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February 19, 2025 • 15 mins

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Discover the incredible journey of David Campiti, the mastermind behind Glass House Studios and Glass House Graphics, as he shares his inspiring story from Wheeling, West Virginia to becoming a leader in the animation and print industry in Orlando. Tune in to hear about his fascinating career path, from his beginnings in radio and as a copy chief at LG Balfour, to his pivotal role at Innovation Publishing where he worked alongside literary legends such as Anne Rice and Stephen King. David's unique experiences and sheer talent offer a glimpse into the creative processes that catapulted his companies to success, crafting stunning visual content for industry giants like Disney, DreamWorks, Hulu, and Netflix.

Join us for an illuminating conversation with David, where he provides a behind-the-scenes look at his studios' impressive portfolio that spans from cyberpunk commercials to complex visual effects for feature films and TV shows. We'll explore the breadth of services offered by Glass House Graphics, ranging from corporate logos to children's books, and how they seamlessly cater to a global clientele. Whether you're a budding creative or an industry veteran, this episode brims with inspiration and insights on shaping captivating visual narratives that leave a lasting impact. Get ready to be inspired by the creative force that is David Campiti!

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back everybody to the podcast, where
we uncover the stories behindthriving businesses and bring
you expert insights straightfrom the source.
I'm so excited we got a greatshow for you today.
I am actually having thepleasure of speaking with David.
He's the founder of Glass HouseStudios.

(00:21):
How are you doing, david, thismorning?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Doing well.
Thanks for bringing me in aspart of this.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
You're very, very welcome.
So for our listeners, this showis all about behind the scenes
experiences to gain valuableadvice.
This podcast is your go-toresource for learning about the
businesses that shape ourcommunities and discovering how
to make the most of theirservices.
If you enjoy this content andyou want to hear more, please

(00:48):
like, subscribe or even give usa comment.
Let us know how we're doing onour end as well.
So, with that being said, we'regoing to jump right in and talk
to David and get to know alittle bit about his background.
I'm telling you, guys, we havea great show here, so please
stay tuned.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Hi there, I am David Campetti.
I own two related businesseshere in the Orlando area
Glasshouse Studios, which is ananimation company, and
Glasshouse Graphics, thathandles everything for print.
You wanted some background, soI started out in Wheeling, west

(01:25):
Virginia.
You wanted some background so,uh, uh, I started out in uh,
wheeling, west Virginia, of allplaces.
Um, I had worked, uh in radio.
I then moved to Massachusettswhere I was uh a copy chief of
LG Balfour company where theydid class rings and Superbowl
rings and stuff like that.
Uh wrote every word that cameout of that company for four

(01:46):
years, worked for the United Wayfor a while and then I got into
publishing Ran innovationpublishing for five years where
I worked with some best-sellingauthors Anne Rice, stephen King,
larry Niven, jerry Purnell,folks like that Then went on to

(02:10):
start Glasshouse Graphics, whereI've been packaging artwork,
corporate logos, any kind ofdesign print publishing work for
over 30 years, and about midwayinto that I started Glasshouse
Studios, an animation studio.
So we've done bits and piecesof things like Horton Hears, a

(02:35):
who and Ice Age 4 and Gnomeo andJuliet and a few other big
animations.
Plus we have packaged fullanimated features for Hulu and
for Netflix, and so a lot ofpeople don't even realize we're
here doing work for Disney andDreamWorks and Simon and

(02:57):
Schuster and all these other bigcompanies, right under
everybody's noses.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Well, I was looking at your website, ghsanimationcom
, and I was looking at some ofyour work, David.
It's wow in terms of quality.
It's awesome.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Thank you.
Thank you.
If anybody goes to that website, ghsanimationcom, the first
thing they will see is we startan automatic video roll so it
shows six or seven differentanimation styles we've done.
There's like a cyberpunkanimation style, which was a
Nescafe commercial that we didfor the international market,

(03:40):
and there's just examples of CGand hand-drawn animation for six
or seven other things thatwe've done both domestically and
internationally.
If you go further into thewebsite you'll see that we do
live-action visual effects.
You know we've worked on TVshows and uh and feature films,

(04:05):
doing uh, uh digital effects,whether it's someone driving in
a car or explosions or any of avariety of other things.
We show all kinds of examplesof that uh.
Plus, we do uh, all sorts ofrelated graphics.
So if somebody does uh, uhlicensed uh work for go bugs or

(04:26):
Scooby-Doo or anything like that, we can do that work for
children's books or comic booksor the actual animation, if that
division is needed.
If you go to ourglasshousegraphicscom website,

(05:00):
which is exclusively our printend, you'll see we've done
everything from comic books,children's books, coloring books
, corporate design.
So people need logos for theirlocal or even national or
international businesses.
We'll create those.
We'll do all the work that'sneeded for business cards and
stationery.
All that small stuff, but wealso do the big stuff, including
website design and so forth.

(05:22):
So quite a bit of that.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
I must.
Yes, I got to say you have somuch to offer and it's.
Can you provide our listeners astory?
Tell us some story that youwould like to share with our
listeners.
That's that.
Aha, wow, this is.
You know, your clients werehappy.
Anything that comes to mind offthe top of your head, oh, wow,

(05:48):
um, and I know you have a lot ofthem, but just one in
particular it's what's.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
What's nice is uh, I don't have to advertise.
Most of our work is from word ofmouth for example, we work for
um DreamWorks, the publishingdivision, for years and I was
trying to get publishing workwith Simon Schuster, you know

(06:14):
one of the big book publishers,because they have several
divisions that do comics,graphic novels, that sort of
thing and I really couldn't geta word in edgewise, so to speak,
with them, although we'd workedwith some of their competitors
Random House and so on.
And I get this call out of theblue from the art director of
Simon Schuster oh, we have a bigproblem we need to solve and I

(06:39):
was talking with the artdirector over at DreamWorks and
they recommended you guys.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
And that ended up with Simon Schuster becoming our
biggest print client for years.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Well, congratulations , and you know you can tell
there's passion in the wayyou've expressed that story
right and it's something thatyou will always reflect back on.
Am I right In terms of how thatwhole process went?

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Let me do a little bit of show and tell here
absolutely yeah.
so the reason they came to uswas they had kids books like
this is a a group of uh, what is?
Four graphic novels here forgoddess girls and uh, another
kids project here, um, uh,heroes in training there we

(07:30):
Heroes in Training, which isalso for graphic novels.
And what would happen is SimonSchuster said we have a problem
that we can't solve.
Our publishing schedule ispretty aggressive.
We want to do like six graphicnovels a year, each one of them
160 pages, and doing basically athousand pages of artwork in a

(07:53):
year is impossible for one ortwo or three artists working in
a consistent style across allthese books.
Well, there's no way this canbe done.
But DreamWorks said you coulddo it.
So of course we can, because wewe know how to make a bunch of
artists work in the same style,because we work with the

(08:14):
animation.
So we we'd set up a team forthese things and could do
thousands of pages for SimonSchuster, we did 8,000 pages of
artwork for them last year.
Wow and uh, goddess Girls andHeroes in Training are two that
are near and dear to my heart,because the art director said

(08:36):
wait a minute, don't I know yourname from writing a book called
Hero Alliance.
I used to read that years ago.
Wow yeah, you know, I wroteHero Alliance.
I wrote Superman Stories for DCComics.
I did all this other writingacross the decades.
Oh, would you be able to writethese books for us?

(08:58):
Sure, so you know, at my age Ibecame a children's graphic
novel writer, so that was prettycool, and so we did the writing
, the art, the lettering, thecoloring, everything for it.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
I like that a lot.
You know, looking back, what'sa major lesson that you learned
from that?
You, if you had to start overthat, you could share with our
listeners Anything come to mindthat you could share with our
listeners.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Anything come to mind .
Yeah, despite how great anopportunity seems, don't sink a
ton of money into it.
The case in point a few yearsago, we had the opportunity to
meet Boxer Floyd Mayweather, andhe loved the idea of creating a
sanitized version of his lifeas an animated film for kids.

(09:53):
Well, that's pretty cool.
And we met with him and he toldus what he'd like to see.
And we went back and spent aton of time and money developing
a story outline storyboards,Developing a story outline

(10:13):
storyboards, just all kinds ofstuff for them, including an
entire marketing plan, All thesethings what's the perfect kid's
drink from Floyd Mayweather,Mayweather Punch, Coming up with
things like that, All sorts ofproduct examples.
And then we took it one stepfurther and even did an upscale
adult version for him, creatinga fancy logo like you'd see on

(10:38):
Prada or Louis Vuitton orwhatever, and created all these
upscale things for bespokensuits with the logo and the
lining, and shoes and belts anda smart watch and all that.
So a ton of time and effortinto this.
And it was like, oh, you're myguys, You're my guys, we're
doing this movie, all thishandshaking and so forth.

(11:01):
And then, you know, I guess fiveminutes after we were out of
the room, he was distracted bysomething shiny and it never
happened.
So months of work and hopesbuilt up that just never
occurred.
But there are enough goodthings that do happen that you
know.
Something like that doesn'tkill us, but you know it is a

(11:24):
disappointment.
And were I to do it over again.
I wouldn't have gone to thoselengths.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
No, it makes a lot of sense.
And that kind of leads me intoasking you, you know as a
business owner, can you givesome advice to our listeners of
what to look for?
You know in business.
Some of the things you'velearned, maybe a couple things
to take away.
Some of the things you'velearned, maybe a couple things
to take away.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
My biggest thing is and I find this on the end of
working with the artists, so Ihave to make sure that I don't
do this outgoing to our clientsNever over promise, because
you'll always end up underdelivering.

(12:09):
Be the opposite under promiseand over deliver, as I tell the
artists that we work with.
If a client wants a book in 30days and you know you can do it
in 30 days or faster, don't tellthem you can do it faster.
If you deliver in 30 days,you're on the money.

(12:31):
You deliver two days ahead oftime.
You're a hero.
You're a day or two late.
You're that lying son of a gunthat can't be professional about
it.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
That's great advice.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
We always need to make sure that we can do more or
better than we say we will.
And the word of mouth is enoughto show everybody we deserve
and can get the job.
And then, once people areworking with us, it turns out
even better than they thought.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Wow, that's inspiring advice.
And again, I appreciate and Iknow you've said so much here in
terms of what you do with yourbusiness, how you're helping
your customers.
You know, go through that wholeprocess of getting that final
product, you know out the door,and kudos to you for that and
having that vision.

(13:27):
As we wrap up here, can youprovide a phone number as well
as maybe a website?
I think we did earlier in theepisode.
If you can just go ahead andsay that again, how people can
get a hold of you, go ahead andand say that again how people
can get a hold of you I?

Speaker 2 (13:41):
I did want to say that.
Yes, part of what we do,because we deal with print
clients and so forth.
We handle coordinating printingout of china and so forth and
other products which you seebehind me this, this comic rack
we make those too.
We discovered a whole group ofcollectors, comic shop owners,

(14:10):
just folks like that that reallywanted this old-fashioned comic
rack.
So we manufacture those andmake them available so we can do
all kinds of graphic servicesbeyond just print and animation.
We can be reached.
My name, as I said, is DavidCampetti.
We're located in Claremont.

(14:32):
My phone number is 304-551-1283.
That's my cell, the easiest wayto reach me, and our websites
are wwwglasshousegraphicscom andthe animation website is

(14:54):
ghsanimationcom.
I also have a blog for anybodyinterested in creating comics or
working in that kind of comicor animation business.
My blog is simplydavidcampetticom.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
Well, David, it's been such a pleasure, you know,
getting to know you.
You know, I know we spoke alittle bit before we went on
this podcast and it's just beena pleasure to talk to you and
for you to share yourinformation, what you do with
your business, to our listeners,and hopefully we can have you
back again in the near future aswell.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Oh, I'd love it.
Happy to help.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Thank you for tuning in to first media consulting
podcast.
If you enjoyed the podcast,subscribe today to To nominate a
business you would like torecommend to be on our show.
Go to firstmediaconsultingcomor call.
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