October 9, 2023 • 10 mins
Ever felt lost, confused, or simply overwhelmed in the fast-paced creative industry? How about moments when you've doubted your own skills and talents? You're not alone. This episode of "Seize the Play!" paints a vivid picture of the raw, unfiltered journey of working artists, filled with both joy and hardship. Our guiding light is the captivating story of Ed Rhine, the owner of the studio SPILLT whose unwavering passion for animation was the inspiration for this podcast.
SEIZE THE PLAY! is more than just a podcast – it's a playground designed to inspire, educate, and engage with the creative community. Let's come together and navigate the complexities of this industry, one episode at a time. So let's start up this journey together – because it's time to seize the play!
Join the creative conversation on all things animation and motion design:
- Send us a message and be a part of the show
- Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
- Email us at play@spillt.com
Check out our studio website for Spillt's latest and greatest work!
Until the next time, SEIZE THE PLAY!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ryan Summers (00:03):
Have you ever noticed that a lot of great
stories end with an apology?
Now this story.
It starts with an apology, butbefore I start spilling the tea
on who actually had to say I'msorry, I'd like to tell you a
(00:25):
little bit about why we're hereNow.
All of those people, plussenior editor Alex Miller,
senior creative director BrianEl ow, executive producer Kate
Swift and owner Ed Rhine, theseare the voices you'll be hearing
(00:46):
from on Seize the Play.
This podcast is our story, thestory of a little studio in
Denver called Spilt.
I started here at Spilt almostexactly a year ago and I came
here for a very special reason.
Spilt is different.
(01:07):
We're headquartered in Denver,but we work from just about
everywhere and we come togetherevery day on slacks and zooms
and through emails and phonecalls and text messages to try
to make some cool stuff Stufflike title sequences, promos,
bumpers, network IDs, videos allthe stuff that probably most of
you out there listening youprobably make too.
(01:28):
We try to sell little thingsand explain some really big
things, and we come from alldifferent backgrounds.
Some of us are key slingers,curve operators, pencil pushers,
light benders, and we conductall this creative energy in a
really unique way.
Some studios build thereputation around a specific
look or sometimes specificworkflows or tools, but we
(01:51):
decided Spilt to build aroundone simple thing Trying to have
as much fun as possible.
Now my name is Ryan Summers andI'm the creative director here
at Spillt, and this voice mightsound a little bit familiar to
you if you ever listened to theSchool of Motion podcast.
I spent a couple years thereand I got to talk all about
(02:12):
animation and motion design, howall those different things
connect together through our dayto day jobs.
I was so lucky because that gotintroduced to a lot of
different artists.
One of them was Glenn Keane,arguably the best living
animator.
You might be familiar with someof his work Ariel the Beast it
truly is a beauty and the beast.
(02:34):
And Tarzan Tarzan.
If you've ever seen any ofthose old 2D animated films from
Disney, glenn probably did oneof the lead characters.
Now, what amazed me the mostabout talking with Glenn was the
absolute joy and nonstop energyhe had to pushing himself
further and finding more peopleto collaborate with.
That joy was infectious.
(02:55):
As an animator, as a director,going from 2D animation to 3D
animation, he still had thatdrive to find out what's next
for him in his career, that ideathat someone that has been the
best in the game for so long,they could still find joy in the
day to day and at the future ofhis industry.
It struck me as somethingthat's almost missing from many
(03:19):
of us here, and I want to findout why.
Now that word careers that'ssomething that's been on my mind
a lot lately.
The definition of being aworking artist seems to be ever
changing.
We get so busy telling otherpeople's stories that I think we
(03:39):
often forget right around there.
I'm talking about stories.
Let me tell you a little bit ofpart of my story that's let me
hear right now talking to youNow.
Camp MoGraph just ended.
It's a wonderfully awesomeevent that gets put on every
year where a couple of hundreddifferent artists take a break
from their screens and theirclients and their work and they
all rock it up to a campsomewhere and they just hang out
(04:02):
.
It's amazing that if you'venever been there you've got to
go.
But let's go really far back,way back to the very first night
of the very first camp.
I was actually really lucky tobe the first person ever invited
to talk in front of everyone onthe first night of the camp's
inaugural fireside chat and Iwas super excited, but I was
also probably just as nervous.
(04:23):
What was I going to do?
Just talk about myself thewhole time?
Instead, I decided to dosomething a little bit different
.
I decided to ask three simplequestions.
First, I asked them if theywere where they thought they
were going to be when theyinitially got started in the
industry.
There could be a big gulfbetween what your expectations
(04:46):
are when you start off in anindustry like this and where the
day-to-day grind of just livingas a working artist can take
you.
It can lead to a lot ofconfusion and disappointment.
That leads to the secondquestion I asked everybody there
Do you feel imposter syndrome?
That was the question thateveryone raised their hands on.
(05:06):
It's not surprising.
This industry is pretty chaotic.
It can change at a moment.
The tools you use today may notbe the tools you're supposed to
use tomorrow.
We're always chasing trends.
Imposter syndrome made sense,but being able to see that
everyone there, for the mostpart, has felt imposter syndrome
, it made me really realize thatwe need to be talking more
(05:28):
about how we do our work, why wedo our work, and sharing those
stories, because there's a lotthat just gets stuck behind the
keyboards and you never hear theday-to-day from everybody out
there.
Now that last question that Iasked leads to today sitting
here talking to you.
It's actually driven the titleof this entire podcast.
I asked everybody there Justvery simply are you all having
(05:51):
fun?
Now, think about that.
That's kind of a silly questionto ask.
Not every single day is goingto be fun.
This job is still a job, butwhen we all started, didn't we
think that there was going to bea little bit more fun waking up
and making art and animatingand designing and being around a
bunch of other people that dothat?
Now it's an amazing possibility, but it's also frightening when
(06:14):
that doesn't always happen.
The industry is constantlychanging in terms of who wants
our services and how we valuethem.
How we do our business iscompletely different whether
you're a freelancer or you're astudio.
The world's changing underneathour feet.
It's kind of hard to just havefun.
Now this podcast.
It starts with a story about anapology that I actually had to
(06:36):
make.
I mentioned earlier that we havea bunch of different artists
working at Spilton.
One of them the last name Imentioned Ed Rhine, our owner.
He's different month aftermonth after month.
I try to find different ways toget the answer of what's your
dream job from Ed.
Is it a title sequence?
Is it working with a cool brand?
Do you love niking?
Do you want to work with adirector?
(06:56):
What is it?
Do you want to make a cartoon?
Do you want to sell a show?
Do you want to create toys?
Because the weird thing iseverywhere else I've ever worked
, the owner is someone that allthe other employees serve.
But I think I asked the questionenough times of Ed that he said
one thing.
When I asked him hey, ed,you've got to tell me this time,
(07:17):
if you had no deadlines, nonotes, no budget restrictions
what's your dream job, hisresponse actually shocked me.
Rather than having one job orone client, what he really
wanted was to create somethingfor us.
I actually went back and foundthe meeting where he told me
this and he started to explainthat in his head.
(07:39):
This is how he sees it there'sthis giant sandbox of creative
choice, like surrounded by doors, and we're allowing people to
come in, kind of thing, you knowas we call it, like it's a
playground.
It's all about like learning,expansion, growth, knowledge
those kinds of things.
We're allowing you not tobecome a child again, but to hop
into the creative playgroundand and join us for the journey
(08:01):
that we're going on together.
Now, that created a lot of pausefor me.
I actually didn't even knowwhat to do with it at first.
It almost sounded silly, butthat's the magic really behind
it.
When you're given a playgroundto try out different things
without worrying about if it's amistake or not, when you're
(08:21):
creating, when you're problemsolving, when you're staring at
that blank page.
That's the difference betweenwork feeling like work and work
starting to feel a little bitmore like fun.
There's a reason why we'vecalled this podcast Seize the
Play this job.
It could be hard every dayshowing up and filling that
blank page, but as long asthere's a promise that one day,
(08:44):
one job, one client, one moment,one phone call, that you might
make yourself laugh, that yourwork might mean something more
to people than just a commercial, that you might actually go to
bed so excited that you can'twake up to start again and
continue it, that promise to me,that's what I want to spend
every single day chasing.
So that's the podcast that seesthe play.
(09:08):
We're going to be giving younews and views straight from
inside the walls of spilt slacksand zooms and meetings and
phone calls.
We want to hear you in thoseconversations as well.
So what do you think?
What have you found?
What scares you?
What's keeping you from thatfun?
If you want to find the fun andget your work done, I really
ask you to join us as part ofthe creative conversation on all
(09:30):
things animation and motiondesign.
And don't forget, until thenext time we talk, get out there
and seize the play.
Seize the Play is a spiltstudio podcast.
If you have an idea of someoneyou'd like us to talk to or a
topic you'd like to hear moreabout, drop us a line at play at
spiltcom that's S-P-I-L-L-Tcom,and if you like what you hear,
(09:55):
subscribe.
Have you ever noticed that a lot of great
stories end with an apology?
Now this story.
It starts with an apology, butbefore I start spilling the tea
on who actually had to say I'msorry, I'd like to tell you a
(00:25):
little bit about why we're hereNow.
All of those people, plussenior editor Alex Miller,
senior creative director BrianEl ow, executive producer Kate
Swift and owner Ed Rhine, theseare the voices you'll be hearing
(00:46):
from on Seize the Play.
This podcast is our story, thestory of a little studio in
Denver called Spilt.
I started here at Spilt almostexactly a year ago and I came
here for a very special reason.
Spilt is different.
(01:07):
We're headquartered in Denver,but we work from just about
everywhere and we come togetherevery day on slacks and zooms
and through emails and phonecalls and text messages to try
to make some cool stuff Stufflike title sequences, promos,
bumpers, network IDs, videos allthe stuff that probably most of
you out there listening youprobably make too.
(01:28):
We try to sell little thingsand explain some really big
things, and we come from alldifferent backgrounds.
Some of us are key slingers,curve operators, pencil pushers,
light benders, and we conductall this creative energy in a
really unique way.
Some studios build thereputation around a specific
look or sometimes specificworkflows or tools, but we
(01:51):
decided Spilt to build aroundone simple thing Trying to have
as much fun as possible.
Now my name is Ryan Summers andI'm the creative director here
at Spillt, and this voice mightsound a little bit familiar to
you if you ever listened to theSchool of Motion podcast.
I spent a couple years thereand I got to talk all about
(02:12):
animation and motion design, howall those different things
connect together through our dayto day jobs.
I was so lucky because that gotintroduced to a lot of
different artists.
One of them was Glenn Keane,arguably the best living
animator.
You might be familiar with someof his work Ariel the Beast it
truly is a beauty and the beast.
(02:34):
And Tarzan Tarzan.
If you've ever seen any ofthose old 2D animated films from
Disney, glenn probably did oneof the lead characters.
Now, what amazed me the mostabout talking with Glenn was the
absolute joy and nonstop energyhe had to pushing himself
further and finding more peopleto collaborate with.
That joy was infectious.
(02:55):
As an animator, as a director,going from 2D animation to 3D
animation, he still had thatdrive to find out what's next
for him in his career, that ideathat someone that has been the
best in the game for so long,they could still find joy in the
day to day and at the future ofhis industry.
It struck me as somethingthat's almost missing from many
(03:19):
of us here, and I want to findout why.
Now that word careers that'ssomething that's been on my mind
a lot lately.
The definition of being aworking artist seems to be ever
changing.
We get so busy telling otherpeople's stories that I think we
(03:39):
often forget right around there.
I'm talking about stories.
Let me tell you a little bit ofpart of my story that's let me
hear right now talking to youNow.
Camp MoGraph just ended.
It's a wonderfully awesomeevent that gets put on every
year where a couple of hundreddifferent artists take a break
from their screens and theirclients and their work and they
all rock it up to a campsomewhere and they just hang out
(04:02):
.
It's amazing that if you'venever been there you've got to
go.
But let's go really far back,way back to the very first night
of the very first camp.
I was actually really lucky tobe the first person ever invited
to talk in front of everyone onthe first night of the camp's
inaugural fireside chat and Iwas super excited, but I was
also probably just as nervous.
(04:23):
What was I going to do?
Just talk about myself thewhole time?
Instead, I decided to dosomething a little bit different
.
I decided to ask three simplequestions.
First, I asked them if theywere where they thought they
were going to be when theyinitially got started in the
industry.
There could be a big gulfbetween what your expectations
(04:46):
are when you start off in anindustry like this and where the
day-to-day grind of just livingas a working artist can take
you.
It can lead to a lot ofconfusion and disappointment.
That leads to the secondquestion I asked everybody there
Do you feel imposter syndrome?
That was the question thateveryone raised their hands on.
(05:06):
It's not surprising.
This industry is pretty chaotic.
It can change at a moment.
The tools you use today may notbe the tools you're supposed to
use tomorrow.
We're always chasing trends.
Imposter syndrome made sense,but being able to see that
everyone there, for the mostpart, has felt imposter syndrome
, it made me really realize thatwe need to be talking more
(05:28):
about how we do our work, why wedo our work, and sharing those
stories, because there's a lotthat just gets stuck behind the
keyboards and you never hear theday-to-day from everybody out
there.
Now that last question that Iasked leads to today sitting
here talking to you.
It's actually driven the titleof this entire podcast.
I asked everybody there Justvery simply are you all having
(05:51):
fun?
Now, think about that.
That's kind of a silly questionto ask.
Not every single day is goingto be fun.
This job is still a job, butwhen we all started, didn't we
think that there was going to bea little bit more fun waking up
and making art and animatingand designing and being around a
bunch of other people that dothat?
Now it's an amazing possibility, but it's also frightening when
(06:14):
that doesn't always happen.
The industry is constantlychanging in terms of who wants
our services and how we valuethem.
How we do our business iscompletely different whether
you're a freelancer or you're astudio.
The world's changing underneathour feet.
It's kind of hard to just havefun.
Now this podcast.
It starts with a story about anapology that I actually had to
(06:36):
make.
I mentioned earlier that we havea bunch of different artists
working at Spilton.
One of them the last name Imentioned Ed Rhine, our owner.
He's different month aftermonth after month.
I try to find different ways toget the answer of what's your
dream job from Ed.
Is it a title sequence?
Is it working with a cool brand?
Do you love niking?
Do you want to work with adirector?
(06:56):
What is it?
Do you want to make a cartoon?
Do you want to sell a show?
Do you want to create toys?
Because the weird thing iseverywhere else I've ever worked
, the owner is someone that allthe other employees serve.
But I think I asked the questionenough times of Ed that he said
one thing.
When I asked him hey, ed,you've got to tell me this time,
(07:17):
if you had no deadlines, nonotes, no budget restrictions
what's your dream job, hisresponse actually shocked me.
Rather than having one job orone client, what he really
wanted was to create somethingfor us.
I actually went back and foundthe meeting where he told me
this and he started to explainthat in his head.
(07:39):
This is how he sees it there'sthis giant sandbox of creative
choice, like surrounded by doors, and we're allowing people to
come in, kind of thing, you knowas we call it, like it's a
playground.
It's all about like learning,expansion, growth, knowledge
those kinds of things.
We're allowing you not tobecome a child again, but to hop
into the creative playgroundand and join us for the journey
(08:01):
that we're going on together.
Now, that created a lot of pausefor me.
I actually didn't even knowwhat to do with it at first.
It almost sounded silly, butthat's the magic really behind
it.
When you're given a playgroundto try out different things
without worrying about if it's amistake or not, when you're
(08:21):
creating, when you're problemsolving, when you're staring at
that blank page.
That's the difference betweenwork feeling like work and work
starting to feel a little bitmore like fun.
There's a reason why we'vecalled this podcast Seize the
Play this job.
It could be hard every dayshowing up and filling that
blank page, but as long asthere's a promise that one day,
(08:44):
one job, one client, one moment,one phone call, that you might
make yourself laugh, that yourwork might mean something more
to people than just a commercial, that you might actually go to
bed so excited that you can'twake up to start again and
continue it, that promise to me,that's what I want to spend
every single day chasing.
So that's the podcast that seesthe play.
(09:08):
We're going to be giving younews and views straight from
inside the walls of spilt slacksand zooms and meetings and
phone calls.
We want to hear you in thoseconversations as well.
So what do you think?
What have you found?
What scares you?
What's keeping you from thatfun?
If you want to find the fun andget your work done, I really
ask you to join us as part ofthe creative conversation on all
(09:30):
things animation and motiondesign.
And don't forget, until thenext time we talk, get out there
and seize the play.
Seize the Play is a spiltstudio podcast.
If you have an idea of someoneyou'd like us to talk to or a
topic you'd like to hear moreabout, drop us a line at play at
spiltcom that's S-P-I-L-L-Tcom,and if you like what you hear,
(09:55):
subscribe.
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