
| | 00:34 | What's interesting about the facility
is it's actually three separate buildings
| | 00:37 | that have been co-joined over the years.
This was originally a restaurant.
| | 00:42 | I am going to take you over to what we call
the East Building, which is all the offices,
| | 00:47 | the production offices, and
that was a doctor's office.
| | 00:50 | So here, this is where all the
producers, coordinators, the executive
| | 00:54 | producers sit as well. So this is
like all the organizational part of the
| | 00:58 | company. I can walk you down
introduce you to some people. Okay, let me
| | 01:02 | introduce you to Kristen Olsen, who is
Troika's Executive Producer. Kristen runs
| | 01:06 | the entire Production Department.
And you supervise how many producers?
| | 01:11 | Kristen Olsen: Eight to 12 producers
depending on how many projects we have going.
| | 01:16 | Producers, associate producers,
coordinators, we have a full staff.
| | 01:22 | Chip McKenney: In other words, every
single project, Kristen is involved in it.
| | 01:25 | So she is the power. Be very nice to
her. So this building, which again, is
| | 01:30 | called the East Building, this is an
interesting building. It's got separate offices
| | 01:34 | for all the producers. Some are large
enough to share, which when it is large
| | 01:38 | enough we do; most of them are not. You
can actually see like I said, this used
| | 01:41 | to be a doctor's office. I think
this was like the doctor's reception area
| | 01:44 | where they used to walk in and a lot
of these rooms were the exam rooms.
| | 01:49 | Oh! Caught us in time for breakfast.
This middle building is probably the
| | 01:52 | most open building, open space that
we have in this studio. It's used for
| | 01:56 | reception, it's used for a lounge,
it's used for a kitchen. We also have
| | 01:59 | operations over there and we
have some design studios there.
| | 02:02 | This is one you can see, when I talk
about it, it used to be a restaurant.
| | 02:06 | This is actually the original kitchen
from the restaurant, which we think is
| | 02:10 | a very cool thing. So this part, of
course, is where we eat and every day we
| | 02:14 | would bring in lunch primarily because
it allows us to hang out together in a
| | 02:18 | relaxed time and I bet if you asked
everybody here, they will probably have a
| | 02:21 | different idea of what the best food is,
but let me see if I get somebody's
| | 02:24 | attention. Heather! What type of food
do you like when we order here for lunch?
| | 02:28 | Heather: Daphne's.
| | 02:30 | Chip McKenney: What?
Heather: Daphne's.
| | 02:32 | Chip McKenney: I don't know what
the hell that is. What? Free --?
| | 02:35 | Heather: Greek.
Chip McKenney: Oh! Greek.
| | 02:38 | Chip McKenney: Dale, do you have a favorite food?
| | 02:40 | Dale: Salmon.
| | 02:41 | Chip McKenney: It's...? Oh! Oh! He is
such a liar, he complains everyday. Wow!
| | 02:47 | So we also have in this center building
we have two large bays where we work in
| | 02:52 | groups and we have separated them by
design and by animation. Let me take you
| | 02:55 | in the Design bay first and the whole
idea behind this is that everybody sort
| | 02:59 | of feeds off everybody else's creativity,
so that people see what other people
| | 03:04 | are working on and they sort of jump up
and give opinions and sort of share the project.
| | 03:08 | You can see along the sides we have
chalkboards-- well not chalkboards,
| | 03:12 | corkboards, and these corkboards is
where we put up images and people can sort
| | 03:17 | of step back and get a perspective on
them and see if it's going in the right
| | 03:19 | direction. Okay, so you have seen the
center building. Now we are going to take
| | 03:23 | you take you to the East or actually
the West building. I will show you the
| | 03:25 | jewel in the crown, this is our
machine room, we are very proud of it.
| | 03:28 | We are networked, so every station can
be accessed from any other station and
| | 03:32 | it's all centralized through this
machine room. And we have a Director of
| | 03:36 | Technology, Rich Feldman, he is like
amazing and so this is his baby and he is a
| | 03:40 | total tech geek. He loves all the latest
and the greatest, which is good because we
| | 03:44 | sort of aspire to always be on
the cutting edge of technology.
| | 03:48 | So this building, this is where the Creative
Director sits. We also have a 3D bay here
| | 03:56 | and we are back to two Creative offices.
| | 03:57 | Dale Everett: One of the things in my
office is we put up corkboards and it's
| | 04:02 | a place where we can do white boarding on
projects which we start to kind of, you know,
| | 04:08 | in the initial stages we start to
figure out what we are going to do. A lot of
| | 04:11 | times for certain projects we will do
competitive landscapes reviews and
| | 04:15 | we'll have this up during the course of
our production. So we always sort of make
| | 04:18 | sure that we are kind of
working in the right space.
| | 04:21 | Chip McKenney: One other area that's
pretty much essential hub to our studio,
| | 04:24 | of course, is the reference wall.
This sort of represents research and it
| | 04:31 | represents people's interests and it
represents a number of people who have
| | 04:36 | collectively donated to the collection
of books that we have. Well, thanks for
| | 04:39 | visiting us. I was glad to give you
the tour. We think that the space really
| | 04:43 | reflects Troika. We think it's young,
we think it's sexy, it's comfortable
| | 04:47 | for us and it generates a great vibe
that we think contributes significantly to
| | 04:51 | our creativity. Thanks for coming by.
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| Troika's demo reel| 00:09 | Kristen Olsen: Tell us about Troika's Demo Reel.
| | 00:11 | Robert Blatchford: I think it's just
to highlight our work, show the outside
| | 00:16 | world, creatives, our peers, clients,
what we do, how we do it, what our
| | 00:20 | process is, what we are passionate about.
We work in such a ferocity, it's such
| | 00:26 | a fast pace here internally that very
rarely do teams even get to see what projects
| | 00:30 | we are working on. So it's nice to not
only see our work collaboratively where
| | 00:35 | everyone gets to view it, but to
highlight that and show that to our clients.
| | 00:38 | What stuff we are proud of and what we
have been working on, what we have been up to.
| | 00:42 | Kristen Olsen: The demo reel really
keeps our clients and our peers up to date
| | 00:45 | with what we have been working on.
| | 00:48 | Robert Blatchford: It's amazing,
the response when you post a new reel.
| | 00:51 | There is certain amount of level of
excitement that creatives will go and check out
| | 00:55 | other people's reel and see what they
are doing and see what they are up to.
| | 00:57 | It's definitely from a very internal
perspective; it's nice to see what people
| | 01:04 | are up to and for people to check
out what you have been up to too.
| | 01:07 | Kristen Olsen: What's the
process in putting the reel together?
| | 01:09 | Robert Blatchford: It's a collaborative
effort, everyone usually touches it a bit,
| | 01:13 | whether it's music that we've
tracked down in use or where we have our
| | 01:17 | composer create a piece to the work
that we pull from the company, which pieces
| | 01:22 | of the work we make decisions on
that we want to add to the reel.
| | 01:25 | So everyone views it, all the
creative directors, producers, partners, get a
| | 01:29 | chance to look at it before it gets
finalized and gets sent out. So it's a fun
| | 01:34 | part of it, is you get to highlight and
kind of show off your work so to speak.
| | 01:38 | All right, enough with us.
Let's take at the look the reel, shall we?
| | 01:40 | Kristen Olsen: Let's take a look.
| | 01:42 | (Music plays.)
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| Creative process| 00:09 | Dan Pappalardo: We are paid for
process here more than an end product.
| | 00:14 | The client doesn't know what the end
product does, we don't know what the end
| | 00:17 | product, as a matter of fact if we did,
I don't know what -- this would be a
| | 00:20 | waste of time.
| | 00:22 | So really they pay us for a process of
trying to understand what their needs
| | 00:27 | are and what they are trying to achieve,
what they want to communicate to their
| | 00:33 | audience. And we go through steps
to understand that and gain a better
| | 00:42 | understanding and start to take all of
the possibilities of what this can be
| | 00:47 | and get closer and closer
and closer to the answer.
| | 00:50 | So at the end of it, really the magic is,
at end of the project everyone goes,
| | 00:55 | Oh! That should be exactly where we
wanted to land. I wish we would have known
| | 01:00 | it in the beginning and it almost seems
like a no brainer that that's where we
| | 01:05 | were going to end up.
| | 01:06 | When you sit there and you have a blank
page in front of you and someone says,
| | 01:09 | come up with the greatest idea that
solve this problem. It's always as scary as hell.
| | 01:13 | So how do you make that manageable?
You make it manageable by carving it
| | 01:19 | into more smaller segments that are
segments that aren't giant hurdles.
| | 01:25 | They're ones that you go,
Oh! Yeah! I can solve that.
| | 01:28 | So the very first thing to do is make
sure that you are casting in that, that
| | 01:33 | is the right net and that right net
is -- make sure you get all the obvious
| | 01:37 | things. Don't employ the obvious ones,
there is really good stuff in the
| | 01:40 | obvious solutions, but cast it out
where you are staring to get those things
| | 01:46 | and that are on the fringes like, Oh!
That would be an interesting kind of place
| | 01:48 | to play. And then the net should go just
a little bit further to the place where you
| | 01:52 | go, "I think that's too far."
| | 01:54 | And that's what you want. You want to
have the net cast far enough, so that you
| | 01:58 | know where the edges of the
possibility are. In that world we start folding
| | 02:03 | into the production phase and the
design phase is conceptual. It's all about
| | 02:10 | ideas, it's about solving problems,
it's about the raw communication. Then once
| | 02:14 | you get into the detailed design and
the animation phase, you are into a bit of
| | 02:21 | the art of the mediums.
| | 02:24 | How does that move exactly? What is
that color exactly? So it's this idea of
| | 02:30 | carving a larger effort into these
littler pieces that you can sink your teeth in,
| | 02:36 | really understand if you are
comfortable solving. Then over through the
| | 02:40 | course of the process, you are eating
away at solving the problems. So it's
| | 02:44 | really taking these bigger efforts,
chopping them down into something
| | 02:49 | manageable and always
focusing on that end result.
| | 02:54 | Heather Kim: I think it's very
beneficial for both the client and the
| | 02:59 | creative team because the creative
team is learning as these small steps are
| | 03:05 | being taken. The further they step,
the more convincing it seems, the more that
| | 03:13 | they are convinced that their ideas
are making sense. And they are kind of
| | 03:19 | feeding it back and forth between
the client and themselves and they are
| | 03:22 | learning more about the client. They
are learning more about what they actually need.
| | 03:27 | So the artist learn through the
process, communicating with the client and
| | 03:32 | having-- starting to be really
convinced that their concept is
| | 03:37 | something that they can stand by. By
the end of the process, everything makes
| | 03:41 | more sense now. We can really stand
by our ideas and say that we did this
| | 03:46 | because we had a very
solid reason for doing so.
| | 03:49 | Dan Pappalardo: Yeah, I am most excited
when an assignment -- I understand what
| | 03:54 | we are trying to achieve, but I have
no idea what the answer is and those are
| | 04:00 | exciting to me because that tells
me that there is the potential to do
| | 04:05 | something new.
| | 04:06 | I think it's really important for
designers to look for that. Look for that
| | 04:13 | unknown area and get enough of an
understanding of what you are trying to do
| | 04:18 | but when you are riding that wave of
like you are kind of nervous, you are
| | 04:21 | worried about like -- is this
really any good? You are in a much better
| | 04:26 | place than when you are looking at
something you are doing and you are going,
| | 04:28 | "Oh! That must be great. I have seen it.
I know that's great, because it's what I
| | 04:33 | have seen other people do." That's not
really fun to me. Those projects, I don't
| | 04:38 | really enjoy at all. I like the ones
where we are all kind of looking at each
| | 04:42 | other and going, is this good? Like I
am not sure if this is even working or
| | 04:47 | not, or if this is too out of
the box for us or for the client.
| | 04:51 | Heather Kim: From a designer's point
of view, too, the processes are so
| | 04:55 | important and so helpful because,
as I said before, a designer,
| | 05:00 | all artists, I think, are basically very
insecure. Very insecure and it's all about making
| | 05:07 | sure by the end of the day that they
feel that they have accomplished something
| | 05:10 | and it's very hard at the beginning of
the project. You are making something
| | 05:14 | out of nothing, basically.
| | 05:16 | So you are looking for inspiration,
you are looking for anything that will
| | 05:19 | help you get the idea across and
achieve something. The process really helps
| | 05:25 | you get over that intimidation. So,
you are looking through the process,
| | 05:30 | you know that these processes have been
tested before and they will help you get
| | 05:35 | over the hurdles. And so knowing that,
okay, if I do this, I can get over this
| | 05:41 | spot, it's going to help me as a
measuring stick to make sure my concepts are
| | 05:47 | sound, my designs are kind of proofed.
All of these reasons and concepts and
| | 05:54 | briefs and the processes that we go
through are very helpful for a designer to
| | 06:00 | actually achieve the end result in a
way that they feel happy with it at the end.
| | 06:04 | Dan Pappalardo: And it is, it's about
breaking up a creative challenge into
| | 06:11 | more manageable pieces and if you
are just focused on the end result,
| | 06:16 | it's really hard to get anything done.
It's again, the giant white page, where
| | 06:21 | the heck do I start? But if you are
more worried about achieving a smaller goal,
| | 06:27 | a more manageable goal, then the
designers aren't sitting there freaking out about,
| | 06:30 | Oh! My God, how I am going to create
this award-winning piece? It's like I
| | 06:34 | don't have to worry about that right now.
I have to worry about casting the net
| | 06:36 | and if I cast the right
net and that kind of thing.
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| Creative culture| 00:09 | Mark McConnell: There is a lot of very
talented designers, animators, people at
| | 00:12 | Troika. And one of the things that we
have discovered about creative culture at
| | 00:18 | Troika is that we need to feed that
team. We decided, I don't know, 2 or 3
| | 00:24 | years ago, to start figuring out how to
consciously maintain a creative culture
| | 00:30 | within the company.
| | 00:32 | One of the things that we started
doing was having what we call an Artists'
| | 00:35 | Forum, which is really just a
meeting after a couple of weeks where the
| | 00:39 | creatives of the company got together
at lunch with really no clear agenda and
| | 00:42 | just started talking. One of the things
that came out of that was a desire to,
| | 00:47 | what we would call cross training,
where we are teaching After Effects to
| | 00:50 | producers and maybe ad artists
learn a little bit about producing.
| | 00:55 | So we started teaching -- we
actually started running some classes on the
| | 00:59 | weekends and at nights. We taught After
Effects for a while and then we taught
| | 01:02 | Cinema 4D for a while, and it's just
something that we are always just looking
| | 01:07 | for ways to maintain a high level of
creative interest within the people here
| | 01:13 | at Troika because that then feeds
into all of the work. If the people are
| | 01:17 | interested and inspired and stimulated,
that shows up on the table and on the
| | 01:22 | screen all the time.
| | 01:23 | Dale Everett: One of the projects
where the creative culture really came
| | 01:25 | together was a pitch we did for the
rebrand of Court TV to TruTV. It really was
| | 01:32 | great because it involved everyone;
it involved the whole community here
| | 01:37 | together. We probably had three
creative directors when we were putting up our
| | 01:43 | different ways to kind of crack the
nut on how to define what TruTV was.
| | 01:49 | So we would bring in writers, we had
the three creative directors, all working
| | 01:53 | on it at once, laying out up the five
ideas, constantly challenge each other.
| | 01:59 | Is that the right thing, is that the
right thing? It's all up on a board and
| | 02:03 | looking at them and pulling them down.
I mean we probably went through six or
| | 02:07 | seven broad concepts before we ended
up with the final four that we pitched
| | 02:12 | and then eventually won the job with.
| | 02:13 | Mark McConnell: Well, it is one of
the great things about working at Troika
| | 02:16 | that we have an environment and
leadership that encourages and expects, in
| | 02:23 | fact, everyone to keep pushing the
boundaries, to keep learning about what
| | 02:26 | they are doing and what their
neighbors are doing. So that we can continue to
| | 02:30 | grow and expand and learn and do great work.
| | 02:33 | Dale Everett: And the shop is always
pushing the boundaries of what we do. We have
| | 02:41 | a very clear focus on branding, but
we are always looking for new kinds of
| | 02:46 | problems to solve. Whether it's things
like interface design or environmental
| | 02:50 | design. So there is always these new
avenues that are kind of coming in, new
| | 02:54 | areas of exploration, new areas of
problem solving and that's what kind of
| | 02:58 | keeps it fresh and makes it exciting.
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| Nurturing individuals| 00:09 | Chuck Carey: To me, the greatest
accomplishments are extremely subtle. For me,
| | 00:14 | they are not about the press releases,
not necessarily about the projects.
| | 00:19 | Although the projects and the quality of
the work is definitely the manifestation of it,
| | 00:23 | but for me, the greatest
accomplishment-- It really is, it's the growth of
| | 00:28 | a lot of individuals, both as an individual
on their own career path and as a team.
| | 00:34 | I mean there is essentially artists who
are trying to find their way through a career.
| | 00:38 | So it's a lot of really wonderful
people each with their own set of quirks,
| | 00:45 | and that's probably what I love most
about watching them all blossom and grow
| | 00:51 | and collaborate, brainstorming. Well,
I mean how sort of maybe abused is the
| | 01:00 | idea of what that really is? But
watching our people work together in a
| | 01:04 | brainstorm, watching one person's
synapses fire and other synapses fire,
| | 01:10 | watching dots connect.
| | 01:12 | To me, when I see that, it's just
really cool to me because it's such a
| | 01:19 | subjective craft and yet the standards
that ultimately the work is held to is
| | 01:27 | some of the highest standards of the
business marketplace, hundreds of millions
| | 01:31 | of dollars that flow through the
clients that we work for and so having the
| | 01:38 | underpinning of knowing that and
being truly professional about that, while
| | 01:42 | still being a vibrant, creative
organization, to me is it's really the essential.
| | 01:48 | Sort of gets me out of bed in the morning.
| | 01:51 | The studio itself is somewhat of an
external manifestation of our values. But,
| | 02:01 | it's not like the owners dictate what
that is. We let that be what it is going
| | 02:07 | to become and to me, that's a joy, a
real joy, and so I would love to hear your
| | 02:11 | perspective on that.
| | 02:13 | Robert Blatchford: Just from a life
perspective, I mean the energy around the
| | 02:16 | office is really cool. You listen the
music, you usually use to listen to it
| | 02:19 | pretty loud where someone has to knock
on your door and say it's battling with
| | 02:22 | my music. It's a very fun environment.
| | 02:25 | I mean, you come in, it's casual.
The interaction with people is casual.
| | 02:29 | We get to a conference room. It becomes
serious when it needs to be serious, but
| | 02:32 | for the most part, everyone is pretty
light. We talk about politics, excuse the
| | 02:36 | word but it's -- it's a good sort of
energy that you want in here. And I hate to use
| | 02:41 | the word energy but it's true. It's--
you interact with people, you enjoy
| | 02:44 | interacting with them, you don't mind seeing
them everyday, and it's a healthy place to work.
| | 02:49 | Chuck Carey: It actually wouldn't
surprise me if companies 5, 10, 15 years from
| | 02:53 | now felt more like design studios
because they are really built around
| | 02:59 | getting the best out of each person,
and having that add up to be a great team
| | 03:03 | experience. A lot of businesses talk
about that and then you walk into the
| | 03:08 | environment, and do you guys know this?
Do you work in production? How could you
| | 03:12 | possibly expect someone to bring
their best when they walk-into a sterile
| | 03:17 | environment that's about conformity
and not about individuality and innovation?
| | 03:23 | I mean, how could you reasonably
expect people to be in their best mental
| | 03:28 | space when it has almost nothing to do
with the things that truly inspire them.
| | 03:35 | Dressing up your cubicle with knick-
knacks is a far cry from a space that
| | 03:40 | really makes you feel comfortable and
lets you truly have your best thought process.
| | 03:46 | Robert Blatchford: Yeah, no cubicles,
and no time cards. It's really you come in,
| | 03:49 | you know what you need to accomplish.
So you have yourself at check for that.
| | 03:53 | So you are kind of,
you are responsible for it.
| | 03:55 | Chuck Carey: That's the kind of people
we want to work here, honestly, is people
| | 03:58 | who get that, that they understand that
it's part of the ethos here is we are
| | 04:03 | not supervisory. We are not going to
be judging you hour to hour, moment to
| | 04:08 | moment, day to day. We are going to
be working to enable you to accomplish
| | 04:13 | things that five, six, seven, eight,
ten months ago, you didn't think you are
| | 04:18 | capable of doing. I mean that's really
the business that we are in, is helping
| | 04:22 | people to get to that point.
| | 04:23 | Robert Blatchford: Well, currently we
are working for a client overseas in
| | 04:25 | Turkey and I saw one of our producers
throw little comment on his Facebook that
| | 04:31 | he said, I am learning how to speak
Turkish, which to me is, I mean that's kind
| | 04:35 | of cool. You are working at a project,
not only we are traveling overseas for
| | 04:38 | work working with foreign clients, but
we are also learning the new language
| | 04:42 | because of it. So it's kind of cool
that we get to challenge ourselves in that world.
| | 04:45 | Chuck Carey: Yeah. You have to remember
we are lucky to do what we do, really,
| | 04:50 | really lucky. We get to come to an
office every day that's all about innovation,
| | 04:56 | creativity, new ideas, visual
expression. You are pushing either pop culture
| | 05:03 | forward or visual culture forward. So
what Robert is saying like really that --
| | 05:06 | that makes me happy.
| | 05:07 | That's what I would hope that somebody
is doing instead of saying oh, gosh,
| | 05:11 | I have to get on conference calls in a
different zone, that they would say, this is
| | 05:15 | an opportunity to not stop learning,
to not stop growing, to learn a foreign
| | 05:19 | language and to connect with the
foreign culture. To me, that's like, that's it.
| | 05:23 | The opportunity is everywhere
around the people who work here and that they
| | 05:29 | have the spirit to embrace it,
to me, is really the ultimate goal.
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| Collaborative culture| 00:09 | Dale Everett: Troika's core competency
is network brands, network relaunches,
| | 00:14 | and these are really large projects
that can take as long as nine months, as
| | 00:20 | long as a year and so they require
our collaborative culture to really get through them.
| | 00:25 | And we start off each week with a
meeting of all the departments where we all
| | 00:31 | together in the common area and we go
through what's going to be happening and
| | 00:35 | that's a time for -- we do it by
project and it's a time for the creative
| | 00:43 | directors or the heads of each
project to kind of say, okay, this is a
| | 00:46 | week where I am going to need some
extra help because I am coming up on a
| | 00:51 | delivery or a presentation and there
is going to be a bottleneck and I am
| | 00:54 | going to need some extra help and as
for when we work with the producers to
| | 00:58 | make sure that we can free people up.
| | 01:00 | So we can work together to get through
those kind of most pressing phases of
| | 01:07 | the production and one of the strengths
of the culture is if you look at the very
| | 01:13 | top, and it flows throughout, but if you
look at the very top in terms of the
| | 01:17 | creative directors. Of the creative
directors we have here, each of us has a
| | 01:22 | very different skill-set; we have each
come from very different backgrounds.
| | 01:27 | To solve some of these problems, I
know that I am going to have to reach out
| | 01:30 | to these other creative directors that
have different backgrounds, different
| | 01:35 | areas of expertise to collaborate with
them, to have them punch -- give their
| | 01:40 | own particular view of what I have
done and punch holes in what I have done,
| | 01:45 | ask questions, challenge what I have
done to make it the best it can possibly be.
| | 01:49 | Kristen Olson: And similarly just like
you do with the creative directors,
| | 01:54 | the designers work together that way.
They actually are all seated together in a
| | 01:59 | room so that they can share ideas
even if they are not working on the same
| | 02:02 | project, they can look over one
another's shoulder and work together.
| | 02:07 | The animators are seated together in a
couple of different areas but that way they
| | 02:13 | can ask questions to one another,
challenge one another and we really foster an
| | 02:18 | environment where people are working
collaboratively and sharing ideas, sharing
| | 02:24 | thoughts, brainstorming and really
pushing one another. I think the creative is
| | 02:28 | better because of that.
| | 02:29 | Dale Everett: A year or two ago we
launched the CW. It was UPN and the WB were
| | 02:37 | being joined to form the first new
broadcast network for quite a while and so
| | 02:43 | we pitched in one and we launched the
CW. That was a project really -- was
| | 02:49 | really fantastic because it did involve
everybody. We set up a war room where
| | 02:55 | we had -- it was a huge room that we
put corkboard walls up and reference
| | 03:00 | went up there, ideas, writing went up
there. It was a way that we could very
| | 03:05 | fluidly move ideas and visuals from
category to category and it even proved to
| | 03:11 | be a sort of interactive room where
we had the -- in this case, we had the
| | 03:16 | manager being able to bring the client
into the room and since everything was
| | 03:20 | pinned on a wall and not printed out on
sheets of paper but literally pinned to
| | 03:23 | the wall and cut up with scissors,
| | 03:26 | he could point the things and say, you
know I like this thing but I think it
| | 03:29 | would be better in this category. And we
could just pull things off and move them
| | 03:33 | to the other one and so that was a
real process both of all of us working
| | 03:38 | together and even a collaboration with
the client in that he was able to come
| | 03:41 | in and physically move things around to
kind of like build the categories that
| | 03:46 | we wanted to present.
| | 03:47 | Kristen Olson: So that was a really
refined process because we were working
| | 03:51 | towards some very specific goals.
Sometimes, at the start of a project, we will
| | 03:55 | get everyone into a common area with a
dry eraseboard and we will just start
| | 03:59 | sharing ideas and helping the team
that's working on that project really just
| | 04:05 | to get the juices flowing and so
what's great about that is everyone is involved.
| | 04:12 | Dale Everett: In these brainstorms,
you never know where the great ideas are
| | 04:14 | going to come from and so having
everybody in here, from the receptionist to the
| | 04:20 | production assistants, you never know.
It may not be the creative director, it may
| | 04:25 | not be the designer, pieces of puzzle
can come from everywhere. I have worked
| | 04:29 | at places where the culture haven't
been as collaborative as here and it's hard
| | 04:35 | and it doesn't produce as great a product
and the size of the projects here really
| | 04:41 | necessitate this kind of mutual sort
of support system that we have for each
| | 04:46 | other, the creatives and the producers.
Producers laying and being flexible and
| | 04:51 | laying out this path for us but knowing
that we may take turns along the way
| | 04:57 | and it's that working together that
enables us to get through these very large
| | 05:02 | and very difficult projects.
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| Network branding| 00:08 | Gil Haslam: One of our primary focuses
here at Troika is network branding and
| | 00:13 | quite a few people always are
wondering what does that actually mean. What is
| | 00:16 | network branding? So the word branding
and it's thrown around quite a bit and
| | 00:22 | sometimes people are confused by what it means.
| | 00:25 | For us, there is a lot of different
interpretations of it, but for us, branding
| | 00:31 | is really being able to create the
connection between the channel or network,
| | 00:39 | and the audience. So you are asking the
audience to invite you into their home
| | 00:46 | and what you really want to do is
communicate the right message. Do you know
| | 00:49 | who that brand is? Do you know how they
act, they perform? What programs are on
| | 00:53 | their air? So it really, truly is an
emotional connection to the network or
| | 01:00 | channels. It's what we consider branding.
| | 01:01 | One of the latest re-brands that we
have actually worked on was the FOX
| | 01:04 | re-brand, but we have been working
with FOX for the last three re-brands in a
| | 01:09 | row with them, so we have had a great
partnership which is incredibly key to
| | 01:14 | us. The more that you know and the
more that you partner with somebody,
| | 01:18 | the trust level is definitely there and we
love working with the guys over at FOX.
| | 01:24 | They inspire us to do great work.
| | 01:27 | So this last year, we were given the
assignment to relaunch their brand, to
| | 01:33 | provide a lot of attitude. They had a
new position, a new platform that they
| | 01:38 | were running off which is
called 'So FOX,' a heavy attitude.
| | 01:42 | So FOX is going to be all about the
attributes that could define the network
| | 01:47 | and define the shows, and so we just
got done finishing. It's actually launched
| | 01:52 | this fall, so it's looking great on
the air. Everybody was happy. It was a
| | 01:56 | combination of animation. They did a
great job with the live action and what I'd
| | 02:01 | love to do is actually show you those,
show you the project and the lead
| | 02:05 | designer and the animator who I
partnered up with amongst other team members
| | 02:10 | that were here, but you can actually
see some great stuff that he develops. So
| | 02:14 | I would love to take you over with us, let's go.
| | 02:16 | So this is some of the work that was
done in the previous year and Craig will
| | 02:20 | scrub through that and show you some of
that work and we will actually take you
| | 02:24 | through the latest re-brand and
where we have taken them this year.
| | 02:28 | Craig Stouffer: So like we said,
the previous re-brand was a lot more 3D
| | 02:34 | intensive, using a lot of Cinema 4D.
I am just going to scrub through right
| | 02:39 | here, just showing some of the
sequence and layers of all the 3D elements. So
| | 02:45 | it literally just hundreds of
elements back on top of each other, lot of
| | 02:49 | particle effects, things like that.
| | 02:52 | Whenever we jumped into re-branding
again, we wanted to take it a completely
| | 02:58 | different direction. So one thing
that's not thought about is how to really
| | 03:02 | push the limits of what networks are
doing and one thing we did was just with
| | 03:08 | the talent in general, is just keeping
it really close-up shot on some of these
| | 03:14 | because it's really groundbreaking
whenever you look at some of the other
| | 03:16 | networks. It's shot completely different,
a lot of contrast in the face, a lot
| | 03:22 | more dramatic lighting.
| | 03:23 | So we thought that that was pretty
groundbreaking, and then really just keeping
| | 03:27 | them over a simple black and white
backgrounds with a strong accent color is
| | 03:31 | really the theory of this whole package,
along with integrating a lot of these
| | 03:35 | like type textures to really introduce
the So FOX branding that they are coming
| | 03:41 | up with this year.
| | 03:42 | Gil Haslam: And what you are seeing
here is the actual promotion toolkit.
| | 03:45 | You have seen a lot of the back plates that
are conveying the information, the show
| | 03:49 | name, when it's on, and it's usually
tying it with a live action piece of
| | 03:54 | footage, where it's just on a graphic.
| | 03:57 | The other things that we created with
the night opens. That's the actual animated
| | 04:00 | piece that actually introduces the
night and the characters that are going to
| | 04:03 | be playing out on the night. So on a
Monday, it's a Monday night open, and it
| | 04:08 | highlights 'Terminator', then 'Prison Break',
so it gives you kind of the line-up
| | 04:12 | for the night, kicks you in, gets
you amped up, and ready for the night.
| | 04:15 | The other pieces are the rest of the
toolkit where you have got lower-thirds.
| | 04:20 | We have got transitional devices. So
you can see how the concept, the design
| | 04:24 | and the animation techniques get
spread across a toolkit of elements.
| | 04:29 | One of the most important things
that we always look at in branding or
| | 04:34 | re-branding certain networking
channels is really to make sure that we are
| | 04:41 | applying our philosophy to chase a
concept and not to chase design trends.
| | 04:47 | I think that's one of the things that
separates us is that there is no two
| | 04:51 | clients alike, and we recognize that,
and so each individual problem has a
| | 04:57 | unique solution to it. So as opposed
to chasing a trend which will apply a
| | 05:02 | found technique against a problem, we
actually work the other way around and
| | 05:07 | concept is king here, and this is what
we believe in and that's why the work stands out.
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| Projects: Starz| 00:09 | Reid Thompson: Our projects are getting
bigger and bigger and the last year's
| | 00:13 | Starz project is a good example of how
we are using, besides just our designs skills,
| | 00:19 | we are working with companies
to establish their brand identities
| | 00:24 | really through the strategy, working
with the changing strategies of the
| | 00:29 | company, and Starz was a
yearlong project almost,
| | 00:34 | that when we started out, it really was
about coming up with this sort of brand
| | 00:40 | themes and the idea was that Starz
sort of was a delivery network for movies,
| | 00:46 | and we wanted to make it much more of
an emotional brand and connect with the
| | 00:49 | audience and all those feelings that
you get from a movie, we wanted people do
| | 00:54 | attach to the Starz brand.
| | 00:56 | What we do differently than just
writing things up in a doc is we think about
| | 01:00 | things visually. So early on, Heather
and I worked on different mood-boards and
| | 01:06 | conceptual mood-boards that helped to
really focus on the process and to get to
| | 01:12 | something more concrete pretty quickly.
| | 01:15 | We've focus grouped them and it
was funny. We had some things that were
| | 01:19 | kind of specific about movies, and
there were other things that were more about
| | 01:25 | the fan of a movie and then this one
direction was very emotional and it
| | 01:31 | actually didn't have a lot of concrete
things into it. It was light and beauty
| | 01:35 | and kind of mystery and people related
much more to that when they didn't
| | 01:40 | know what they were looking at, and it
was kind of fun. Like, oh! Yeah, I don't
| | 01:43 | know what that is, but I like it.
It feels good and I think sort of --
| | 01:49 | making people feel something and
relate to your brand on a kind of
| | 01:52 | emotional level. We knew that was
kind of right direction to take.
| | 01:57 | So that was sort of the first six
months of the project and then once we
| | 02:02 | established this direction and look,
it was really based on a new logo that
| | 02:10 | they were establishing and we worked
with Starz and another design agency
| | 02:15 | to just kind of refocus the logo and
actually embed the Starz light into the
| | 02:21 | logo. So there is new Starz logo
that's much simpler to use in a lot of
| | 02:25 | different mediums.
| | 02:27 | The light is built into the logo. So
that light theme and the emotion of kind
| | 02:32 | of movie light, and what light, the
beauty that light brings to everyday became
| | 02:36 | our theme. That was probably last year
around this time that we started trying the
| | 02:43 | theme and playing it in a lot of
different ways. Heather and I-- kind of light's
| | 02:49 | kind of amorphous. There is not a
lot of graphic framework there. So we tried
| | 02:54 | to make it unique.
| | 02:56 | Heather Kim: Yeah. How to make light
as a graphic motif because basically
| | 03:00 | when you are making a package, you
can't make it about just light because
| | 03:05 | light is not necessarily unique or
own-able by one package. So we came up with kind
| | 03:14 | of hexagons and these graphic motifs
that represented forms of light, that
| | 03:20 | you would see hexagons and lens flares
and rays of light and stuff like that,
| | 03:25 | and arrays of dots or kind of swooshes
of arcs and try to include a lot of that.
| | 03:32 | Reid Thompson: And establish- and sort
of establish the uniqueness of the Starz
| | 03:36 | light. So it was about natural light,
it wasn't manufactured, and so it was
| | 03:44 | Reid Thompson: looking to the sun, flares..
Heather Kim: Not a synthetic light.
| | 03:48 | Reid Thompson: And a complex mix,
so that it was really beautiful.
| | 03:52 | Heather Kim: But it was all based of
this writing that we had done and you had
| | 03:57 | a word like shine which was basically
the guiding light of everything.
| | 04:01 | Reid Thompson: The word shine just,
it was inspirational. It was this idea of
| | 04:05 | this beauty of life that is an important
part, so in that regard it's been a success.
| | 04:11 | I think the logo is a big success because it's much
easier to use, you just need one element for it,
| | 04:21 | and yeah, it's alive.
| | 04:23 | (Music plays.)
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| Projects: Oxygen| 00:10 | Reid Thompson: Oxygen was a fun project.
It happened really quickly. At the time
| | 00:14 | we were pretty busy and we weren't
even really sure that we could be involved
| | 00:19 | in the pitch, but the client wanted us
to be involved in it. So we kind of came
| | 00:23 | back with our plan of what we could do
to establish our themes and be able to
| | 00:30 | really give them a brand
that they could work with.
| | 00:34 | But we knew that we only had a few weeks;
we had about three weeks or something
| | 00:39 | like that to do it, to get the pitch
together. On Oxygen what we did very early
| | 00:44 | on was establish and work with the
client in New York, but establish our
| | 00:50 | process and a lot of it was working
with mood boards and just taping stuff up
| | 00:56 | on this wall actually.
| | 00:58 | We would just find things and rip
things and put them up, there were found
| | 01:02 | objects and just stuff that was working.
We had two other - first we had three
| | 01:08 | different themes which a lot of it
came, actually there was a week of working
| | 01:11 | with writers and kind of thinking about
the idea. What Oxygen is, it's a women's
| | 01:18 | network but it's not kind of in the women's
ghetto of soft curvy stuff, it's how women --
| | 01:24 | Heather Kim: No pink.
| | 01:25 | Reid Thompson: Yeah no pink. It's how
women live today; I mean it's kind of real women.
| | 01:30 | Heather Kim: One of our tag lines
initially was 'mix it up' and so that's the
| | 01:34 | reason why we would take this variety
of objects and graphically we would tie
| | 01:39 | it back to the O, like all of these
would be different objects but graphically
| | 01:44 | they would resemble an O. They were
brought together to represent the different
| | 01:51 | aspects of a woman's life. So
it was an assemblage basically.
| | 01:56 | Reid Thompson: And real textures --
it was very important that things like we
| | 01:59 | had fur Os, shiny Os, disco ball Os and
it's like all that stuff really became
| | 02:06 | things that you could think about
tactfully and that was fun for us to start to
| | 02:10 | design objects and purses and unique
things that felt that way but also could
| | 02:16 | be own-able to Oxygen.
| | 02:17 | Heather Kim: Because the demographic
are very trendy people. So they are going
| | 02:25 | to know immediately when something
resembles something. But it still has to
| | 02:29 | have to style, the trendiness or
that sophistication. So it was a lot of
| | 02:34 | product design as well. We had to
basically product design a lot of our elements.
| | 02:38 | Reid Thompson: And work with 3D
modelers to come up with these objects, but the
| | 02:43 | great thing is it's a brand theme.
The first show was Tori & Dean or
| | 02:49 | something like that. So we knew it was
like silver pacifier, some baby stuff.
| | 02:53 | There was a lot of stuff that
reflected Tori's life. The next show was Janice
| | 02:58 | Dickinson. Completely different type of
person, fake lips and we had weights and
| | 03:04 | wax lips and -- the fun thing is --
now there's this themes so you would just
| | 03:09 | always think about what the show is
and what objects would represent them.
| | 03:13 | So it's a brand that's alive. It's
going to keep changing and it actually needs
| | 03:20 | a little more work because you have to
figure out these objects. It's not just
| | 03:24 | plug-and-play in After Effects. But at
the same time to me it establishes this
| | 03:32 | personality for the channel that's
interesting, different, a little cheeky and
| | 03:39 | kind of fun I think. A lot of little
shoots, just in our conference room where
| | 03:44 | we would set up and -- okay we got
that board approved. We need a lime,
| | 03:51 | a candy ring and there is
always some weird Nixon stuff --
| | 03:54 | Heather Kim: We are shooting basically
every week, every week. We use Houdini
| | 03:58 | in parts because we wanted to
express powder, like women's powder as
| | 04:03 | kind of the energetic spirit of makeup,
that energetic spirit of the motion,
| | 04:10 | the trajectory of objects and so we
built kind of these powder-like objects in
| | 04:17 | Houdini as well. So it's just another
kind of note to say that we're mixing all
| | 04:21 | these techniques together,
so very interesting process.
| | 04:24 | Reid Thompson: Yeah it was fun. The
funny thing to be is like it comes off very
| | 04:29 | light. When you watch it you don't even
think about it. But whoa, that was a lot of work.
| | 04:34 | 3D people are always like
oh, there is a lot of 3D in there.
| | 04:36 | Heather Kim: Yeah, it was interesting
because the women were designers but we
| | 04:40 | had a lot of animators and 3D guys.
Who were guys. So they were like okay...
| | 04:47 | Reid Thompson: Yeah, they still had...
| | 04:48 | Heather Kim: So every guys had
to have a supervising kind of like female touch
| | 04:51 | to make sure that they understand what
they were getting into because it is a
| | 04:55 | women's network, even though it
embraces the male audience. Definitely there
| | 05:00 | was a lot of kind of
explaining- awkward to do.
| | 05:04 | (Music playing.)
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| Techniques| 00:09 | Heather Kim: In terms of the different
techniques we use at Troika, when we're
| | 00:13 | doing various projects,
we like to get together and kind of think
| | 00:16 | about who would be best suited to
work with that project and we like to
| | 00:22 | make sure that that person uses the
best of their abilities to accommodate.
| | 00:26 | Dan Pappalardo: We pride ourselves in
being a studio that solves each project
| | 00:32 | with it from a unique point of view,
creative point of view and really that's
| | 00:37 | what marketing and branding is all about.
It's creating a unique voice for our client.
| | 00:42 | So it's really important for
us to build a staff, to build a studio
| | 00:48 | that has diverse talent skills, that
have different techniques that -- skill
| | 00:56 | sets and different techniques,
different styles and that we can blend and merge
| | 01:01 | these things together. We are not a
shop that you see a trendy style being
| | 01:07 | repeated over and over again. We
really work hard to make sure that every
| | 01:12 | project that goes out the door looks
very different from a previous project.
| | 01:17 | Heather Kim: When we are
conceptualizing projects, Dan has a wall in his office
| | 01:23 | and it's kind of this spew wall and
it's like artist's- the wall is made and
| | 01:32 | brought down several times a day,
during the process of a pitch. And so artists
| | 01:38 | come in with all their ideas and kind
of their inspiration and all the kind of
| | 01:45 | work and they stick it off on Dan's
wall and then Dan comes in with his
| | 01:49 | scissors and he cuts up all the frames.
| | 01:52 | He has this kind of psychological
thing going with his scissors, but he cuts
| | 01:57 | out every frame that he likes and then
he sticks it back up again and then he
| | 02:03 | organizes it on his wall just the way
that he sees it and it's nice and that
| | 02:07 | process really helps everyone kind
of contextualize everything and focus
| | 02:12 | everyone and then he sends us all out
again. And then it goes on and on and on
| | 02:17 | until it's like brought down to the
essence of what it needs to be and so it's
| | 02:21 | not -- this process might not be
something that's like -- but it is a process
| | 02:27 | that we go through. It's the
technique that we use at Troika and we use it
| | 02:31 | every time, for every pitch process,
and there is something about working
| | 02:36 | outside of the box sometimes that really
refreshes your mind. So we like to do that a lot.
| | 02:41 | Dan Pappalardo: One of the things I
love about broadcast design as a job is
| | 02:47 | that you have to develop a whole wide
set of skills and you learn how you need
| | 02:57 | to be good at sound and understanding
how music works, you need to understand
| | 03:00 | editorial. You need to be a very great
graphic designer, you need to know the
| | 03:04 | fundamentals of typography and color
and layout. You need to understand live
| | 03:10 | action and what a director does and
how a set runs and then you need to
| | 03:15 | understand animation, from character
movement, character animation to just
| | 03:20 | how do you bring the essence of how
something moves in the personality, you can
| | 03:23 | bring through that, that really sort
of comes from that character animation
| | 03:28 | world and bring it into the graphic world.
| | 03:30 | So how can you move a piece of type or
a logo in a way that really expresses
| | 03:35 | some idea. So the great thing about the
industry we are working in is that you
| | 03:42 | really are building this broad set of
skills that really do tap into a lot of
| | 03:47 | different techniques and it isn't that
you are just going to become a guy who
| | 03:50 | works in this one little aspect of the
field, but it's really the best in our
| | 03:56 | business really do have a
command of many different techniques.
| | 04:00 | Even if you are not an expert in that
specific technique and you are going to
| | 04:04 | do clay animation or you are going to
shoot live action, you might want to
| | 04:09 | bring in or work with someone,
collaborate with someone who is an expert in
| | 04:15 | that field and that's part of what a
great designer does. They tap in to other
| | 04:23 | people with these skills and bring some
of that knowledge and that skill set to the table.
| | 04:27 | You don't need to be an expert at all
of that, but you do need to understand
| | 04:30 | the language and you do need to be
open minded to these different techniques
| | 04:35 | and really to bring that -- don't just
design towards what your skills are, but
| | 04:42 | design towards what the possibility
in the world is and be open minded and
| | 04:48 | knowledgeable about these different
techniques and bring them to the table.
| | 04:52 | Heather Kim: Dan always says
you need to wear many hats.
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| Balance of technology and design| 00:08 | Rich Feldman: Troika is always pretty
much on the forefront of technology.
| | 00:13 | We try and stay just a little behind
the curve, so that we know that all our
| | 00:17 | systems will operate and the software
will work together. And that really is
| | 00:23 | beneficial to our designers and
animators, to keep them on the forefront of the
| | 00:28 | technology and have the tools
to be able to do their work.
| | 00:32 | How do you balance technology with design?
| | 00:34 | Dale Everett: Technology is your pen
and pencil. And the design part of it is
| | 00:43 | the thinking and the creative energy
and the problem solving and the tools are
| | 00:51 | a foundation for the designers; they
need them to do their work. What we find
| | 00:59 | when we bring in- When we bring in
people we find that there is often two paths
| | 01:04 | that they take and that those paths,
in its simplest way it's a design, people
| | 01:09 | become designers and they become animators.
| | 01:13 | The animators are very much absorbed
in their tools and they use their tools.
| | 01:17 | They kind of become masters of their
tools. They are technicians and they are
| | 01:21 | artists of the tool. The designers are
working at a higher level where they are
| | 01:29 | hopefully a little removed from the
tool and they are problem solving at an
| | 01:35 | intellectual level and at a level of
ideation and thinking about the problem.
| | 01:39 | And then working down to use the tools
to sketch and design and prepare their
| | 01:45 | work to be taken to the animators and
the animators then breath life into it
| | 01:49 | through the tools.
| | 01:50 | Rich Feldman: And for me sometimes my
tools are tape and twine and whatever it
| | 01:56 | takes to get the station fixed and
the designer and animator to be working,
| | 02:02 | because in the fast paced business
that we live in, television, which is brain
| | 02:08 | surgery by the way, people have to
working all the time and 24 hours a day. So,
| | 02:15 | what we strive on is to make sure that
the tools are available at all times and
| | 02:22 | that no one is down for any long
period of time waiting on the technology.
| | 02:27 | Dale Everett: So what kind of tools
are the animators clamoring forth?
| | 02:30 | Rich Feldman: Well, we have basically
full Adobe CS3 Suite, After Effects,
| | 02:37 | Photoshop, Illustrator. We have Maya
on many of the machines, Maya 2008,
| | 02:44 | looking forward to Maya 2009. We have
Cinema 4D. All these the 3D programs that
| | 02:50 | we have, we have a render farm for the
designers to use, the animators to use.
| | 02:57 | We have Office, Keynote, we have all
the good programs. We have everything
| | 03:05 | basically that anybody wants; we have
it here for them. We even bring in a
| | 03:09 | Flame if we need it for the project.
| | 03:12 | Dale Everett: At Troika we have a
fantastic technological foundation and we use
| | 03:19 | that as, again, as a foundation that we
then can build our creative ideas on top of.
| | 03:25 | Everything is available to everyone
whenever they need it. I can look at
| | 03:30 | anyone's files, the animators have all
the up-to-date stuff, designers have the
| | 03:36 | programs they need, but ultimately
it's about the people and it's about the
| | 03:39 | creators and it's about ideas and
that's what elevates the work. The technology
| | 03:45 | is a tool and it's a very important
tool. But beyond that it's the creative,
| | 03:50 | it's the thinking and it's the people
that come together collaboratively that
| | 03:55 | really make our work shine.
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| Designing for television| 00:10 | Reid Thompson: Designing for TV has
many challenges, certainly technologically,
| | 00:15 | but also conceptually. It's not like
print where you design something and
| | 00:21 | that's a finite object that's kind of
finished. We are establishing toolkits
| | 00:26 | and things that are passed off to
internal teams of the networks that --
| | 00:31 | the brands are alive everyday, so they
are using them. Things are changing and
| | 00:36 | that's sort of on the day-to-day
usage of our elements. But then on a
| | 00:40 | conceptual platform, it's really
establishing themes that can grow and change,
| | 00:46 | but all still feel like
they are of one identify.
| | 00:49 | Heather Kim: We meet up with clients
beforehand to make sure to checkout their
| | 00:55 | facilities, see what they have in
terms of like what the systems and software
| | 00:59 | they have and its aspects.
| | 01:01 | Reid Thompson: Yeah, it's s big deal.
If we use an After Effect's plug-in that
| | 01:05 | they don't have, for a corporation to
have to buy that plug-in for all of their
| | 01:10 | After Effects stations can go into
thousands and thousands of dollars. So we
| | 01:16 | have to be very conscious about that
and make sure we are designing to their
| | 01:21 | technical requirements.
| | 01:25 | The technology, I guess, of TV is
always changing so you have to grow and
| | 01:30 | change and learn with it, yet even the design.
| | 01:32 | Heather Kim: Design, like before TiVo
came into the picture ,we were designing
| | 01:37 | things for the lower part of the
screen and now because TiVo is covering the
| | 01:41 | lower part of the screen, some
companies want info to be on top of their
| | 01:46 | screens now.
| | 01:47 | Reid Thompson: On Oxygen, we designed
the lower thirds to come up along the side
| | 01:51 | of the frames. We call them
'TiVo busters.' So it's really just trying to
| | 02:00 | stay ahead of the curve on the
technological challenges and then also thinking
| | 02:07 | about the way people are using TV.
We are not like a commercial where it's
| | 02:12 | like a one 30 seconds spot that's finite.
We are creating all these elements that
| | 02:18 | people see different ways. It might
take 200 viewings before they recognize,
| | 02:28 | maybe even realize that they are viewing it.
| | 02:31 | But that single ABC logo say and the
way it's crafted and the things that
| | 02:37 | happen around it, the impression
that it makes is the brand. It happens
| | 02:43 | hundreds of times across the network
every day. And that it's not one little
| | 02:50 | story; it's happening in little ways,
it's every way that the logo operates.
| | 02:55 | It's always the stuff between the commercials
and the shows; it's like those little elements.
| | 03:00 | If we get ten seconds to do an ID,
that's like a world. It's a long format for us.
| | 03:10 | To be able to convey the spirit of
something in -- I think the ABC seamless is
| | 03:17 | isn't even a second and a half, but
to be able to convey like a corporate
| | 03:23 | personality, a brand personality in
such a short amount of time, that takes a
| | 03:27 | lot of thinking and everything is a
very purposeful and thought-out about each
| | 03:31 | element that's in there.
| | 03:32 | Heather Kim: Which I think comes
across the Style Guide that we make as well.
| | 03:36 | Another big thing is building style
guides for us, which is very -- it can be
| | 03:43 | very laborious, but a style guide is
basically a summarization of the whole
| | 03:49 | project, from the base concept writing
to telling you what the RGB values are
| | 03:56 | in a typeface.
| | 03:57 | So it's like when a person gets it
over at the studio, the internal team gets
| | 04:03 | the style guide. It's a way of
connecting back to what we were thinking when we
| | 04:12 | made the project and they will be able
to take that style guide and use it for
| | 04:16 | specific daily, day-to-day like tasks.
| | 04:20 | Reid Thompson: Yeah, and it's as much
as it's creating stuff for the network
| | 04:23 | itself, I always think about the
audience. When is this person in Kansas
| | 04:28 | going to view this and will this make
them laugh or will this make them think
| | 04:33 | this channel is cool. Or what can we do
to create impressions to the people out there.
| | 04:40 | That idea of pop culture is really
interesting to me. I mean I love -- we are
| | 04:43 | holding ideas and just this idea of
creating something that's out there
| | 04:48 | ephemerally and you don't know how the
impressions are happening. But I think
| | 04:54 | it's fun on a big launch like CW where
we had billboards and on air and web and it's
| | 05:03 | just like a pop culture assault. I love that.
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| Shooting live action for graphics| 00:09 | Reid Thompson: Incorporating live
action into our projects is something that we
| | 00:13 | think about pretty early on. We want
to bring in, obviously, work on
| | 00:18 | computers but we want to have a
human element, a real life element to our
| | 00:23 | identities and to the projects that
we work on. A lot of times on bigger
| | 00:28 | network campaigns that means big
talent shoots where we are shooting network talent.
| | 00:34 | So the range of, sort of, levels of
complexity of the live action shoots
| | 00:41 | really varies depending on the project.
It can count go from being a small
| | 00:46 | shoot that we set up here at the
office and just to grab textures and try to
| | 00:51 | encourage them to get out, get away
from the computer and searching through
| | 00:55 | Getty Images and looking through just
any old stuff that's online and get out and
| | 01:01 | really look with your own eyes and
look through the camera and kind of see
| | 01:07 | something for how it really is.
| | 01:08 | There is a Troika production group
that contracts and expands depending on the
| | 01:13 | size of the jobs. Sometimes we are
shooting green screen and it's more of a
| | 01:19 | visual effect shoot; other times we've
done full spots on location where it's
| | 01:25 | more of an environmental shoot. We
have fun getting together all these
| | 01:31 | textures. Jess and I worked a couple
years ago on this country channel and we
| | 01:36 | worked with Gibson and got the
best guitars and shot their textures.
| | 01:42 | Jess Ferguson: And steel guitars and
they are all just nice and shiny and new
| | 01:46 | and yeah, we turn around with the guitars.
| | 01:47 | Reid Thompson: But that stuff you
could try to build a 3D model of it.
| | 01:51 | But here in Hollywood if we have
the chance to connect with all those
| | 01:55 | industry professionals around and we
can use beautiful elements that exist, if
| | 02:01 | somebody goes to the prop houses and --
| | 02:03 | Jess Ferguson: We also found a great
store with these unique cowboy boots. They
| | 02:08 | were one of a kind designs, great
colors, and so we rented them for the day
| | 02:13 | and we got real close on them and
shot high-res stills to use as textures
| | 02:17 | within the project files.
| | 02:18 | Reid Thompson: Which that-- yeah, that
real image you can't recreate in the
| | 02:22 | computer. It's always, I think, an
important part of the beginning conceptual
| | 02:28 | process to think about how you want to
incorporate the human element. I think,
| | 02:35 | that's kind of at the core of -- It's a
decision you make pretty early on in our
| | 02:40 | budgetary processes. It's can we
afford to shoot and if so what's the scale
| | 02:46 | that's appropriate for this job.
| | 02:48 | Jess Ferguson: I think all those different
kinds of shooting really allows the other
| | 02:52 | members of the Troika to learn about
that because that might not be something
| | 02:57 | they have in their background. So we
encourage all the artists when we have a
| | 03:00 | shoot to take a half a day and go
to the stage and be a part of it.
| | 03:06 | Reid Thompson: And understand the
different roles on a stage and -- for
| | 03:11 | me as a director, it took a long time
to understand I didn't have to run
| | 03:16 | around. Especially as a director with an art eye,
I always was like, I better run over and help
| | 03:21 | out with the art department. And you
learn certainly by experience, but also we
| | 03:26 | learned by teaching ourselves the
roles that we need to play on stage.
| | 03:30 | And mainly there is right now creative
directors who direct and if the job say
| | 03:35 | needs the creative director, if it's
large enough, I'd say, on stars. It was a
| | 03:42 | big enough project that I needed to
be overseeing so many elements that I
| | 03:46 | couldn't focus enough on
directing the live action. So we hired a
| | 03:50 | great guy that we entrusted into that
and I could work hand in hand with and
| | 03:55 | he actually comes from a design
background as well. So it's kind of
| | 03:59 | understanding on each assignment what we need.
| | 04:02 | Jess Ferguson: And we have a great, I
feel, extended family from Troika. So,
| | 04:06 | we hire a lot of times the same line
producer who is just kickass and we have a
| | 04:12 | few art directors that we work with. So
depending on the project we can turn to
| | 04:16 | those people and bring them on board.
| | 04:19 | But really we have this extended
live action production family.
| | 04:23 | Reid Thompson: If it's a green screen
shoot we want to work with somebody we
| | 04:26 | know has been able to light green
screen on a large scale and for the
| | 04:32 | cinematographer, for the director, if
it's a talent shoot we want somebody who
| | 04:35 | is comfortable with celebrities who's
not going kind of freak them out.
| | 04:42 | But there might be another kind of DP that
we want specifically for his look and
| | 04:47 | really for kind of a raw or grittier thing.
| | 04:50 | It's really, each assignment we go
through our roster and of course it's
| | 04:55 | always nice to have people you are
comfortable with and who are inspiring you
| | 04:59 | and you can bounce ideas off of. But
again in LA we are lucky that we have a
| | 05:05 | lot of those resources around us.
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| Bookmarks and bookshelves| 00:09 | Heather Kim: So this is one of the
bookshelves in our design room. Mostly Juon
| | 00:15 | and I share the space, this guy
sitting next to me. But when I first got
| | 00:21 | this bookshelf, I was like, okay.
It has to be elegant and sleek and really
| | 00:25 | tidied up and so I got this minimal
expression of what I thought it could be
| | 00:32 | a cool object. It was a Manzanita
branch and this is the only thing on this
| | 00:37 | bookshelf when I first got it but then
since then it's gotten to this state.
| | 00:42 | So of course we have our Pantone
books and our fans and the colors
| | 00:50 | we pick out and never return to the book
and then we have a lot of font books
| | 00:57 | because we do a lot of logos here and
type explorations, so it's good to have
| | 01:04 | an idea of the typography trends and
things going on out there as well. And then
| | 01:11 | we have photography books because we
do a lot of talent/imagery research and
| | 01:17 | then a lot of just kind of animation reference.
| | 01:22 | Here is the good thing. I was just
talking about Oxygen a while back but in
| | 01:26 | this binder is a collection of all the
stuff that we had up. We actually pull
| | 01:31 | them down but collect them in the
binder because we don't want to throw away
| | 01:35 | stuff because or when we have new
client pitches, we are always referring back
| | 01:40 | to previous pitches that we have. So
we would like to keep them on hand just
| | 01:45 | in case somebody needs to reference back to it.
| | 01:49 | This is my Painter box, I love it.
It's just so cool to have software
| | 01:55 | come in this kind of form. It's been
this way forever I had the Painter program.
| | 02:00 | And then we have toys for our dogs.
We have dogs hanging around here all the
| | 02:07 | time and masking tape for shoots.
Basically that's it, so it's just very messy.
| | 02:13 | Reid Thompson: Establishing brand
identities have a lot of -- you need a lot of
| | 02:18 | different types of inspiration. My
office seems to just fill up with all sorts
| | 02:23 | of different books and objects
through the years especially because each of
| | 02:28 | the identities needs to be unique and
so one time I might be thinking about
| | 02:32 | what young women want to buy
shopping but other times I might be getting
| | 02:36 | into baseball or basketball and
figuring out what's at the soul of an athlete.
| | 02:42 | So my bookshelf tends to fill up with a
lot of different types of -- different
| | 02:48 | types of books and themes and posters
and magazines but at the whole of it,
| | 02:53 | I love sort of the foundations of
graphic design, Paul Rand, and looking at sort
| | 02:59 | of great typography and logo design.
My house at home is filled with even more.
| | 03:04 | And then this area I have kind of built
just as my day-to-day inspiration, some
| | 03:10 | great typography, poster art.
I like these guys that have been kind of
| | 03:14 | printing on old maps. Anything I kind
of find and I want to have up around and
| | 03:21 | see every one -- see every day just to inspire me.
| | 03:28 | There is some writing from Francis Ford
Coppola about film making, it's just --
| | 03:32 | I might not catch it every day but
some day when I am talking on the phone,
| | 03:35 | it might remind me of something I need
to learn or want to go in deeper to.
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| Interview with Lynda| 00:09 | Lynda Weinman: Hi, I am Lynda Weinman,
one of the co-founders of lynda.com, and
| | 00:13 | I am here today with Dan Pappalardo,
Executive Creative Director and Partner
| | 00:17 | at Troika. So thank you for agreeing
to be part of the Creative Inspiration
| | 00:21 | series and part of this interview.
It's great to get to meet you. How did you
| | 00:25 | get the idea for Troika?
| | 00:26 | Dan Pappalardo: Three of us got
together. Three guys have worked together at
| | 00:31 | Pittard Sullivan at the time and
Pittard Sullivan was about to close its
| | 00:37 | stores. Actually, it was at the end of
the 1990s, it was 2001, and it was during that
| | 00:44 | whole change of the industry.
| | 00:46 | Lynda Weinman: Dot com crash and all that.
| | 00:48 | Dan Pappalardo: Yeah, pretty much.
Yeah, an opportunities for all of us to
| | 00:52 | continue to work together
under a different building basically.
| | 00:57 | Lynda Weinman: What is your role like
today as Executive Creative Director?
| | 01:02 | Tell me about what you do.
| | 01:04 | Dan Pappalardo: Yeah. My dream for
this company was really to create a studio
| | 01:09 | environment, one where it was a very
collaborative effort, where the passion for
| | 01:19 | what we do is really high. The trust
in one another is really great. The egos
| | 01:28 | among the group are very low, and
really that was the idea for this place
| | 01:34 | was to create environment, to work on
the types of project that we love to work on,
| | 01:38 | but to do it as a really a collaborative
effort and because of that, I think
| | 01:49 | it's what's made the company unique.
| | 01:51 | I think because of this collaboration
of this sort of very experienced group of
| | 01:57 | people, we've attracted a certain type
of work. A work that really -- clients
| | 02:04 | who're looking for a company that
can help them solve bigger problems and
| | 02:10 | tackle assignments that might seem
daunting to some people. To us, those are
| | 02:18 | the best projects for us.
| | 02:19 | Lynda Weinman: So what is your
standing in the industry? I mean can you
| | 02:22 | describe a little bit about the
successes of the company in the tenure of the
| | 02:28 | what, seven years that you've been in business?
| | 02:30 | Dan Pappalardo: We've focused on a
segment of the industry from day one and
| | 02:35 | that's the network branding, network
identities. Most of our clients are
| | 02:41 | networks and often the marketing,
the senior marketing executive within the
| | 02:47 | network. When it comes to network
branding, we are one of the top tier
| | 02:52 | companies, if not in the US.
| | 02:55 | Lynda Weinman: Have you seen any
major changes over the last seven years in
| | 02:59 | terms of either tools, technology, what
your clients are expecting every of you?
| | 03:03 | Dan Pappalardo: I think the market has
gotten more complicated for our clients.
| | 03:09 | The market is tougher from a
competitive standpoint, but it's the technology
| | 03:17 | and media has exploded in a way that in
the past they were a television channel,
| | 03:23 | now it's this whole cross platform.
They are downloading on their website, but
| | 03:29 | it's also iTunes and mobile, and all
of these various aspects of the network
| | 03:37 | has spread in a way that's made it complicated.
| | 03:42 | And network identity packages used to
be in a design assignment. Now they
| | 03:49 | really are a problem solving assignment.
It really is one where you're helping the
| | 03:54 | client understand the landscape,
understand the opportunities, and really
| | 03:58 | trying to help them figure out how
to pull this altogether, all of these
| | 04:04 | different entities of what they are.
House it under sort of a brand umbrella
| | 04:10 | that people can understand and
relate to and sort of have some kind of
| | 04:14 | emotional connection to. But also,
the shows and the talent on their shows is
| | 04:21 | critical, that's the product.
| | 04:23 | Lynda Weinman: How do you market
yourselves? What are the marketing techniques
| | 04:27 | that a broadcast design company
utilizes to get the word out about
| | 04:31 | yourselves, and is there just a
really small group of clients that you work
| | 04:35 | with over and over again or are you
expanding your breadth of clients?
| | 04:39 | Dan Pappalardo: We love developing
relationships with clients that they trust us,
| | 04:46 | we trust them. We understand one
another's needs and so you work at a very
| | 04:50 | different level. You really work at
a great problem solving level at that
| | 04:53 | point, when you are at that phase.
But, in our industry, people are always
| | 04:59 | migrating from one company to another.
There is a lot of evolution, companies
| | 05:02 | change and evolve.
| | 05:04 | So it's important to continue to
develop our clientele. So we are always
| | 05:11 | adding new clients to the list, and
then someone over here might go away and
| | 05:15 | that client might fall off our radar
for a few years and then it might fall in.
| | 05:18 | Lynda Weinman: Well, how big is your staff?
| | 05:20 | Dan Pappalardo: We're in the 25 people range.
Pretty much we've been that way for the
| | 05:25 | last year or two, and that's staff.
And with freelance, freelance is
| | 05:32 | probably 15 people here a day and if
we're in production doing some shooting, that
| | 05:40 | can be another 20 people here. So I
guess on any given day 35 people, 40 and
| | 05:46 | then it can get up to
55 people when we're humming.
| | 05:49 | Lynda Weinman: What do you look for
when you hire people in terms of a
| | 05:53 | portfolio or a college degree or a
background? Is there any one certain thing
| | 05:59 | that you are looking for or can you
talk a little bit about that? I think there
| | 06:02 | are so many people who want to break
into this industry and they wonder what
| | 06:05 | kind of skills that they would need or
what kind of portfolio they would want
| | 06:09 | to put together to interest someone like you.
| | 06:11 | Dan Pappalardo: From a creative
standpoint, say a designer, I am looking for
| | 06:19 | fundamental design skills. I want
to know that they understand and love
| | 06:26 | typography, that they have a really
great sense of color, that they understand
| | 06:35 | layout, balance, contrast, kind of
like the fundamentals, and that they are
| | 06:42 | really great conceptually.
| | 06:44 | That they understand all we are
trying to do is convey a message in an
| | 06:50 | interesting and compelling way. We
articulate that, we know what that message is,
| | 06:54 | whether the client either gives
it to us or we work with the client to
| | 06:57 | articulate that message. But then the
designer plays a role in sort of taking
| | 07:03 | that message and turning it to
something compelling, some interesting idea.
| | 07:07 | Lynda Weinman: What about experience?
Are you ever willing to work with people
| | 07:11 | who are breaking into the industry
or do you always look to work with
| | 07:15 | super-experienced people?
| | 07:16 | Dan Pappalardo: I am going to talk
about it as an ecosystem here. You want a
| | 07:21 | group of people at every level in a
company, and yeah. So to me, it doesn't
| | 07:27 | really matter. I have expectations for
each level that somebody is at, and
| | 07:33 | when they are out of school, what
are the kinds of -- there are different
| | 07:36 | skills that you're looking for at that
level than somebody that has been in the
| | 07:39 | industry for three years
or five years or ten years.
| | 07:42 | Lynda Weinman: Can you talk a little
bit about presentation skills and how you
| | 07:45 | present concepts both internally and externally?
| | 07:49 | Dan Pappalardo: Well, I love that
part of it and to me, that's strategy.
| | 07:52 | Because it's always different. I
always love getting to that point where we
| | 07:58 | have our ideas and then we are trying
to figure out how we convince the client
| | 08:05 | that we know they are great ideas,
right? It's like we are at that point,
| | 08:08 | we are like, God, that's great. So it's
like, okay, how do we sell the client on this?
| | 08:12 | Sometimes it's board, sometimes there
is writing involved, sometimes there is
| | 08:17 | animatics we are creating, sometimes
they are mood-boards. So there's many,
| | 08:22 | many different formats, but it
takes us sitting back scratching our heads
| | 08:27 | and going, 'this is what we are trying
to say, how can we do that in a really
| | 08:31 | compelling, quick, quick and compelling way.'
| | 08:34 | Lynda Weinman: All right. So I just
sense the passion that you have for solving
| | 08:39 | problems. To me, that's at the core
of what I would take away from this
| | 08:42 | conversation. That that's really what
get you going, is these are all different
| | 08:48 | problems to solve and
that's a fun position to be in.
| | 08:51 | Dan Pappalardo: Yeah. I mean I always
say if we kind of know the answer to an
| | 08:56 | assignment, it's kind of like, don't
bring it to me. Like, I don't really --
| | 09:02 | that's not what I do and it's
not really what this company does.
| | 09:07 | There is a lot of other
companies that can do that.
| | 09:09 | We are best with the kind of an
assignment that we can sink our teeth into,
| | 09:15 | that at the end of the day, a client
goes, oh! My God, thank you. You know, that
| | 09:19 | sounds so easy. It seems so right
and we have no idea. I mean that's
| | 09:23 | definitely more interesting for us.
| | 09:25 | Lynda Weinman: Well, congratulations
for all your success and thank you so much
| | 09:28 | for sharing your studio with us and
taking the time out of your busy schedule
| | 09:32 | to have this interview.
| | 09:33 | Dan Pappalardo: My pleasure.
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