December 23, 2024 • 45 mins
In this inspiring episode, we sit down with Scott Saslow, who shares his journey of discovering identity, purpose, and happiness in the face of life’s toughest challenges. Scott, a graphic artist, shares his deeply personal experiences of navigating adversity, revealing how those moments shaped his sense of self and led him to a more fulfilling, purpose-driven life.
Through heartfelt anecdotes and actionable insights, Scott discusses the power of vulnerability, the importance of self-compassion, and how to transform setbacks into stepping stones toward growth. Whether you're facing personal struggles or looking for tools to thrive during difficult times, this conversation will leave you feeling empowered and ready to embrace life's complexities.
Tune in for a candid and uplifting dialogue about finding light even in the darkest moments.
www.mentalwealthpod.com
www.pedalmyway.com
DISCLAIMER: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not constitute legal, medical, or other forms of professional advice. The material and information presented here is for general information and entertainment purposes only. The "Mental Wealth Podcast" and "Pedal My Way" names and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.
Through heartfelt anecdotes and actionable insights, Scott discusses the power of vulnerability, the importance of self-compassion, and how to transform setbacks into stepping stones toward growth. Whether you're facing personal struggles or looking for tools to thrive during difficult times, this conversation will leave you feeling empowered and ready to embrace life's complexities.
Tune in for a candid and uplifting dialogue about finding light even in the darkest moments.
www.mentalwealthpod.com
www.pedalmyway.com
DISCLAIMER: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not constitute legal, medical, or other forms of professional advice. The material and information presented here is for general information and entertainment purposes only. The "Mental Wealth Podcast" and "Pedal My Way" names and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Mental Wealth podcast.
My name is Rob and I'm here with McCann. How
are you doing, McCann, Hey, Rob, how are you very well?
Thank you, good afternoon. We're also so delighted to have
Scott Sasla with us. Scott is a graphic design artist
in California, and we're going to be talking a little
(00:26):
bit about the graphic design industry and a little bit
about Scott's career, your trajectory within the industry itself.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Scott, how are you.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
I'm doing okay. How are you guys.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Doing very well? Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
We really appreciate having new voices on the podcast, and
it's so nice to speak to you and be great
to learn more about you today. So to just sort
of kick us off a little bit, you had a
bit of an interesting courage trajectory in the sense that
you started in the filmmaking industry. Is that you trained
as a filmmaker.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Well, I went to film school. I'd been interested in,
you know, movie making and how movies were made and
everything since I was a kid. Graduated high school, went
to Florida State University. They have a film school, incredibly
difficult to get into, so the odds were against me
from the start. I didn't get in. I think I
worked as a PA on one short film. I had
(01:20):
to block traffic for twelve hours. I hated living in
the dorms. And I actually found the folks at the
film school kind of very clique. And you know, so
even before I left FSU after two semesters, I had
already gone to an open house at another school called
the Full Sale in Orlando, and they weren't as well
known twenty years ago. They're a bit more high profile now.
(01:43):
And I liked what I saw. So left Florida State,
got my two year degree at community college and that
was actually kind of fun. Community college was like thirteenth grade,
and went to Full Sale. You know, I met some
cool people. It was it was a bit of everything
that experienced literally the best and worst of times. And
(02:08):
after that, you know, a year after I graduated Full Sale,
went to LA worked as a PA, tried to meet people,
worked as a you know, technically a temp employee, but
my roommate and I worked at one of the movie
studios at MGM, sort of like file clerks, if you know.
That showed the it crowd. It was kind of like that.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
He is a production assistant stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yes, yeah, you know you work on set just doing
whatever has to be done. In retrospect, I tried my
best in retrospect them much or how good I was
at it. You know, we had a guy at film
school just drill it into our heads, like, you know,
never sit down. You know, if you have nothing to do,
just take a rag, start cleaning something. You know, then
(02:53):
you're doing something. You know, God forbid Spielberg shows up
and you're sitting on the job or something like that
would happen. But met some cool people. A friend of
mine convinced me, you know, come back to Florida, come
back to Orlando. You know, we'll do our own stuff.
You know, bigger fish in a smaller pond. But I
swear as soon as I moved back, like as soon
(03:14):
as the last piece of furniture was moved into the apartment,
I realized I made a big mistake. And I actually
was enjoying LA and having fun. And you know, things
don't happen overnight. But I was slowly getting somewhere. And
you know, my friend and I thankfully were still friends.
You know. The guy I moved in with. But you know,
(03:36):
it was tough there for a while. It's tough when
you realize, you know, the childhood dream that you thought
you had, or you know, the thing you thought you
wanted turns out not to be the thing you wanted
after all. And I was twenty boy, you know, mid twenties,
didn't have a bachelor's degree yet, since Full Sale at
(03:58):
the time didn't have them. I think they introduced their
first bachelor's program when we left, and so I had
no other qualifications, which shows you, you know, any parents
with young kids listening, it's like, yeah, tell them have
a backup plan, because I didn't have one. So I
spent most of my twenties just in a series of
go nowhere temp jobs, some better than others. And then,
(04:21):
you know, eventually moved back in with my parents, and eventually,
and you know, I'll cut to a few years later,
but you know, I decided to try New York. I
was living at my aunt Knuckles in Jersey City, having
also just worked a variety of temp jobs in the city,
and realized I'm going to be thirty soon. I can't
(04:44):
be a temp forever. So I went back to school
for a graphic design. I know, I kind of skipped
a couple things there, but with the filmmaking stuff, it's
like I was always still interested. But I remember at
the time looking up quarter life Crisis Wikipedia, and even
though I take a little of it with a grain
of salt, you know, it was it was like a
(05:05):
list of ten things, and I realized I matched nine
of them.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Was it was it purely the age in your in
your mind? Was the age the defining factor about the
switch to go into graphic design or was it just
a series of factors leading to that point.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
It was a series of factors. But if I had
to rank them, age would probably be number one. I mean,
I'm forty one now, and you know, I told some
of the students this. I ended up I got my
design degree later at Florida Atlantic University, and also because
I had to be in Florida again, and a few
years later, a few years after I graduated, I spoke
(05:44):
to the alumni, or not alumni as an alumni. I
spoke to some of the design students and I told them,
don't underestimate the power of having a job title. You know,
in my twenties, it was like what do you do.
I'm a temp, I'm a file clerk, you know, I'm
a PA, you know, But to say I'm a graphic designer.
Here's my portfolio. Yeah, it's like people are actually shocked sometimes, like,
(06:08):
oh my god, he is a graphic designer. And it
feels good to be able to present yourself that way
versus how I was forced to present myself, you know,
in my twenties. You know, self is wise and everything.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, it's interesting that we've talked before on the podcast
about the labels we sort of give ourselves, right, We
sort of like we define ourselves by whether it's the
job or relationships. And it's so interesting to hear you say, like,
you know, in your twenties, you you sort of think
about your job and you hear other people you maybe
have friends and family that have supposedly in quote quote
unquote higher ranking jobs in your in your mind, right,
(06:41):
you go like, Okay, this person's doing really well because
they are a CEO or or whatever it is. And
it's so interesting that we give ourselves these sort of
like very defined things. Okay, I have to reach this level, right,
And it's yeah, absolutely agree with you on the point
that You've got to this point where you say, I'm
a graphic designer, and now you know I'm that's what
(07:02):
I am.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
That's my role.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I'm a graphic design Do you think that's a comfort
thing or is that a power thing?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
What do you think that is?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
It's definitely more of a comfort thing. I wouldn't I'm
I'm partly joking. It's like I wouldn't associate power with
anything I'm doing. That's me being self deprecating. Comfort thing
definitely a self esteem thing, and I've had my issues
with that over the years, you know, I you know,
(07:29):
you know, I'm sure you guys have talked about imposter syndrome,
and you know, I'd say I've had that a lot.
But every now and then, you know, if I get
a kind word from a client, or I get a
cool job, a design job, or you know, with social media,
even though I try not to live on it, we
all can't help ourselves. And you know, you know, you
post your stuff and you get feedback, and after a
(07:52):
while it's like, damn, this is doing wonders for the
imposter syndrome. Like I don't even think of that anymore.
You know, people did what I'm doing just though.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
Quick question I had was when you talk to other
graduates about having a title, you mentioned about you not
being happy or and that's not satisfied as being a
tempt within quotes, right, because that is a job title
that maybe not the one you like, right, So is
that part of your identity, like you didn't want the
(08:23):
perception of being a temp or just the job, but
itself it's not something that you wanted, you know. There
I see as two things, what others think of you
and what you think of yourself. This is something that
we deal with on an everyday basis, mostly the perception
of others. However smaller big that might be at the
back of my mind is always going this is guy
(08:43):
thinking about me? Or am I doing the right thing?
Kind of thing?
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Right?
Speaker 4 (08:46):
So is it more of what others think of your
title or was it for your own satisfaction of your
career progression?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Probably more what others thought. And again I'm not putting
down own temp work and the agencies, especially you know,
Ultimate Staffing and Apple One. I mean, over the years,
those they were very good to me, and I did
meet a lot of nice people, you know, through this time.
(09:14):
But I suppose it's how other people perceive you, and
it's like, oh, you're a temp oh, implying like, oh,
then you don't have a permanent job, or are you
not good enough for a permanent job. And most of
my temp work because I hated dealing with I didn't
want to do you know, phone reception work. So usually
(09:35):
i'd be in the back, you know, file clerk, file room, which,
on one hand, yeah, kind of nice, just doing my thing,
you know, and everyone else is upfront doing theirs. But
it's like, oh, but even that, if I just it's like,
what do you do? File clerk? Big deal? And when
I was at MGM, even though it was fine and
(09:55):
we got to goof around and you know, our boss
was wonderful, the name of the the department we were
in it was records and archives and special projects. So
that's what I would put on my resume, not TAMP,
not file clerk, but clerk, dash records, Archives, special projects,
because at least then someone might read that and think, ooh,
(10:15):
special projects. You know, that's interesting. So there are ways
even within that you can present it maybe in a
way that's cooler than it is, I suppose, And.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Titles matter in the film industry, Like what you are
doing now will impact what you're doing next.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Is that both for better or worse? I mean I
always thought of myself on the extreme periphery. Even now
with graphic design, working on posters and home video stuff,
I'm still on the periphery, but I can. It's cool
to be able to say I'm at least part of
part of it, part of the big you know, the circus.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, and that's as you said, there was something you
were passionate about. It's from the very beginning of your career.
And to be able to be a part of that
is got to be gratifying in of itself because you
get to work on things you enjoy working on whichever
one is sort of striving for. At some point, I
was also thinking about, like the idea of somebody else
(11:10):
right now going through that maybe they are at ten,
maybe they you know, they work in a coffee shop
or whatever, and they want to get in the industry.
Is there anything you would sort of say to someone
in that position right now from what you went through,
Is there any sort of thoughts you had that maybe
you could sort of give sort of a different viewpoint
on the night now that you've been through that.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Well, the film industry itself. I mean, it really depends
what you want to do.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I was talking to my own roommate who was thinking
about what she ultimately wants to do, you know, wants
to act, hasn't done a ton, you know, when she
was asking me about, you know, maybe getting into camera
and that department, and I told her, then start taking photos,
start learning, start sharing stuff online. You know, anything you
(11:54):
just film something for thirty seconds with your phone. You know,
it really depends. When I went to film school, I
was so hell bent on directing, even though years later
I realized I never quite had the temperament for it.
But I kind of missed the forest to the trees.
I can't show my student films to anyone, and you know,
like it's some sort of a real But you know,
my classmates who wanted to do editing, for example, and
(12:16):
just focused on that, you know, that's what they're doing.
You know, directing kind of encompasses a lot of that.
But as far as graphic design, which is what I
do now, I tell people just share your stuff online.
You know, the students who are graduating, I told them
that put it online a you never know who's going
to see it. Be you'll find your people. I found mine,
(12:41):
whether it's posters, because you know, what I do is
just one small facet of graphic design. There's branding and
logos and you know, people who designed their own fonts
and something. You know, whether it's album covers or fonts
or whatever. It's like you share your stuff, people will
find it, you know, and it just it adds up.
It is a cumulative thing. And the cliche is true,
(13:03):
work leads to more work, right.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Right, Yeah, it's when an attention economy right now, as
they say, right, you get attention and it starts to
amplify online and you get recognition from that.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Right Yeah, I'm not. I'm certainly. You know, nothing I've
done is really gone viral. And I look at some
of these people on YouTube. It's like, you know, why
is this person famous? You know, it's nothing anything remotely
like that. But you know, within at least what I
do with posters and the home video, you know, because
that with me. I'd always been into graphic design too,
(13:36):
and only years later when I went back to school
for designed it, I realized, oh I could combine the
two literally in my last semester. It's like, you know,
that's when I started thinking movie posters and Blu ray
box sets and things like that. And you know, so
it's almost like a niche within a niche, because not
all graphic design involves movies, you know, or anything like that.
(14:02):
But no, there's a nice, tightly knit community online and
I've managed in my travels actually over the last couple
of years to meet a bunch of these people in
the flesh and where we just bitch about work. No,
it's it's fun, and I like, you know, some projects
are better than others, and some clients are better than others.
But I've you know, I've had the fortune to work
(14:24):
with some really good people and on some cool stuff
and just to be a part of that.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
You know, what is it Because I'm outside of the
graphic design industry.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
I work with designers.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I'm in digital marketing in general BROD, and I work
with a design team.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
We build websites and we sort of.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
I'm a very small part of that industry, and I
know the hard work designers do. I'm just wondering, what
is it that people get wrong about the graphic design
industry in general? You see, maybe you see portrayed in
movies and you see people working on Is there anything
sort of a cliche that you see that is kind
of interesting to you?
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Well, funny enough, someone put together their real on YouTube
of characters. Oh what do you do? I'm a graphic designer,
like characters and movies who were graphic designers, even though
you never really see them doing anything. But it's almost
become a like a convenient narrative shorthand. It's like, we
don't want to show their job, but we want to
(15:19):
have We want the character to have a decent apartment
and a way to make a living. And to explain it,
just say they're a graphic designer, and the audience will
get it. But you know, it's a lot harder than
it might look, because you know it's one of those
like oh my kid could have drawn that, it's like
they didn't, So there you go. I mean, I've had
(15:40):
people who literally didn't understand what graphic design was. I
was out with some friends and some friends of friends
and this kid just I couldn't explain it to them,
so I just took the Hinz ketchup bottle. You know,
see this label graphic design, but with what I do. Again,
it's very niche. You know, some of the Blu Rays
(16:02):
I work on, you know, I'll get you know, it's like, oh,
we want you to design the release, you know, a
box set for this movie. You know. Sometimes I get
to do my own artwork. Other times at someone else's
art work that I'm sort of fitting into the templates
and I'm doing the layouts and booklets and all that stuff.
(16:22):
But every it all has to be laid out, you know,
and sometimes I get to be a little more detailed.
I did Blu Ray art for these Hungarian films and
I had to make sure my Hungarian flags were correct.
And on one of the Blu Ray forums someone mentioned
that and I appreciated it, and I wrote, I replied, like,
you know, believe it or not, some thought actually goes
(16:44):
into this stuff, but I think most people just think,
if you want an elephant, you just type an elephant
and there's your elephant. Although ironically with Ai, now I
think you probably could do that.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
I was just gonna say, so, Ai, how much do
you think it affected your lineup work all? Or always
going to impact you?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
It hasn't really affected mine a whole lot, I will
say in photoshop. Like let's say I have a photo
of a landscape that's this wide, but you know I
need to fill it to a space that's this wide.
You know, that's where it can come in handy, where
I can fill in that gap. But I'm not generating
scenes from whole cloth with the prompts. I'm not dumb.
And if I don't like the AA results, I don't
(17:24):
use them. But you know, so that's what it's done
for me. I haven't lost any work because of it,
you know. I'm sure sooner or later, AI will get
to the point where, you you know, because I do
these booklet layouts and you know, I you know, selecting
fonts and what colors and things like that. I'm sure
(17:44):
if I plugged all that into you know, it would
spit out, Oh you should use this font with this color,
and they'll tell me what to do, but I don't.
I'm not there. I don't do that. The only other thing,
and I hate saying it because it's so bad for
the environment. Right When I do posters for clients, sometimes
I'll because I like taglines on posters and some clients do,
(18:08):
some don't. But I'll go into chat GPT for instance,
and I'll put in, you know, give me ten taglines
for a movie about X y Z, and it'll spit
out ten taglines and most of the time they're pretty
much on par with what you'd find on your average
movie poster. I just did a poster for a indie comedy.
It's a girl who runs her own brewery and it's
(18:31):
a romantic comedy meet cute kind of thing. So in chat,
GPT ten taglines for a movie about a romantic comedy
where the woman owns a brewery, spat out ten taglines.
My favorite was love for Mens. Okay, client didn't go
with that one, but I actually but again, if I
don't like the results, I don't use them for me.
(18:51):
It helps a little bit. I'm not embracing it whole cloth,
and there are serious moral and ethical issues that give
me pause. Again, that's you know, that's probably a whole
other episode to talk about that stuff. But it's a
brave new world and we're just living in it.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
I want to go back with the initial thing you're
talking about, Scott, in terms of when you mentioned you
moved back to Florida from La you went through a
change that you are not happy about or you have
second thoughts about it?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Right?
Speaker 4 (19:25):
Could we talk a little bit more about that in
terms of what prompted the change, the mental stress you underwent,
and what kind of helped you get out of.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Well, I mean, I suppose it was almost bound to happen,
you know again, ever since I was a kid, want
you know, make movies, direct movies, et cetera. And then
you know again, God, it's been so long. But yeah,
it's like moved into moved out of la And it's
also a case of sometimes you don't know how good
(19:53):
you have it until you don't. You know. I was
goofing off with my friends at work at our temp
job at MGM, and here I I'm in a new
city and it's like, oh damn, I got to get
a job, like a real job. But yeah, I remember
telling my friend because my roommate, because the idea was
we'd make our own stuff, and like, yeah, maybe I
(20:15):
don't want to do that. And that's the only reason
he moved there. So we were at odds for we
were at each other's throats for a while, thankfully still friends,
but no, I was in you know, I was in
a funk. I forget what job I had at the time.
And that's the thing with Orlando. It's fun to visit,
going to Disney World or whatever, but when you live there,
(20:35):
it's really just like any other city. And you know,
same routine nine to five, which I realized lots of
people do this. I'm not saying what I do is
better or worse or you know, any There's no judgment here,
but I don't know. It was just all a bit
of a days, same routine, and I ended up doing
(20:56):
Orlando has an improv theater called the Sack Comedy Lab,
taking a croft classes just to get out of the apartment.
And I was already kind of into improv. I was
a big fan of Whose line is it anyway? The
British and the American versions, and I found I enjoyed
it and that was something to look forward to. You know,
every week. I did all four. There's level one, two, three, four,
(21:20):
did all four. You know, we had a big had
a grad show where you're going to write family and friends.
You know. It was a lot of fun. And again
the quarter life crisis thing, reading that and thinking like,
on one hand, oh crap, it's true, like that's what
it is. On the other hand realizing a not alone
(21:43):
because obviously other people go through that too, and B
sooner or later the land and I don't remember. I
can't tell you a specific date or time. And it
was just a gradual thing. It's not like I woke
up one morning like crisis is over now, but after
a while, upon reflection, realizing things are better now. Okay,
(22:06):
maybe the crisis is over now, or at least on
the you were on the tail end of it. Nice
And again, I wish I could give you more specific stuff,
but I'm trying to think and I have been trying
to think that. Yeah, it was just not a pleasant time.
But at the same time, it's like I had a
roof over my head, food on the table, and I
(22:26):
was working the whole time. So most people would kill
for that kind of situation.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
It looks like you looked at the positives of your
situation to kind of any situation has positives and negatives, right,
You can always say that you know your life is
the worst. That doesn't take anywhere, at least from my
personal experience. It looks like you did the other way.
You tried to put forth the best or rather take
the best options you had.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, thinking on the positives.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
It's my personal opinion that, you know, I think you
did the right things in terms of getting out of
the funk as you put it. Is it something you
would also recommend or suggest to people in a similar
situation in terms of not knowing what they're doing or
trying to do, you.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Know, I first, well, first I would say if you
it's okay not to know, right, because for most people
it's like, how do you like? Some people can't understand that,
like how can you not know what you want? But
it's okay, and it's funny. A cousin of mine graduated
college a few years ago and we all went out
(23:29):
to lunch, and right when we were about to leave,
I kind of pulled her aside and I said, look,
if you wake up five years show now and realize,
you know what, I should have majored in something else.
I want to do something else now. It's okay, and
don't let anyone tell you it's not, because it is okay.
So part of it's that and part of it, you know, definitely, Yeah,
(23:52):
And granted I could afford, thankfully to pay for the
improv classes, but yeah, finding a hobby something because it's like, oh,
wanted to make movies. Oh what are you into? I
like watching movies? Like it was all movie stuff, you know,
there was no there wasn't another thing or let or
something to get me out of the house. So that
helped and meeting especially in a comedy improv sort of
(24:16):
environment where everyone is kind of silly and you know,
creative and you know, so that was a good environment.
I'm not saying improv is for everyone, but yeah, just
get out of the house, volunteer, you know something.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Right, Yeah, Yeah, that's a great that's a great point
about finding a new environment because oftentimes we're influenced by
the things we're seeing, the things were hearing constantly, right,
And it's it's true of the being online. When you
go to a certain website, you start thinking the same
things as the people that you're reading. And it's so
true about our physical environment too, where like you said,
(24:52):
you just go to a different space and your headspace
is different. It becomes you start to engage differently with
the world, right, And I think for a lot of people,
they don't they're not able to see that option, right,
And I think that's something that a lot of people
will connect with that idea of like, Okay, I've got
to try something different because I'm not feeling how I
should feel right now.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Absolutely, And I'm just.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Wondering, is there anything when you were having that experience?
Is there any feeling that you go, Okay, this person
really helped me. Is there a person that actually influenced
you to make that decision or was that just was
it coming from yourself to make that decision to go
to somewhere else and do something different.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I mean, it pretty much all came from me. I mean,
and thankfully my parents were super supportive. You know, their
thing was always as long as you're happy. But at
the same time, you know, I mean, every now and
then I'd wonder, like, you know, relatives and s uncles,
like if we got together for a family thing, like
what must they think? Like I'm just a file clerk er.
(25:52):
I left LA and now I'm moving here, and like
what must aunt and uncle so and so think? And
on one hand, doesn't matter who cares and b I
think I mentioned that to my parents and they were like,
same thing. It's like, I'm sure they just want you
to be happy. You know, that's it. You know, no
one's forcing it's like, why didn't you go to medical
school or anything. No, you know, it was never like
(26:14):
that for me, thankfully, But yeah, it would have been
nice maybe to have another skill in my twenties, more
than just filing. But and even now, if I pass
by an office building or you know, or in an
office building walking among cubicles, and I just look around
like been there, you know, don't want to do this again,
(26:37):
but obviously what if I have to? But thankfully I
don't have to right now, and I could work from wherever.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, it's something I connect with too, is the idea
of like you're sort of in a career.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Where you work by yourself a lot.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
You work in front of a computer, you're working, and
you don't engage with other people.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Do you think you would.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Benefit from being around people while you're working or do
you work better as a solo head down getting the
creative stuff done.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
I really worked better in that situation. And it's funny
because and I'll try to give you the short version.
When I graduated from FAU with a design degree, I
got out two weeks later. I got a job at
a small design agency in Boca Ratone. Nice people. I
only lasted six months, but I remember, you know, the
(27:25):
way it was set up, and I'd never worked for
a design agency before. It's like this person's at their desk,
this person's at their desk. I at my desk, and
we're all pretty much left alone, unless you know there's
feedback or you know, client meeting stuff like that. And
what's funny is if you had told me when I
was a teenager, oh, you'll get paid to sit at
a desk all by yourself and listen to music headphones.
(27:45):
Everything great. But ironically, when I was in school, I
worked a retail job to help pay for school. I
worked at the container store. They just opened a new
one and Boca. I was one of the first ones hired,
as silly as it sounds, and I swore I would
never do retail again. After high school, working with a
(28:07):
team work, you know, working with a group of people.
Like by the time I got to the design agency,
and everyone's just a hermit in their own little corner
of the office. It was like, what about the team?
Where's it?
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Like?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
I was almost more in that year and I realized, yeah,
maybe the agency thing isn't for me. But there are
also tons of agencies and some you know, no two
are the same, and I'm sure there are other agencies
that are more like that. But that's another thing. You know,
you don't really know what kind of work environment you
(28:38):
can thrive in until you actually do it. And when
you're learning graphic design, for instance, like they can't teach
you that. You know, you just have to experience it.
They can't teach you the practical office sort of day
to day of it all. They can teach you the skills,
but the rest you have to learn as you go,
and some do it better than others.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
So you missed the social aspect of it from more
the day to day operational apartment.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
I mean really both. I just remember, you know, at
the time, like the actual doing of the work was fine,
you know, the photoshop, everything else was fine. I never
had a problem with that. But it was the bureaucratic
part that should I hand this paper in now or wait,
you know, should I call this person or that person?
(29:25):
You know, more of that part where it was you know,
what do I do and who do I go to?
And you know, but again that's the part they really
can't teach you, and you just kind of have to
feel out And I never really had a real I
was always a tempt you know, but I'd be here
and there for a day, for a week, doesn't matter.
But a real permanent office job, I never really had
(29:47):
one before. And you know, you don't know what you
don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
It's not the idea of just sort of being thrust
into a new environment and being told, okay, figure it out,
and then then all of a sudden you have to
sort of work muscles that have never been worth before, right.
And it's one of those experiences that, as you said,
you only get if you actually do the tangible thing
of going to the office or doing the doing improv
(30:11):
building a muscle that you've never used before.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
But you can figure it out on the fly.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And I've always found for myself, like if i want
to try a new sport, for example, I'm always surprised
when I can be quite good at something that I've
never done before, because you just your brain has a
way of sort of using that neuroplasticity, right and sort
of adapting to the environment.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, and when I it's like when I interned it
in LA for three months, I had a paid internship. Again,
nice talented people don't know how well I fit in,
and I felt like, oh okay, Like it was literally
like the day I fell I was trying to get
in the hang of things, turned out to be my
last day. Okay, I'm getting used to this. It's like,
(30:52):
you know, Scott come into my office and that was
the end of the internship. Wow, did early I think
the time I thought it did, but no, I don't
think so. It was roughly three months, okay, and that
so that ended January twenty seventeen. And yeah, technically I've
been freelancing ever since, but I've done some freelance work
for other agencies, but from home.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Now that you have experienced thin closed entrepreneurial lifestyle by
being your own boss, right, would you go back to
a desk job nine to five?
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Do you think if I had to. I'm not against it,
you know, if the circumstances were such that that's what
I had to do, I would and probably still take
freelance jobs on the side. I saw this funny thing
on Instagram recently where it was like, yeah, I was
sick of the forty hour a week, nine to five grinds,
so I went freelance and I work eighty hours a
week instead. But you get to you know, there's a
(31:48):
long time management. That's another skill they can't really teach you.
But you know, again, you learn as you go, and
you know.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Do you is there any techniques you use for time management.
I used to be a free lance writer and I
use something called the Pomodoro technique, where you work for
twenty five minutes and you take a five minute break.
Creative work. It's something to do with how you cook tomatoes.
That's why it's called Pomodoro. You cook them for twenty
five minutes and then I don't know the exactly the
derivation of the wood, but yeah, you work in twenty
(32:17):
five minutes sprints, and you take a five minute break
and then work for twenty five minutes. Apparently that is
supposed to be how the creative mind work. It worked
for me, so that's something.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
That I seem to do both. And you know, they
you know, I know, they say like your bedroom shouldn't
be where you work, or your work area shouldn't be
like your rest area. When I was in my apartment
in La I'm actually in Florida right now, crashing with
the folks for a little while but like my apartment
(32:48):
in La there are times where I'd be, you know,
do something in Photoshop for five minutes, click save, and
then while it's saving, it's like, oh, look, there's my
bed that looks nice, and then rest for a little bit,
even though I only did five minutes of work. But
then there are other times where I just get in
the zone and hours pass by. Or I work a
(33:08):
lot with movies in the background and TV shows, and
you know, I'll stream a movie, you know that's three
and a half hours long and work the entire time,
and then by the time the movie's over, it's like
I've just done three and a half hours of work,
you know, and then find a shorter movie and just
go from there. But yeah, I don't do that technique.
I seem to do either one or the other. Either
(33:29):
work for a marathon or five minutes at a time.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
You do the short sprints or the marathon.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
There's no in between.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
It's big. Yeah, it's all or nothing.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
It also depends on the enthusiasm. Like some of the
Blu rays I've worked on, it's like, okay, either I'll
hold off and stall for a bit, or I'll just
do it all in a day and just to get
it done. But then there are others where it's really
exciting to work on and I have all the materials
like at once, ready to go. You know. Sometime it's
(34:00):
also piecemeal and I'm getting bits and pieces and it's
like I'll spend a day just trying it on one thing,
you know, or I'll spend an hour just testing different
fonts to get that perfect font. Yeah, even though I
try to work just with the same few fonts anyway,
or just playing, you know, if there's time playing around
because often you know, sometimes these things have a deadline
(34:21):
and don't have a lot of time and to play
around in experiment. Other times there's time and it's like, oh,
what would this texture look like? What would this color
look like against this color? And I can test things,
and in situations like that, it's like, yeah, you can't
rip me away from the computer.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
There's always the question that comes up when I hear
you talk about like getting the right font for me,
is like, how do you know when when you're done?
How do you know when you found that exact thing?
What is that feeling? Because I'm always I'm not artistic whatsoever.
I have no skill in the graphic arts whatsoever. I'm
always amazed by people that can do that kind of thing.
I wonder what that feeling is of going, Okay, this
(34:58):
is exactly what I want.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
It just comes with experience. And when I was starting,
you know, the thing that got me in the door
with the internship and kind of put myself put me
on the map, if only in my own little way.
When I quit that design job and went back to
the retail job, I read about a guy who was
doing one movie poster a day for a year, real movies,
(35:21):
his own minimalist posters. So then I started doing that.
So I did one movie poster a day for a year.
And at the time, you know, I'd go to these
free font websites and download this crazy and then looking
at them now, it's like, yikes. There's a famous designer,
Massimo Vignelli, who like he tried just work with the
(35:42):
same half dozen fonts, and so at least for certain things,
that's what I try to do too. And when I'm
designing something like a booklet, some of these blu rays
I've done eight page booklets. I've done two hundred page books.
Some fonts are easier to read than others. Some fonts,
even if the size is the same, take up more
room than others, So it depends on how much space
you have. You know, seraphs are easy to read than
(36:05):
saying seraph's. You know, I always try to do a
dark background over light instead of light over dark, because
you know, one's easier than the other. And it also
depends on the movie itself. You know, if it's a
horror movie, I might use a certain font versus if
it's a romantic comedy, just because some fonts have that.
(36:28):
I don't want to give them personality here, but yeah,
you know, some fonts look friendlier than others. I guess
even Adobe and some of these websites categorize them like this.
These fonts are fun, you know, these are serious and
so on.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
I'm sure you've seen it.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
But there's that famous SNL skit that Papyrus try and go, oh, yeah,
that's one of my favorite just SNL things, because he's
just so obsessed with that one font and like the.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Brilliant the amat.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Yeah, yeah, that's what That's what it reminds me of,
is just that level of obsession about why why would
you use that font for that movie.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Right. But the quick example I use, I did a
poster for this short film early on that these guys
on YouTube did. I think it's actually called porn Star,
and it's just like a little ten minute sketch. A
guy he's dating this girl. He doesn't know it, but
all of his friends kind of recognize her. Guess why,
(37:24):
you know. But it's like, I'm going to give this
a you know, if the title is porn Star, I'm
going to make the font look very classy, you know,
for the contrast of it and with the posters. If
if it's a very simple image, I'll probably use a
crazier font. If the image is crazy and crowded and
there's a lot of people or characters, whatever, then I'll
(37:45):
use a simpler, easy to read font. You know. So again,
KNT you know? It was one of my teachers always
like to say, you know, contrast, and it's true. But
again that's also something you learn as you go and
you see what other people are doing and you know,
get inspired.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Have you seen the new I think it was released
a day a couple of days ago, the new Captain
America poster.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Yes, I did the illustrated one.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
Yes, it's the one that's that looks vintage. It looks
like a painting.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Yeah, no, I I like it. And it was done
by an agency in LA called Gravelus, and I haven't
worked for them, but they do great work, and often
with the posters, especially the bigger you know, Marvel DC.
You know, they're contractual obligations. People wonder, you know, why
is that actor's head so big, or how come the
actors are in one order but the names are reversed.
(38:35):
It's contractual more like, you know, even down to this
person must be twenty five percent larger than the next person,
or this name must be ten percent larger than this name.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
It's in those actors' contracts on marketing and stuff.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I'm assuming, yeah, I'm trying to. I mean, there are
lots of examples. But I know there was a Spider
Man poster a while ago that you know, mainstream publications
were writing about because it didn't look good, although I
think in that case it just I don't know something
about it. It looked unfinished. But yeah, if you see a
poster and it's two people and the names are above them,
(39:13):
but the names are flipped because you know, the image
looks better, but contractually, you know, actor one has to
be listed before actor two, even if the image they're flipped.
But they're good. You know a lot of people trash
movie posters today, but they are still good ones being done.
(39:35):
I'm not an illustrator. And what a lot of these
artists do, like like a lot of the posters we
grew up with, like the classic Star Wars, Indiana Jones posters.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
The Last Dark How it's like a drawing. Do they
really draw it then, like do a graphic out of it?
Or is there everything computer generated?
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Well? No, there are things that are still drawn okay
and illustrated. And there are a lot of you know,
a lot of the designers the posters we sort of
grew up with, Drew Streusen, John Alvin, Richard Amsell, Bob Peek, brilliant,
brilliant artists. But there's still people doing that now It's
maybe not as common. There's a designer who I've had
(40:14):
the fortune to meet a few times in la A
Keiko Sterenberger. She could do everything, and she's super cool
and super nice and anytime she shares a poster, I
look at it and I'm just like, damn it, why
didn't I think of that plus with posters having And
I only interned for a few months at this agency,
but you know, I just remember, oh, we're doing posters
(40:37):
for this title, and they gave me a book of
one hundred rejected concepts, and it's like, and what are
the odds I'm going to come up with something that's
better than these hundred great ideas that weren't used, you know,
because often it's people within the same agency competing for
the job. It's different agencies competing for the job. Right,
(40:58):
you know, this is bigger, high profile, you know, titles,
And then sometimes the final poster comes out and it's
beautiful and you want to frame it on your wall.
Other times it's like that's it. But a lot of
work still goes into them. But we have so many
specially higher profile stuff. Again, there's a lot of cooks
in the kitchen with the home video stuff I do.
(41:22):
It depends I'm doing an indie I'm designing a blu
ray layout booklet, etc. For this indie horror film. The
filmmaker is very much alive. She'll probably have comments. But
I recently worked on this movie Cruising for Arrow Video.
William Freakin, the director, passed away, so didn't have to
(41:43):
worry about, you know, his input. Just as long as
Warner Brothers approved it, then everything was okay. So it varies.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Well, let's talk about your work.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
I just wanted to if you could mention your website
where people can see your work and so to give
a take an overview of some of the concepts you've done.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Yeah, it's Scott Saslo dot com s c O T
T S A. S. L Ow and the links to
my social media's is on there as well. And yeah,
it's cool to be able to go back and you know,
look at the stuff sometimes. And that's actually another thing
I told some of the design students, because when you're
(42:25):
starting out, all you have is your student portfolio, unless
you have some other stuff that you've done on the side,
or if you have a job while you're a student
or an internship. But I told them, you know, at
some point you're going to redo your portfolio and you
won't have any student work in it anymore. You know,
it'll happen eventually and you won't notice, and then then
you'll notice, and it's like you're a working graphic designer
(42:48):
and you don't have to Yeah, depend on your student
stuff anymore.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
I know we are close to our time, Scott. Yeah,
But one final question to close up today's team of
self improvement and finding happiness and what you do the
graphic design that you do now and related work, is
that your happy place? Are you satisfied doing that? I
(43:12):
mean yours is more mentally satisfying, am I Cort?
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Yes? And super quick example Arrow again, same company, Arrow Video.
They're a boutique video label based in the UK. One
of the guys there's producing this big Japanese a box
set of Japanese films, and I'm doing the layout and
booklet for it. Someone else is doing the artwork. They say, hey, Scott,
(43:40):
are you available to work on this? And I wrote yes,
It'll be nice to have something to work on during
the holidays. And then as soon as I hit sand
most people would be like, like work during the holidays,
are you crazy? Like why this is your time off?
But I wanted it and I want to work on it.
In fact, I'm probably going to be working on it
(44:01):
when we're done here actually, even though it's a Saturday afternoon.
But I like it. I like doing it and getting
lost in it.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
Is there a deadline you need to submit your work by.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
For this particular project. No, I don't even have all
the material yet. And the few clients of mine who
give me a lot of my work, the deadlines are
usually pretty flexible or I don't even get one because
they know, like, oh it's Scott, he'll have something for
us in a few days and there's plenty of time.
But I enjoy it. And again, getting good clients that
(44:36):
also comes with time and experience. But you know, when
they're good clients, don't let them go.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Yeah, one d percent.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
That's something that a lot of people that work for
themselves have that feeling of is knowing the good clients
from the bad clients, right, and you know that experience
and dealing with someone who can communicate well can give
you good feedback and sort of like you can build
on that, right. That's so, that's such an interesting concept
that you only learned by working for yourself, is knowing
people and knowing that experience.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
It's Scott.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah, I know we've taken up a bunch of your
time this afternoon. It's been so great to speak with you.
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Yeah, this was a blast. We'll have to I could
have done three times this long, but yeah, we'll have
to do it again. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
Would definitely love to have you back, Scott if you
want to, if you want to talk to us again. Totally, totally,
so once again, thanks Scott, thank you for your time today,
thanks for coming and talking to us. Thank you Rob
for your time as well.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Thank you both.
Speaker 4 (45:30):
Until next time you guys, have a good one.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
Thank you you too.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Have a good Saturday, guys, by now.
Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Mental Wealth podcast.
My name is Rob and I'm here with McCann. How
are you doing, McCann, Hey, Rob, how are you very well?
Thank you, good afternoon. We're also so delighted to have
Scott Sasla with us. Scott is a graphic design artist
in California, and we're going to be talking a little
(00:26):
bit about the graphic design industry and a little bit
about Scott's career, your trajectory within the industry itself.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Scott, how are you.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
I'm doing okay. How are you guys.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Doing very well? Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
We really appreciate having new voices on the podcast, and
it's so nice to speak to you and be great
to learn more about you today. So to just sort
of kick us off a little bit, you had a
bit of an interesting courage trajectory in the sense that
you started in the filmmaking industry. Is that you trained
as a filmmaker.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Well, I went to film school. I'd been interested in,
you know, movie making and how movies were made and
everything since I was a kid. Graduated high school, went
to Florida State University. They have a film school, incredibly
difficult to get into, so the odds were against me
from the start. I didn't get in. I think I
worked as a PA on one short film. I had
(01:20):
to block traffic for twelve hours. I hated living in
the dorms. And I actually found the folks at the
film school kind of very clique. And you know, so
even before I left FSU after two semesters, I had
already gone to an open house at another school called
the Full Sale in Orlando, and they weren't as well
known twenty years ago. They're a bit more high profile now.
(01:43):
And I liked what I saw. So left Florida State,
got my two year degree at community college and that
was actually kind of fun. Community college was like thirteenth grade,
and went to Full Sale. You know, I met some
cool people. It was it was a bit of everything
that experienced literally the best and worst of times. And
(02:08):
after that, you know, a year after I graduated Full Sale,
went to LA worked as a PA, tried to meet people,
worked as a you know, technically a temp employee, but
my roommate and I worked at one of the movie
studios at MGM, sort of like file clerks, if you know.
That showed the it crowd. It was kind of like that.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
He is a production assistant stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yes, yeah, you know you work on set just doing
whatever has to be done. In retrospect, I tried my
best in retrospect them much or how good I was
at it. You know, we had a guy at film
school just drill it into our heads, like, you know,
never sit down. You know, if you have nothing to do,
just take a rag, start cleaning something. You know, then
(02:53):
you're doing something. You know, God forbid Spielberg shows up
and you're sitting on the job or something like that
would happen. But met some cool people. A friend of
mine convinced me, you know, come back to Florida, come
back to Orlando. You know, we'll do our own stuff.
You know, bigger fish in a smaller pond. But I
swear as soon as I moved back, like as soon
(03:14):
as the last piece of furniture was moved into the apartment,
I realized I made a big mistake. And I actually
was enjoying LA and having fun. And you know, things
don't happen overnight. But I was slowly getting somewhere. And
you know, my friend and I thankfully were still friends.
You know. The guy I moved in with. But you know,
(03:36):
it was tough there for a while. It's tough when
you realize, you know, the childhood dream that you thought
you had, or you know, the thing you thought you
wanted turns out not to be the thing you wanted
after all. And I was twenty boy, you know, mid twenties,
didn't have a bachelor's degree yet, since Full Sale at
(03:58):
the time didn't have them. I think they introduced their
first bachelor's program when we left, and so I had
no other qualifications, which shows you, you know, any parents
with young kids listening, it's like, yeah, tell them have
a backup plan, because I didn't have one. So I
spent most of my twenties just in a series of
go nowhere temp jobs, some better than others. And then,
(04:21):
you know, eventually moved back in with my parents, and eventually,
and you know, I'll cut to a few years later,
but you know, I decided to try New York. I
was living at my aunt Knuckles in Jersey City, having
also just worked a variety of temp jobs in the city,
and realized I'm going to be thirty soon. I can't
(04:44):
be a temp forever. So I went back to school
for a graphic design. I know, I kind of skipped
a couple things there, but with the filmmaking stuff, it's
like I was always still interested. But I remember at
the time looking up quarter life Crisis Wikipedia, and even
though I take a little of it with a grain
of salt, you know, it was it was like a
(05:05):
list of ten things, and I realized I matched nine
of them.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Was it was it purely the age in your in
your mind? Was the age the defining factor about the
switch to go into graphic design or was it just
a series of factors leading to that point.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
It was a series of factors. But if I had
to rank them, age would probably be number one. I mean,
I'm forty one now, and you know, I told some
of the students this. I ended up I got my
design degree later at Florida Atlantic University, and also because
I had to be in Florida again, and a few
years later, a few years after I graduated, I spoke
(05:44):
to the alumni, or not alumni as an alumni. I
spoke to some of the design students and I told them,
don't underestimate the power of having a job title. You know,
in my twenties, it was like what do you do.
I'm a temp, I'm a file clerk, you know, I'm
a PA, you know, But to say I'm a graphic designer.
Here's my portfolio. Yeah, it's like people are actually shocked sometimes, like,
(06:08):
oh my god, he is a graphic designer. And it
feels good to be able to present yourself that way
versus how I was forced to present myself, you know,
in my twenties. You know, self is wise and everything.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, it's interesting that we've talked before on the podcast
about the labels we sort of give ourselves, right, We
sort of like we define ourselves by whether it's the
job or relationships. And it's so interesting to hear you say, like,
you know, in your twenties, you you sort of think
about your job and you hear other people you maybe
have friends and family that have supposedly in quote quote
unquote higher ranking jobs in your in your mind, right,
(06:41):
you go like, Okay, this person's doing really well because
they are a CEO or or whatever it is. And
it's so interesting that we give ourselves these sort of
like very defined things. Okay, I have to reach this level, right,
And it's yeah, absolutely agree with you on the point
that You've got to this point where you say, I'm
a graphic designer, and now you know I'm that's what
(07:02):
I am.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
That's my role.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I'm a graphic design Do you think that's a comfort
thing or is that a power thing?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
What do you think that is?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
It's definitely more of a comfort thing. I wouldn't I'm
I'm partly joking. It's like I wouldn't associate power with
anything I'm doing. That's me being self deprecating. Comfort thing
definitely a self esteem thing, and I've had my issues
with that over the years, you know, I you know,
(07:29):
you know, I'm sure you guys have talked about imposter syndrome,
and you know, I'd say I've had that a lot.
But every now and then, you know, if I get
a kind word from a client, or I get a
cool job, a design job, or you know, with social media,
even though I try not to live on it, we
all can't help ourselves. And you know, you know, you
post your stuff and you get feedback, and after a
(07:52):
while it's like, damn, this is doing wonders for the
imposter syndrome. Like I don't even think of that anymore.
You know, people did what I'm doing just though.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
Quick question I had was when you talk to other
graduates about having a title, you mentioned about you not
being happy or and that's not satisfied as being a
tempt within quotes, right, because that is a job title
that maybe not the one you like, right, So is
that part of your identity, like you didn't want the
(08:23):
perception of being a temp or just the job, but
itself it's not something that you wanted, you know. There
I see as two things, what others think of you
and what you think of yourself. This is something that
we deal with on an everyday basis, mostly the perception
of others. However smaller big that might be at the
back of my mind is always going this is guy
(08:43):
thinking about me? Or am I doing the right thing?
Kind of thing?
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Right?
Speaker 4 (08:46):
So is it more of what others think of your
title or was it for your own satisfaction of your
career progression?
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Probably more what others thought. And again I'm not putting
down own temp work and the agencies, especially you know,
Ultimate Staffing and Apple One. I mean, over the years,
those they were very good to me, and I did
meet a lot of nice people, you know, through this time.
(09:14):
But I suppose it's how other people perceive you, and
it's like, oh, you're a temp oh, implying like, oh,
then you don't have a permanent job, or are you
not good enough for a permanent job. And most of
my temp work because I hated dealing with I didn't
want to do you know, phone reception work. So usually
(09:35):
i'd be in the back, you know, file clerk, file room, which,
on one hand, yeah, kind of nice, just doing my thing,
you know, and everyone else is upfront doing theirs. But
it's like, oh, but even that, if I just it's like,
what do you do? File clerk? Big deal? And when
I was at MGM, even though it was fine and
(09:55):
we got to goof around and you know, our boss
was wonderful, the name of the the department we were
in it was records and archives and special projects. So
that's what I would put on my resume, not TAMP,
not file clerk, but clerk, dash records, Archives, special projects,
because at least then someone might read that and think, ooh,
(10:15):
special projects. You know, that's interesting. So there are ways
even within that you can present it maybe in a
way that's cooler than it is, I suppose, And.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Titles matter in the film industry, Like what you are
doing now will impact what you're doing next.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Is that both for better or worse? I mean I
always thought of myself on the extreme periphery. Even now
with graphic design, working on posters and home video stuff,
I'm still on the periphery, but I can. It's cool
to be able to say I'm at least part of
part of it, part of the big you know, the circus.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, and that's as you said, there was something you
were passionate about. It's from the very beginning of your career.
And to be able to be a part of that
is got to be gratifying in of itself because you
get to work on things you enjoy working on whichever
one is sort of striving for. At some point, I
was also thinking about, like the idea of somebody else
(11:10):
right now going through that maybe they are at ten,
maybe they you know, they work in a coffee shop
or whatever, and they want to get in the industry.
Is there anything you would sort of say to someone
in that position right now from what you went through,
Is there any sort of thoughts you had that maybe
you could sort of give sort of a different viewpoint
on the night now that you've been through that.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Well, the film industry itself. I mean, it really depends
what you want to do.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I was talking to my own roommate who was thinking
about what she ultimately wants to do, you know, wants
to act, hasn't done a ton, you know, when she
was asking me about, you know, maybe getting into camera
and that department, and I told her, then start taking photos,
start learning, start sharing stuff online. You know, anything you
(11:54):
just film something for thirty seconds with your phone. You know,
it really depends. When I went to film school, I
was so hell bent on directing, even though years later
I realized I never quite had the temperament for it.
But I kind of missed the forest to the trees.
I can't show my student films to anyone, and you know,
like it's some sort of a real But you know,
my classmates who wanted to do editing, for example, and
(12:16):
just focused on that, you know, that's what they're doing.
You know, directing kind of encompasses a lot of that.
But as far as graphic design, which is what I
do now, I tell people just share your stuff online.
You know, the students who are graduating, I told them
that put it online a you never know who's going
to see it. Be you'll find your people. I found mine,
(12:41):
whether it's posters, because you know, what I do is
just one small facet of graphic design. There's branding and
logos and you know, people who designed their own fonts
and something. You know, whether it's album covers or fonts
or whatever. It's like you share your stuff, people will
find it, you know, and it just it adds up.
It is a cumulative thing. And the cliche is true,
(13:03):
work leads to more work, right.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Right, Yeah, it's when an attention economy right now, as
they say, right, you get attention and it starts to
amplify online and you get recognition from that.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Right Yeah, I'm not. I'm certainly. You know, nothing I've
done is really gone viral. And I look at some
of these people on YouTube. It's like, you know, why
is this person famous? You know, it's nothing anything remotely
like that. But you know, within at least what I
do with posters and the home video, you know, because
that with me. I'd always been into graphic design too,
(13:36):
and only years later when I went back to school
for designed it, I realized, oh I could combine the
two literally in my last semester. It's like, you know,
that's when I started thinking movie posters and Blu ray
box sets and things like that. And you know, so
it's almost like a niche within a niche, because not
all graphic design involves movies, you know, or anything like that.
(14:02):
But no, there's a nice, tightly knit community online and
I've managed in my travels actually over the last couple
of years to meet a bunch of these people in
the flesh and where we just bitch about work. No,
it's it's fun, and I like, you know, some projects
are better than others, and some clients are better than others.
But I've you know, I've had the fortune to work
(14:24):
with some really good people and on some cool stuff
and just to be a part of that.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
You know, what is it Because I'm outside of the
graphic design industry.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
I work with designers.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I'm in digital marketing in general BROD, and I work
with a design team.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
We build websites and we sort of.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
I'm a very small part of that industry, and I
know the hard work designers do. I'm just wondering, what
is it that people get wrong about the graphic design
industry in general? You see, maybe you see portrayed in
movies and you see people working on Is there anything
sort of a cliche that you see that is kind
of interesting to you?
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Well, funny enough, someone put together their real on YouTube
of characters. Oh what do you do? I'm a graphic designer,
like characters and movies who were graphic designers, even though
you never really see them doing anything. But it's almost
become a like a convenient narrative shorthand. It's like, we
don't want to show their job, but we want to
(15:19):
have We want the character to have a decent apartment
and a way to make a living. And to explain it,
just say they're a graphic designer, and the audience will
get it. But you know, it's a lot harder than
it might look, because you know it's one of those
like oh my kid could have drawn that, it's like
they didn't, So there you go. I mean, I've had
(15:40):
people who literally didn't understand what graphic design was. I
was out with some friends and some friends of friends
and this kid just I couldn't explain it to them,
so I just took the Hinz ketchup bottle. You know,
see this label graphic design, but with what I do. Again,
it's very niche. You know, some of the Blu Rays
(16:02):
I work on, you know, I'll get you know, it's like, oh,
we want you to design the release, you know, a
box set for this movie. You know. Sometimes I get
to do my own artwork. Other times at someone else's
art work that I'm sort of fitting into the templates
and I'm doing the layouts and booklets and all that stuff.
(16:22):
But every it all has to be laid out, you know,
and sometimes I get to be a little more detailed.
I did Blu Ray art for these Hungarian films and
I had to make sure my Hungarian flags were correct.
And on one of the Blu Ray forums someone mentioned
that and I appreciated it, and I wrote, I replied, like,
you know, believe it or not, some thought actually goes
(16:44):
into this stuff, but I think most people just think,
if you want an elephant, you just type an elephant
and there's your elephant. Although ironically with Ai, now I
think you probably could do that.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
I was just gonna say, so, Ai, how much do
you think it affected your lineup work all? Or always
going to impact you?
Speaker 3 (17:02):
It hasn't really affected mine a whole lot, I will
say in photoshop. Like let's say I have a photo
of a landscape that's this wide, but you know I
need to fill it to a space that's this wide.
You know, that's where it can come in handy, where
I can fill in that gap. But I'm not generating
scenes from whole cloth with the prompts. I'm not dumb.
And if I don't like the AA results, I don't
(17:24):
use them. But you know, so that's what it's done
for me. I haven't lost any work because of it,
you know. I'm sure sooner or later, AI will get
to the point where, you you know, because I do
these booklet layouts and you know, I you know, selecting
fonts and what colors and things like that. I'm sure
(17:44):
if I plugged all that into you know, it would
spit out, Oh you should use this font with this color,
and they'll tell me what to do, but I don't.
I'm not there. I don't do that. The only other thing,
and I hate saying it because it's so bad for
the environment. Right When I do posters for clients, sometimes
I'll because I like taglines on posters and some clients do,
(18:08):
some don't. But I'll go into chat GPT for instance,
and I'll put in, you know, give me ten taglines
for a movie about X y Z, and it'll spit
out ten taglines and most of the time they're pretty
much on par with what you'd find on your average
movie poster. I just did a poster for a indie comedy.
It's a girl who runs her own brewery and it's
(18:31):
a romantic comedy meet cute kind of thing. So in chat,
GPT ten taglines for a movie about a romantic comedy
where the woman owns a brewery, spat out ten taglines.
My favorite was love for Mens. Okay, client didn't go
with that one, but I actually but again, if I
don't like the results, I don't use them for me.
(18:51):
It helps a little bit. I'm not embracing it whole cloth,
and there are serious moral and ethical issues that give
me pause. Again, that's you know, that's probably a whole
other episode to talk about that stuff. But it's a
brave new world and we're just living in it.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
I want to go back with the initial thing you're
talking about, Scott, in terms of when you mentioned you
moved back to Florida from La you went through a
change that you are not happy about or you have
second thoughts about it?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Right?
Speaker 4 (19:25):
Could we talk a little bit more about that in
terms of what prompted the change, the mental stress you underwent,
and what kind of helped you get out of.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Well, I mean, I suppose it was almost bound to happen,
you know again, ever since I was a kid, want
you know, make movies, direct movies, et cetera. And then
you know again, God, it's been so long. But yeah,
it's like moved into moved out of la And it's
also a case of sometimes you don't know how good
(19:53):
you have it until you don't. You know. I was
goofing off with my friends at work at our temp
job at MGM, and here I I'm in a new
city and it's like, oh damn, I got to get
a job, like a real job. But yeah, I remember
telling my friend because my roommate, because the idea was
we'd make our own stuff, and like, yeah, maybe I
(20:15):
don't want to do that. And that's the only reason
he moved there. So we were at odds for we
were at each other's throats for a while, thankfully still friends,
but no, I was in you know, I was in
a funk. I forget what job I had at the time.
And that's the thing with Orlando. It's fun to visit,
going to Disney World or whatever, but when you live there,
(20:35):
it's really just like any other city. And you know,
same routine nine to five, which I realized lots of
people do this. I'm not saying what I do is
better or worse or you know, any There's no judgment here,
but I don't know. It was just all a bit
of a days, same routine, and I ended up doing
(20:56):
Orlando has an improv theater called the Sack Comedy Lab,
taking a croft classes just to get out of the apartment.
And I was already kind of into improv. I was
a big fan of Whose line is it anyway? The
British and the American versions, and I found I enjoyed
it and that was something to look forward to. You know,
every week. I did all four. There's level one, two, three, four,
(21:20):
did all four. You know, we had a big had
a grad show where you're going to write family and friends.
You know. It was a lot of fun. And again
the quarter life crisis thing, reading that and thinking like,
on one hand, oh crap, it's true, like that's what
it is. On the other hand realizing a not alone
(21:43):
because obviously other people go through that too, and B
sooner or later the land and I don't remember. I
can't tell you a specific date or time. And it
was just a gradual thing. It's not like I woke
up one morning like crisis is over now, but after
a while, upon reflection, realizing things are better now. Okay,
(22:06):
maybe the crisis is over now, or at least on
the you were on the tail end of it. Nice
And again, I wish I could give you more specific stuff,
but I'm trying to think and I have been trying
to think that. Yeah, it was just not a pleasant time.
But at the same time, it's like I had a
roof over my head, food on the table, and I
(22:26):
was working the whole time. So most people would kill
for that kind of situation.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
It looks like you looked at the positives of your
situation to kind of any situation has positives and negatives, right,
You can always say that you know your life is
the worst. That doesn't take anywhere, at least from my
personal experience. It looks like you did the other way.
You tried to put forth the best or rather take
the best options you had.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, thinking on the positives.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
It's my personal opinion that, you know, I think you
did the right things in terms of getting out of
the funk as you put it. Is it something you
would also recommend or suggest to people in a similar
situation in terms of not knowing what they're doing or
trying to do, you.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Know, I first, well, first I would say if you
it's okay not to know, right, because for most people
it's like, how do you like? Some people can't understand that,
like how can you not know what you want? But
it's okay, and it's funny. A cousin of mine graduated
college a few years ago and we all went out
(23:29):
to lunch, and right when we were about to leave,
I kind of pulled her aside and I said, look,
if you wake up five years show now and realize,
you know what, I should have majored in something else.
I want to do something else now. It's okay, and
don't let anyone tell you it's not, because it is okay.
So part of it's that and part of it, you know, definitely, Yeah,
(23:52):
And granted I could afford, thankfully to pay for the
improv classes, but yeah, finding a hobby something because it's like, oh,
wanted to make movies. Oh what are you into? I
like watching movies? Like it was all movie stuff, you know,
there was no there wasn't another thing or let or
something to get me out of the house. So that
helped and meeting especially in a comedy improv sort of
(24:16):
environment where everyone is kind of silly and you know,
creative and you know, so that was a good environment.
I'm not saying improv is for everyone, but yeah, just
get out of the house, volunteer, you know something.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Right, Yeah, Yeah, that's a great that's a great point
about finding a new environment because oftentimes we're influenced by
the things we're seeing, the things were hearing constantly, right,
And it's it's true of the being online. When you
go to a certain website, you start thinking the same
things as the people that you're reading. And it's so
true about our physical environment too, where like you said,
(24:52):
you just go to a different space and your headspace
is different. It becomes you start to engage differently with
the world, right, And I think for a lot of people,
they don't they're not able to see that option, right,
And I think that's something that a lot of people
will connect with that idea of like, Okay, I've got
to try something different because I'm not feeling how I
should feel right now.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Absolutely, And I'm just.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Wondering, is there anything when you were having that experience?
Is there any feeling that you go, Okay, this person
really helped me. Is there a person that actually influenced
you to make that decision or was that just was
it coming from yourself to make that decision to go
to somewhere else and do something different.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I mean, it pretty much all came from me. I mean,
and thankfully my parents were super supportive. You know, their
thing was always as long as you're happy. But at
the same time, you know, I mean, every now and
then I'd wonder, like, you know, relatives and s uncles,
like if we got together for a family thing, like
what must they think? Like I'm just a file clerk er.
(25:52):
I left LA and now I'm moving here, and like
what must aunt and uncle so and so think? And
on one hand, doesn't matter who cares and b I
think I mentioned that to my parents and they were like,
same thing. It's like, I'm sure they just want you
to be happy. You know, that's it. You know, no
one's forcing it's like, why didn't you go to medical
school or anything. No, you know, it was never like
(26:14):
that for me, thankfully, But yeah, it would have been
nice maybe to have another skill in my twenties, more
than just filing. But and even now, if I pass
by an office building or you know, or in an
office building walking among cubicles, and I just look around
like been there, you know, don't want to do this again,
(26:37):
but obviously what if I have to? But thankfully I
don't have to right now, and I could work from wherever.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, it's something I connect with too, is the idea
of like you're sort of in a career.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Where you work by yourself a lot.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
You work in front of a computer, you're working, and
you don't engage with other people.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Do you think you would.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Benefit from being around people while you're working or do
you work better as a solo head down getting the
creative stuff done.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
I really worked better in that situation. And it's funny
because and I'll try to give you the short version.
When I graduated from FAU with a design degree, I
got out two weeks later. I got a job at
a small design agency in Boca Ratone. Nice people. I
only lasted six months, but I remember, you know, the
(27:25):
way it was set up, and I'd never worked for
a design agency before. It's like this person's at their desk,
this person's at their desk. I at my desk, and
we're all pretty much left alone, unless you know there's
feedback or you know, client meeting stuff like that. And
what's funny is if you had told me when I
was a teenager, oh, you'll get paid to sit at
a desk all by yourself and listen to music headphones.
(27:45):
Everything great. But ironically, when I was in school, I
worked a retail job to help pay for school. I
worked at the container store. They just opened a new
one and Boca. I was one of the first ones hired,
as silly as it sounds, and I swore I would
never do retail again. After high school, working with a
(28:07):
team work, you know, working with a group of people.
Like by the time I got to the design agency,
and everyone's just a hermit in their own little corner
of the office. It was like, what about the team?
Where's it?
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Like?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
I was almost more in that year and I realized, yeah,
maybe the agency thing isn't for me. But there are
also tons of agencies and some you know, no two
are the same, and I'm sure there are other agencies
that are more like that. But that's another thing. You know,
you don't really know what kind of work environment you
(28:38):
can thrive in until you actually do it. And when
you're learning graphic design, for instance, like they can't teach
you that. You know, you just have to experience it.
They can't teach you the practical office sort of day
to day of it all. They can teach you the skills,
but the rest you have to learn as you go,
and some do it better than others.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
So you missed the social aspect of it from more
the day to day operational apartment.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
I mean really both. I just remember, you know, at
the time, like the actual doing of the work was fine,
you know, the photoshop, everything else was fine. I never
had a problem with that. But it was the bureaucratic
part that should I hand this paper in now or wait,
you know, should I call this person or that person?
(29:25):
You know, more of that part where it was you know,
what do I do and who do I go to?
And you know, but again that's the part they really
can't teach you, and you just kind of have to
feel out And I never really had a real I
was always a tempt you know, but I'd be here
and there for a day, for a week, doesn't matter.
But a real permanent office job, I never really had
(29:47):
one before. And you know, you don't know what you
don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
It's not the idea of just sort of being thrust
into a new environment and being told, okay, figure it out,
and then then all of a sudden you have to
sort of work muscles that have never been worth before, right.
And it's one of those experiences that, as you said,
you only get if you actually do the tangible thing
of going to the office or doing the doing improv
(30:11):
building a muscle that you've never used before.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
But you can figure it out on the fly.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And I've always found for myself, like if i want
to try a new sport, for example, I'm always surprised
when I can be quite good at something that I've
never done before, because you just your brain has a
way of sort of using that neuroplasticity, right and sort
of adapting to the environment.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, and when I it's like when I interned it
in LA for three months, I had a paid internship. Again,
nice talented people don't know how well I fit in,
and I felt like, oh okay, Like it was literally
like the day I fell I was trying to get
in the hang of things, turned out to be my
last day. Okay, I'm getting used to this. It's like,
(30:52):
you know, Scott come into my office and that was
the end of the internship. Wow, did early I think
the time I thought it did, but no, I don't
think so. It was roughly three months, okay, and that
so that ended January twenty seventeen. And yeah, technically I've
been freelancing ever since, but I've done some freelance work
for other agencies, but from home.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Now that you have experienced thin closed entrepreneurial lifestyle by
being your own boss, right, would you go back to
a desk job nine to five?
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Do you think if I had to. I'm not against it,
you know, if the circumstances were such that that's what
I had to do, I would and probably still take
freelance jobs on the side. I saw this funny thing
on Instagram recently where it was like, yeah, I was
sick of the forty hour a week, nine to five grinds,
so I went freelance and I work eighty hours a
week instead. But you get to you know, there's a
(31:48):
long time management. That's another skill they can't really teach you.
But you know, again, you learn as you go, and
you know.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Do you is there any techniques you use for time management.
I used to be a free lance writer and I
use something called the Pomodoro technique, where you work for
twenty five minutes and you take a five minute break.
Creative work. It's something to do with how you cook tomatoes.
That's why it's called Pomodoro. You cook them for twenty
five minutes and then I don't know the exactly the
derivation of the wood, but yeah, you work in twenty
(32:17):
five minutes sprints, and you take a five minute break
and then work for twenty five minutes. Apparently that is
supposed to be how the creative mind work. It worked
for me, so that's something.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
That I seem to do both. And you know, they
you know, I know, they say like your bedroom shouldn't
be where you work, or your work area shouldn't be
like your rest area. When I was in my apartment
in La I'm actually in Florida right now, crashing with
the folks for a little while but like my apartment
(32:48):
in La there are times where I'd be, you know,
do something in Photoshop for five minutes, click save, and
then while it's saving, it's like, oh, look, there's my
bed that looks nice, and then rest for a little bit,
even though I only did five minutes of work. But
then there are other times where I just get in
the zone and hours pass by. Or I work a
(33:08):
lot with movies in the background and TV shows, and
you know, I'll stream a movie, you know that's three
and a half hours long and work the entire time,
and then by the time the movie's over, it's like
I've just done three and a half hours of work,
you know, and then find a shorter movie and just
go from there. But yeah, I don't do that technique.
I seem to do either one or the other. Either
(33:29):
work for a marathon or five minutes at a time.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
You do the short sprints or the marathon.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
There's no in between.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
It's big. Yeah, it's all or nothing.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
It also depends on the enthusiasm. Like some of the
Blu rays I've worked on, it's like, okay, either I'll
hold off and stall for a bit, or I'll just
do it all in a day and just to get
it done. But then there are others where it's really
exciting to work on and I have all the materials
like at once, ready to go. You know. Sometime it's
(34:00):
also piecemeal and I'm getting bits and pieces and it's
like I'll spend a day just trying it on one thing,
you know, or I'll spend an hour just testing different
fonts to get that perfect font. Yeah, even though I
try to work just with the same few fonts anyway,
or just playing, you know, if there's time playing around
because often you know, sometimes these things have a deadline
(34:21):
and don't have a lot of time and to play
around in experiment. Other times there's time and it's like, oh,
what would this texture look like? What would this color
look like against this color? And I can test things,
and in situations like that, it's like, yeah, you can't
rip me away from the computer.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
There's always the question that comes up when I hear
you talk about like getting the right font for me,
is like, how do you know when when you're done?
How do you know when you found that exact thing?
What is that feeling? Because I'm always I'm not artistic whatsoever.
I have no skill in the graphic arts whatsoever. I'm
always amazed by people that can do that kind of thing.
I wonder what that feeling is of going, Okay, this
(34:58):
is exactly what I want.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
It just comes with experience. And when I was starting,
you know, the thing that got me in the door
with the internship and kind of put myself put me
on the map, if only in my own little way.
When I quit that design job and went back to
the retail job, I read about a guy who was
doing one movie poster a day for a year, real movies,
(35:21):
his own minimalist posters. So then I started doing that.
So I did one movie poster a day for a year.
And at the time, you know, I'd go to these
free font websites and download this crazy and then looking
at them now, it's like, yikes. There's a famous designer,
Massimo Vignelli, who like he tried just work with the
(35:42):
same half dozen fonts, and so at least for certain things,
that's what I try to do too. And when I'm
designing something like a booklet, some of these blu rays
I've done eight page booklets. I've done two hundred page books.
Some fonts are easier to read than others. Some fonts,
even if the size is the same, take up more
room than others, So it depends on how much space
you have. You know, seraphs are easy to read than
(36:05):
saying seraph's. You know, I always try to do a
dark background over light instead of light over dark, because
you know, one's easier than the other. And it also
depends on the movie itself. You know, if it's a
horror movie, I might use a certain font versus if
it's a romantic comedy, just because some fonts have that.
(36:28):
I don't want to give them personality here, but yeah,
you know, some fonts look friendlier than others. I guess
even Adobe and some of these websites categorize them like this.
These fonts are fun, you know, these are serious and
so on.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
I'm sure you've seen it.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
But there's that famous SNL skit that Papyrus try and go, oh, yeah,
that's one of my favorite just SNL things, because he's
just so obsessed with that one font and like the.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Brilliant the amat.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Yeah, yeah, that's what That's what it reminds me of,
is just that level of obsession about why why would
you use that font for that movie.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Right. But the quick example I use, I did a
poster for this short film early on that these guys
on YouTube did. I think it's actually called porn Star,
and it's just like a little ten minute sketch. A
guy he's dating this girl. He doesn't know it, but
all of his friends kind of recognize her. Guess why,
(37:24):
you know. But it's like, I'm going to give this
a you know, if the title is porn Star, I'm
going to make the font look very classy, you know,
for the contrast of it and with the posters. If
if it's a very simple image, I'll probably use a
crazier font. If the image is crazy and crowded and
there's a lot of people or characters, whatever, then I'll
(37:45):
use a simpler, easy to read font. You know. So again,
KNT you know? It was one of my teachers always
like to say, you know, contrast, and it's true. But
again that's also something you learn as you go and
you see what other people are doing and you know,
get inspired.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Have you seen the new I think it was released
a day a couple of days ago, the new Captain
America poster.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Yes, I did the illustrated one.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
Yes, it's the one that's that looks vintage. It looks
like a painting.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Yeah, no, I I like it. And it was done
by an agency in LA called Gravelus, and I haven't
worked for them, but they do great work, and often
with the posters, especially the bigger you know, Marvel DC.
You know, they're contractual obligations. People wonder, you know, why
is that actor's head so big, or how come the
actors are in one order but the names are reversed.
(38:35):
It's contractual more like, you know, even down to this
person must be twenty five percent larger than the next person,
or this name must be ten percent larger than this name.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
It's in those actors' contracts on marketing and stuff.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I'm assuming, yeah, I'm trying to. I mean, there are
lots of examples. But I know there was a Spider
Man poster a while ago that you know, mainstream publications
were writing about because it didn't look good, although I
think in that case it just I don't know something
about it. It looked unfinished. But yeah, if you see a
poster and it's two people and the names are above them,
(39:13):
but the names are flipped because you know, the image
looks better, but contractually, you know, actor one has to
be listed before actor two, even if the image they're flipped.
But they're good. You know a lot of people trash
movie posters today, but they are still good ones being done.
(39:35):
I'm not an illustrator. And what a lot of these
artists do, like like a lot of the posters we
grew up with, like the classic Star Wars, Indiana Jones posters.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
The Last Dark How it's like a drawing. Do they
really draw it then, like do a graphic out of it?
Or is there everything computer generated?
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Well? No, there are things that are still drawn okay
and illustrated. And there are a lot of you know,
a lot of the designers the posters we sort of
grew up with, Drew Streusen, John Alvin, Richard Amsell, Bob Peek, brilliant,
brilliant artists. But there's still people doing that now It's
maybe not as common. There's a designer who I've had
(40:14):
the fortune to meet a few times in la A
Keiko Sterenberger. She could do everything, and she's super cool
and super nice and anytime she shares a poster, I
look at it and I'm just like, damn it, why
didn't I think of that plus with posters having And
I only interned for a few months at this agency,
but you know, I just remember, oh, we're doing posters
(40:37):
for this title, and they gave me a book of
one hundred rejected concepts, and it's like, and what are
the odds I'm going to come up with something that's
better than these hundred great ideas that weren't used, you know,
because often it's people within the same agency competing for
the job. It's different agencies competing for the job. Right,
(40:58):
you know, this is bigger, high profile, you know, titles,
And then sometimes the final poster comes out and it's
beautiful and you want to frame it on your wall.
Other times it's like that's it. But a lot of
work still goes into them. But we have so many
specially higher profile stuff. Again, there's a lot of cooks
in the kitchen with the home video stuff I do.
(41:22):
It depends I'm doing an indie I'm designing a blu
ray layout booklet, etc. For this indie horror film. The
filmmaker is very much alive. She'll probably have comments. But
I recently worked on this movie Cruising for Arrow Video.
William Freakin, the director, passed away, so didn't have to
(41:43):
worry about, you know, his input. Just as long as
Warner Brothers approved it, then everything was okay. So it varies.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Well, let's talk about your work.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
I just wanted to if you could mention your website
where people can see your work and so to give
a take an overview of some of the concepts you've done.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Yeah, it's Scott Saslo dot com s c O T
T S A. S. L Ow and the links to
my social media's is on there as well. And yeah,
it's cool to be able to go back and you know,
look at the stuff sometimes. And that's actually another thing
I told some of the design students, because when you're
(42:25):
starting out, all you have is your student portfolio, unless
you have some other stuff that you've done on the side,
or if you have a job while you're a student
or an internship. But I told them, you know, at
some point you're going to redo your portfolio and you
won't have any student work in it anymore. You know,
it'll happen eventually and you won't notice, and then then
you'll notice, and it's like you're a working graphic designer
(42:48):
and you don't have to Yeah, depend on your student
stuff anymore.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
I know we are close to our time, Scott. Yeah,
But one final question to close up today's team of
self improvement and finding happiness and what you do the
graphic design that you do now and related work, is
that your happy place? Are you satisfied doing that? I
(43:12):
mean yours is more mentally satisfying, am I Cort?
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Yes? And super quick example Arrow again, same company, Arrow Video.
They're a boutique video label based in the UK. One
of the guys there's producing this big Japanese a box
set of Japanese films, and I'm doing the layout and
booklet for it. Someone else is doing the artwork. They say, hey, Scott,
(43:40):
are you available to work on this? And I wrote yes,
It'll be nice to have something to work on during
the holidays. And then as soon as I hit sand
most people would be like, like work during the holidays,
are you crazy? Like why this is your time off?
But I wanted it and I want to work on it.
In fact, I'm probably going to be working on it
(44:01):
when we're done here actually, even though it's a Saturday afternoon.
But I like it. I like doing it and getting
lost in it.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
Is there a deadline you need to submit your work by.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
For this particular project. No, I don't even have all
the material yet. And the few clients of mine who
give me a lot of my work, the deadlines are
usually pretty flexible or I don't even get one because
they know, like, oh it's Scott, he'll have something for
us in a few days and there's plenty of time.
But I enjoy it. And again, getting good clients that
(44:36):
also comes with time and experience. But you know, when
they're good clients, don't let them go.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Yeah, one d percent.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
That's something that a lot of people that work for
themselves have that feeling of is knowing the good clients
from the bad clients, right, and you know that experience
and dealing with someone who can communicate well can give
you good feedback and sort of like you can build
on that, right. That's so, that's such an interesting concept
that you only learned by working for yourself, is knowing
people and knowing that experience.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
It's Scott.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah, I know we've taken up a bunch of your
time this afternoon. It's been so great to speak with you.
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Yeah, this was a blast. We'll have to I could
have done three times this long, but yeah, we'll have
to do it again. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
Would definitely love to have you back, Scott if you
want to, if you want to talk to us again. Totally, totally,
so once again, thanks Scott, thank you for your time today,
thanks for coming and talking to us. Thank you Rob
for your time as well.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Thank you both.
Speaker 4 (45:30):
Until next time you guys, have a good one.
Speaker 3 (45:32):
Thank you you too.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
Have a good Saturday, guys, by now.
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