last year we had the pleasure of flying into node fest 2019 on our plugin
everything private jet we flew with Ben Marriott, who is a famous Sydney
freelancer and Youtuber as well as Andrew Embury who worked on such cool
things as Happy Tree Friends Family Guy we did experience some turbulence on
that flight so please excuse the bumps and bruises yeah we are joined here with
two very special guests one of them is Andrew Embry the other is Ben Marion
so Andrew for those who don't know can you give us a 30 second elevator pitch
of three why on what you do oh shit I've been doing animation now for almost 20
years working for clients Google Apple Microsoft Facebook you name it
Disney you name it I've done it and then give us your introduction
I'm a 2d motion designer and I teach a motion design stuff on YouTube I'm a
huge teacher that's right I make make the tutorials if you want to find out
how to animate grain in six different ways
well that's come to me I'll show you how to do it right now grain it is thanks
big I have a question here that ties into that what is a sort of trend in the
motion graphics world that you love and one that you despise um no much I
despise I think one's I think maybe getting a little tired I like certain
character animation tropes like really small heads really long limbs that kind
of thing but it kind of it's an easy way to make a character look a bit cool and
different so I don't one say I despise it but I think it's time to maybe evolve
that a little bit but you know some people take the grain and then turn it
up to eleven and then everything bad grain can be very bad I think you got to
be tasteful with your grain and that's hard to know and you you just gotta
practice and try different methods and see what works different methods I teach
a lot all the methods if one know how to do grain right he come to me hi I'm Ben
Mariette I'm gonna show you how I made this animated grain effect from projects
like these what is
trend I love I love mixed-media I think it's great I think it's refreshing and
it's definitely like elevating everybody's game because obviously it's
you have to be so good at so many things to be able to make it actually pull off
the one thing I really hate yeah I have to like echo that like honestly just
like those like long limp characters are just like like the it's the generic
rubber hose look you can do better there's so much more out there for
character designs than just the tubular look and that's the things like you can
do so much and there's so much like other tools if they're like do it for
example you can rego different types of limbs for example or you can just
animate them so that cube you look is that like a rubber Harz preset II look
and that's why it always looks the same or are they all in the same tutorial and
that's why it looks like yeah that's right so that's probably a really good
way to look at it like it's probably like that template look that's obviously
that's so popular because everybody sees how easy it is to be able to pull off
and the aesthetic is appealing like it is so that's the thing is like it's just
an easy quick fix definitely I kind of I worry that you know I'm not helping push
people in this this regard I feel like well you know I want I'd like things to
not look like just the modern motion design trends but I'm kind of they're
more of a problem than a solution in that regard because people want to learn
how to do the modern motion design trend because they want to do them those
videos probably will get more views so like well I want to make the channel
sustainable so I kind of want to give people what they want but also people
need to get what they need so I like to structure my tutorials I believe from
Nick from greyscale gorilla called it delivering chocolate-covered broccoli
like he teased them with something they want within the thumbnail of the Tuck
thumbnail in the title but then you sneak in some useful work flow
techniques I started YouTube wave after the ad finish that happened last year
you got so many subs you've been doing that for like forever no I started in
March we're going for eight months now
and yeah the ad pocalypse didn't hit me and that kind of rebounded after a few
months from from what I hear from what for all the war stories I hear from
people it's certainly not easy to earn an income on YouTube especially when
you're starting like what I'm on my channels be managed I
have like four months now I think and you know that you know add revenue or
load can't cover anyone's cost of living unless you've in the millions of
subscribers of course which is why you're getting a lot of the wall
youtubers pop up huge does and yeah like between that and sponsorship like I work
freelance so I freelancer that covers you know all my cost of living and
because I'm its flexible I can take some months off to work on YouTube stuff and
like well bank accounts getting pretty low let's go do some freelance and you
know build up that momentum and hope hopefully they'll kind of as that
YouTube revenue kind of picks up the freelance will go down and yeah
definitely I definitely just want to you know make lots of fun stuff people on
YouTube essentially I want to make a create just out of making personal
products that's pretty decks I just want to make
the animation that I want to make and hopefully make that sustainable by you
know having an audience and sponsorship and and things like that that's the
that's the goal to just you know really do the stuff I like avoid clients avoid
avoid feedback then you want to make a video backgrounds exactly you have to
feel like app in the market so that people get get what they desire yeah
even I watch his very high production video on gern it will fill you in
it's a very always a very efficient way of getting intoxicated
that's it that's what it is I actually heard about this yes yeah so like that
video how long did that green video take that took about four four weeks to make
from start to finish I made over eight months so that was no
that was when I was freelancing was my first year freelance I wanted to make
sure I had a personal project to do in the downtime so when so I didn't just
get you know cabin fever and start fretting and falling over with anxiety
about I'm never gonna get a job again like alright well I've got a project to
work on this will keep me busy and you know your first year freelancing thank
you and I did you know worked in the industry for a little bit before that so
I wasn't you know just hopping out of the womb animating like that like took a
while to get up to that