Mack Garrison 4/28/25 Mack Garrison 4/28/25

Barry Kelly Interview

Mack Garrison and Barry Kelly talk a little shop in this interview with the Emmy award-winning artist and director at Titmouse, who shares his journey in the animation industry. From his early influences and experiences growing up in Nebraska to his work on major projects like Star Wars and Star Trek, Barry discusses the evolution of animation, the tools and techniques used in the industry, and the importance of storytelling. He reflects on his inspirations, the challenges of the animation process, and the significance of creating content that resonates with both his younger and older selves.

Takeaways

Barry Kelly describes himself as a 'nerd from Nebraska' who found his passion in animation.
He emphasizes the importance of being of service through entertainment and creativity.
Barry's journey into animation was influenced by his love for comics and cartoons.
He highlights the cultural impact of shows like The Simpsons on generations of viewers.
Working on Star Wars allowed Barry to channel the feelings those movies gave him as a child.
The animation industry is driven by people and collaboration, not just rules and guidelines.
Barry discusses the challenges of getting mature animated content accepted in the U.S. market.
He reflects on the importance of flexibility in animation tools and techniques.
Barry draws inspiration from comic book artists and filmmakers like Paul Verhoeven and Ridley Scott.
He believes in the importance of making content that resonates with both his eight-year-old and eighty-year-old selves.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Barry Kelly and His Journey

02:56 The Impact of Animation on Personal Identity

05:58 Working on Iconic Franchises: Star Wars and Beyond

08:53 Navigating the Animation Industry: From Nebraska to LA

11:58 Early Career Experiences and Learning Opportunities

15:11 The Evolution of Animation Tools and Techniques

18:03 Flexibility in Animation Production: Tools and Techniques

18:59 The Evolution of Animation Tools

20:48 Experiences at Titmouse Animation Studio

22:06 Dramatic Storytelling in Animation

25:03 Memorable Projects and Personal Highlights

27:10 Balancing Artistic Integrity and Industry Demands

29:03 Quality Assurance in Animation Production

33:05 Inspirations and Influences in Animation

36:52 New Chapter

Transcript:

Mack Garrison (00:00)

Hey, what's up everyone? Mack Garrison here, co-founder of Dash Studio, and I'm excited to be back with another speaker series interview. And we got the talented Barry Kelly, who's a nerd from Nebraska, self-described nerd, who also loves to be an Emmy award-winning, who happens to be an Emmy award-winning artist working in animation for the past 18 years. Director at Titmouse cartoons, his credits include Star Wars, Galaxy of Adventures, Son of Zorn.

and Venture Bros. He recently wrapped up the fifth season of the hit sci-fi series Star Trek Lower Decks for CBS Paramount Plus. Welcome to the show, Barry. So glad to have you here.

Barry (00:34)

Hey, thanks for having me, Mack Morning on this side.

Mack Garrison (00:36)

feel like,

my gosh, that's right. You're up bright and early. I'm on my third cup of coffee. So if that comes through in the interview, you know why. I think it's first, we need to just like acknowledge like how cool our lives are right now. Cause we're sitting here, you're coming to speak at the Dash Bash Animation Conference and we're gonna talk shop and just kind of hang out like pretty neat that this is our job in middle of the day for me at least on a Tuesday.

Barry (00:45)

Yeah.

Yeah,

I I'm always like, am I, am I doing, am I useful or I don't know how to do anything else. You know, like, I don't know, like I know how to draw pictures and I know how to, you know, make like like a, like a cool image. And I'm like, I'm so into like comics and toys and all these things. And I'm like, I hope, I hope I can entertain somebody so I'm useful, you know, that being of service is something I subscribe to, you know.

Mack Garrison (01:21)

I saw the news come out recently that 2024 YR4 asteroid that could hit us. don't know if you saw this in like 10 years. was a random, yeah, there's a random asteroid and it's plummeting towards us. I think there's like a one in 42 chance that it hits us. And I was thinking, I was like, you know, if there was like a shelter, know, Greenland style like shelter or something like that, we would not make it. Like they are not looking for animators to join the team. Maybe if we were architects or someone in

Barry (01:27)

No, no, I'm assuming it's happening all the time. This is what I assume.

Mack Garrison (01:49)

you know, healthcare space.

Barry (01:50)

Or in those scenarios,

I always think like, you know, you have to do a tally of like, what can you do? What can you do? What can you do? And like, I can build lodging, can build, I can hunt, I can do this. And then it gets to me and it's like, I can draw and they're just like, your food. And they're just gonna, you know, I'll just be the thrown in the fridge.

Mack Garrison (01:56)

Right.

You're like I can make a good joke from time to time on occasion

Barry (02:09)

Yeah, yeah, on occasion. It's

quantity over quality though.

Mack Garrison (02:14)

So funny, it feels so accurate. But yeah, no, you're right though. I mean, we are in a cool space. It is lucky to be able to do what we do. I'm always curious how folks end up here because like animation has a multitude of different routes from like more of the entertainment space, production space. mean, there's a lot. When did that moment kind of hit you where you were like, oh, animation's kind of like the direction I need to go?

Barry (02:37)

I always feel like there's like a group of wannabe comic book artists that got sucked up by the animation industry and I'm definitely one of those. There are comic book artists that were legitimate that actually got published for real that became sucked in the animation industry but I'm definitely one of the ones that's like I can draw kind of. I like film, you know, I like all these things and like you know when I moved out to LA it was kind of like my talents that I could you know that I was okay at.

Mack Garrison (02:56)

Mm-mm.

Barry (03:06)

which was kind of drawing, kind of film stuff, kind of like led me to like the combination of the two, which is animation. And I don't know why I always think that, like, I never thought I'd get animation, because I've loved cartoons just as much as I loved anything else. Like, Simpsons and Batman were huge in my life. And think Simpsons kind of like probably has like a huge effect on more people than we realize, just because it's been on for so long. There's generations now. Yeah, there's just like...

Mack Garrison (03:21)

Mm.

my gosh, my childhood. Yeah, it was like

after dinner it was like Simpsons were on, you know, my household.

Barry (03:33)

Yeah, it's like reruns.

Yeah, reruns of the Simpsons was worth it. And like now like there's generations of kids who know a Simpsons I don't know, you know.

Mack Garrison (03:40)

yeah, which is really interesting in this new, not to talk too much about the marketing side of it, but like, you know, you have these like worlds, like, you know, Disney has a Simpson ride. There's the old Simpson shows, there's the characters and how all these people are coming into the world building from different areas. It's just kind of wild and bonkers this day and age.

Barry (03:44)

That's fun.

Yeah, I think that was something else that triggered my... I guess I'm trying to think what was a good example where you saw the movie of something, like maybe Transformers or something, and then you saw the toys and you're like, well, that's kind of different, but it's the same. And you kind of realize that there's like... When they become a different medium, it's almost like you get a different expansion of that IP or that idea. And it's really cool to see how it's translated.

Mack Garrison (04:08)

Mm-hmm.

Barry (04:26)

I think early on, like, wasn't ever like, there was no like definitive version of anything, like all the, all the like, uh, whatever came out kind of became your, you know, Oh, that's what they look like as action figures. That's what they look like is, is that it's like, is like that, that whole world that you're talking about, it kind of just adds to it.

Mack Garrison (04:36)

Right.

Was it,

were you growing up, were you a big Star Wars fan? I'm just thinking about, you you got to work on like Star Wars, Galaxy of Adventures, these kind of like little shorts, like how did growing up being a big fanboy of Star Wars kind of, Star Wars kind of translate into that.

Barry (04:45)

yeah.

Yeah.

I mean with

those shorts it's kind of like, there's a certain feeling that those movies gave you, gave me, and that's kind of what I was trying to channel. What's pretty special about, at least for me with those shorts, usually if you're making something of Star Wars today you have to expand on it or maybe go back in the prequel origins of Star Wars and what was fun is I got to just mess with the three characters that I...

love in Star Wars, which was Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca, and Darth Vader and stuff. Not many people get to just play with those characters. what I got to do was make the way those feet, the feelings that those movies gave me, how important those fights or those confrontations felt. I got to do that and make those animations feel that way. I made them feel a little bit more epic or more dramatic than maybe they would.

watch the movie, a little bit, you know, they're shot with real people. And then this one, I get kind of get to do like, the excited animated, dramatic version that just capturing like how they felt to me as a kid. those are special.

Mack Garrison (05:58)

With something like that,

a brand that's like has so much history, right? For so many people, when you get on a project like that, I don't know exactly what the terminology would be, but like a character Bible, for lack of a better word, like are there things like you get that, you're like, all right, these are do's and don'ts, you can explore your take on it here, but you gotta be honoring this piece of it. Did you get a lot of that with that project?

Barry (06:20)

little bit, yeah. It's more the people that you're working with that kind of become that Bible. There was a guy named Mack Martin who is kind of like the Star Wars Bible in a way. But they all kind of know, they want you to know and don't know about what else is going on so that you don't step on anybody else's toes. It's very much people driven. the Lucasfilm, it's a story group that they call it. And they're all pretty great. they're all, no one is really like,

You can't do this or like you can't go too far like it's I was kind of surprised at how much like like I'm like Can I cut off someone's hand in this you know like they did it they did it in the movie? But can we do it and they're like yeah, well it happened so we can do it like it's like they're very much about like It what encapsulates Star Wars and other properties is like you know you need it to be dramatic when it's dramatic You need to be scary when it's scary you need it to be funny when it's funny and it's like as long as you're pushing those moments where they're supposed to be they're all important and I think like

Mack Garrison (07:00)

Yeah, right.

Barry (07:18)

Yeah, as far as like the Bibles and whatnot, they there's so much, like you said, there's so much history. There's so much 30. mean, at that point, there's 35 years of books and and and comics and everything. And there's definitely like it was after Disney. So there was definitely like a chunk of stuff that like is called legacy. And that's the stuff I grew up on. like they're still they're still trying to like, you know, they don't want to.

Mack Garrison (07:30)

Right, yeah.

Mmm, true.

Barry (07:45)

completely exercise it from the speed from they're kind of like we don't like like weaving it into some of the the the new Disney like post Disney canon and stuff. So there is like a little bit of that going on but they kind of the story group is kind of like the ones who kind of keep everything on track as best they can which sounds like a stressful task because I don't know how you please everybody when you're in that kind of like yeah.

Mack Garrison (07:54)

right, sure.

Yeah, a hundred percent. can't write. I mean, there's no

way you're just trying to massage it the best you can. That's so wild. Yeah. I was obsessed with star wars as a kid. I had like, one of my friends were like collecting baseball cards. had like the star wars customizable card game. Like I don't even know. Like I don't even people realize that that was a thing, you know, just investing tons of money into it. You know, it's like sitting in a drawer somewhere. Maybe it'll be valuable at some point.

Barry (08:10)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

yeah?

There

were tournaments, people played that, just like Pokemon, know, that was a big thing. And your friend group, yeah, you might be the only one.

Mack Garrison (08:31)

I know, but you're like one of five people who knows that that exists. Yeah, you're right.

All right. So tell me this, you you grew up in Nebraska. I wouldn't exactly say thriving animation scene, but I don't know, you know, Nebraska could be, ⁓ how did you end up making the move and saying like, cool, I'm gonna go out to LA or like, was it school and full sale that really sent you down that direction? Like, how'd you kind of go down that path and get out into the industry?

Barry (08:53)

I was, I always had some encouraging art teachers growing up. But what was kind of like the trigger for me was in high school, there was like kind of like a lottery grant to our school. Our school was pretty good. Like they had like some of the computer labs, like they had PCs and something that I think that was new to me. Like I was used to every school having Macs. So we did have PC labs and stuff. So like we could, we could mess around with Photoshop and stuff. Excuse me. But

Mack Garrison (09:11)

sure.

Barry (09:18)

One thing that happened in my senior, like junior year of high school was our school got like a lottery grant and they created like a technological school. they had, they had an art school. had like, cannot, like they called it a zoo school. It's like a science kind of magnet school, but they had this tech, this technology one and it had like three brand new computer labs. And like some of it was for like coding and learning like, um, Oh gosh, Cisco that stuff. And like, and then the other one was like,

Mack Garrison (09:31)

Nice.

⁓ sure, yeah, okay.

Barry (09:45)

I think they called it like creative or arts program or something like that. it's pretty much a computer lab that had like Photoshop, Final Cut, After Effects and Flash. This was like Macromedia Flash. This is Final Cut like two. Yeah, Like Photoshop was like six and like our teacher actually wrote the technical manual for Final Cut Pro, but like

Mack Garrison (09:54)

sick.

Yeah.

Yeah. Final Cut's like, we're glad to be open right now and working.

Barry (10:16)

It was generally kind of teachers who also didn't really know the software either so much. So it was, it was a lot of us just fucking like messing around and just screwing up like, like in, in, in the programs like crazy. And eventually like, I don't know how we wrangled ourselves to make some video projects, but we did that and kind of like learned, you know, in high school, like a very shitty pipeline of, you know, recording on high eight digitizing it, adding special effects to it and green screen chroma key stuff.

Mack Garrison (10:40)

nice.

Barry (10:45)

And it got us some like stupid awards that, you know, like we won like an iPod, like the first iPod, the very first iPod, which is still, which is still the best iPod I think I've ever had. It's like five gig. It like lasted, had the longest battery. It worked the best. Yeah. Yeah. So that was like our prize at the time, but that kind of like, kind of like gave me just some tools that I could, like I could work with now. Like, you know, you got the iPhone and you got, you know, the

Mack Garrison (10:51)

You got it, nice, 1. ⁓ my gosh, 100%.

The the scroll wheel, the tactile nature of it, 100%.

Barry (11:14)

Final Cut on the iMovie and all that stuff. yeah. Yeah, yeah, I can't believe it. Yeah, like all the face swapping and all the effects and stuff like, like, but that kind of gave me just like a good tactile knowledge of like how to use software and stuff and like what was universal between programs. And then after that, like it was like, okay, I literally saw Full Sail in the comic book.

Mack Garrison (11:16)

I mean, TikTok is probably more powerful than what we were learning Final Cut on the old days, right?

Yeah, crazy.

Hmm.

Barry (11:40)

Like they had put ads in comic books. Yeah. And I was like, well, this is everything I want to do. I'll just go there. And then that's literally how that was my decision maker. I was terrible in school. I was never going to go to like a fancy, you know, on education. That is true. That is 100 % true. I just remember that now.

Mack Garrison (11:41)

⁓ no way.

That's amazing.

School for you had to come out of a comic book.

That's so funny, I love that. You struck a memory for me. I'm jealous at least you had teachers who kind of knew what they were doing to kind of direct you in high school, at in the early days. My first animation experience, this is not even a joke, this is literally my first animation experience. It was PowerPoint that you could adjust. So in PowerPoint, you could adjust so the slide playback was like 0.1 second. So I'd made this huge PowerPoint deck and just flickered through the slides to get the image. I know, so credit to my teacher for coming up with that. It was a flip book.

Barry (12:17)

yeah.

That is so smart. That's a flipbook. That's so

smart. That's awesome. Wow.

Mack Garrison (12:25)

was a digital flipbook. That was the first introduction to animation. I was like,

this is kind of cool. Maybe I'll do some more of this stuff. Super funny. So you ended up at Full Sail and then graduate. And did you go directly like kind of into the entertainment space out there? Like intern, get a job, did you go freelance? Like how'd that kind of roll?

Barry (12:30)

That is awesome. Never thought of that.

Yeah, so I went to Full Sail for a year and me and my buddy graduated and a bunch of guys moved out to LA, got in house together, just invaded each other's space. And then, I mean, I didn't know what to do out there. You're just trying to make friends, know? It's hard to do that. But one of my first jobs, mean, some of the crappier gigs I had was like I was an extra in...

Mack Garrison (12:53)

Sure

Yeah.

How nice.

Barry (13:07)

the background of a few shows, was kind of funny. I could tell mom I was going to be in the show and she'd catch me in the background of like Joan of Arcadia or something back in the day. But that was still interesting. I went to Full Sail to learn cameras and productions. So was still kind of getting to just watch them make stuff, even when I was a boring background artist. And then I kind of did the same thing. I was almost like an extra in video game industry. I became a video game tester, which was just like

Mack Garrison (13:16)

Lazy.

Yeah.

⁓ wow.

Barry (13:37)

you an office job, unlike the worst office job, because it was like you're, you're just shoved in, you know, offices, cold, you know, hospital feeling.

Mack Garrison (13:46)

I have vision

of Grandma's Boy. When I think of video game testers, Grandma's Boy, that sounds like an amazing job. And it sounds like in an office park, basically.

Barry (13:49)

I wish. Yeah.

And I, yeah,

think, I think, I think that that job does exist, but it's like, it's like, well, I learned like, if you were a game tester, if you work for the publisher, you're like, it's like 500 to you just playing the game. They just need hours of the game. But if you're with the developer, you're getting to talk to them and the artists and also, and you're like, oh, that's like where like, if you were, if you could work at the developers, that's where like, if you're a video game.

wannabe talent and like when that's that's your pad like you want to work with those guys because then you're actually and the publishers is just kind of like you're the guy just reading the book you know just just reading everything making sure like spelling yeah you're just bodies for the for the for the grinder or whatever but but no i while that while that was going on i was trying to get better at drawing and i got into i got an internship with a place called animax and that was like flash at cartoons like like like like back in the day and it was like

Mack Garrison (14:17)

Mm-hmm.

I see.

Yeah, it makes sense, right?

wow, okay.

Barry (14:45)

They were technically probably a competitor to Titmouse. There was like four or five like flash studios that were pretty big out there and Animax is one of them. And I was just doing, I was a story intern drawing like really bad, like revisions to storyboards on paper to, for some like national geographic shorts, like little, just, it was all like, it was either like, like websites for Disney or like, you know, like

Mack Garrison (14:47)

Mm-hmm.

Barry (15:11)

medical cartoons to teach kids about asthma, like all that like kind of like medical stuff. But it was all like practical work, like I was editor, compositor, I learned like I couldn't really draw, so I couldn't really animate that well. So that was learning from like animators who could animate very well as learning from story artists who could draw pretty well. But I kind of became like the de facto like compositor editor guy for them, like because of that all that work that I learned in high school, so I was still doing the same thing.

Mack Garrison (15:13)

yeah.

Yeah,

well, essentially, it's kind of all came together as kind of this generalist, right? Being able to do all these different things for the shop, you probably got a lot of exposure and trying different stuff there too, which is cool.

Barry (15:46)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, like, I guess I felt like definitely that whole jack of all trades, master of none thing. Cause I was like, it was like what I, and I think, I think I wasn't sure if I was going to stick in animation just cause I wasn't doing the art side. And like, and also we weren't doing like super cinematic storytelling, which is what I wanted to do. And, ⁓ 2008 happened. That was like the housing boom and like people got laid off and you know, I was kind of like editing on freelance and all that stuff.

Mack Garrison (15:51)

Yeah, sure.

Right.

Yep.

Barry (16:12)

I'm still trying to draw and I but I just hunkered down I was like I gotta get good at drawing and I like took like two years of like workshops like sculpting drawing all that stuff

Mack Garrison (16:19)

Sure. Today

they made it through like, cause I mean, flash kind of had its heyday and then kind of dissolved, right? Like did, were they still around the navigating? Were you there when they were navigating flash basically?

Barry (16:24)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think

they are still technically around, but it was like, at the time, it was like everyone realized that like, I think everyone learned like, why are we making websites in Flash? Like, why would we do that? Like there's whatever Web 2.0 came out at the time, or HTML2, I don't remember. And I think a big thing with them was like, they were making...

Mack Garrison (16:38)

Yeah, right.

Barry (16:49)

Everyone wanted to make a virtual world like for their toy. Like if you bought a toy or whatever, you go on here and you can make your avatar and whatnot. you know, it's kind of, it's not too different from today, but like everyone was making them in flash. And I think that was really when they realized like, we don't need to make these in flash. Like you can make them in something else or something smaller.

Mack Garrison (16:51)

right.

Yeah.

I wrote.

Well, Flash was so insane.

I mean, I remember doing Flash, learning it myself, and I'd open up the program for stuff that I worked on all day yesterday, and it was just gone. was just like, wait a minute, what? So brutal over the years.

Barry (17:14)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓ the crashes would be so bad. And like, it's

like, and we're still using I mean, it's changed to animate. But like, we've we've tipmouse is still using it. We still use like, you know, it's funny that they never used to like, I feel like animators were like the bastard children to the Adobe or to the Macromedia Flash suite, essentially. Yeah, right. And now it's like supposed to be made for us. But I feel like the animate yet now they're like, they have they have no

Mack Garrison (17:22)

Sure, right.

I think we still might be, honestly.

Barry (17:42)

There's nobody else using it except for the animators. now like, like they have to. Yeah. Yeah. But, ⁓ you know, whatever code they used, like after effects flash and all that stuff, like whatever code is still in there is still super flexible and still, you can still do like a lot of amazing things with it. So it's, it's, it's, it's no wonder like we're still using it.

Mack Garrison (17:43)

Right. They're like, all right, I guess we'll add some features you guys want to hear. Whatever.

You know,

a random sidebar question because we kind of experimented this a little bit. You know, what we do a lot at the studio is a little bit more on the corporate side, but every now and then we get to do some sell work. And for a while we experimented with animate, we did harmony, we did TV paint. Do you feel like from Titmouse's perspective, like have y'all leaned in is is animate where y'all want to be? Do think that's like the best industry standard or do you feel like flexible that all three of those kind of have their time of day in certain instances?

Barry (18:16)

Mm-hmm.

I think it's a B, it's exactly what you said. I think maybe at some point, animate was gonna be like the all in thing. I think with, we do animation in house, we do animation overseas, there's no like one way we do it. And I think that's kind of the, maybe that's the special sauce, is like learning to be flexible. Cause I've had projects where I've got an animator animating in Clip Studio, I've got an animator animating in...

Mack Garrison (18:49)

Yeah, true.

Barry (18:59)

I've got one animating in Flash. the kind of, I mean, what I learned from that is like, oh, anybody can animate in everything they want as long as we can bring it together and kind of clean it up in color in the same way. Like once we do that, like we can get it into, you know, After Effects or whatever final suite you need. like, yeah, generally like if you need that talent, like the talented animators, you might need them to work in whatever they need to work in so that they can work as fast as possible. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Mack Garrison (19:07)

Yeah.

Right, because you just need them to move quickly and whatever they feel comfortable in. Because oftentimes,

like I guess with deadlines, it's like, yeah, we can't mess around with trying to learn new things or get people on the same platform. It's like, let's just move and go, right?

Barry (19:28)

Exactly.

Yeah.

And I think, I know that Blender's like has, has burned a lot of excitement being free and grease pencil and stuff, but I still haven't, I know, know some movies and features have been made successfully a hundred percent in Blender, but I know being a big, you know, Tim House is pretty big and it's like, like, I mean, employee wise, like it's big. So it's like, it's hard to move that like boat into something. So we're always trying to find like some small project that we could kind of do a little bit more experimentation on, but.

Mack Garrison (19:36)

Yeah.

Sure. Right. Yeah.

It's interesting,

mean, like even Blender from like a 3D standpoint, know, we were always kind of Cinema 4D that was kind of go to for the more motion graphic work. know, Maya's always been there for like character work, things like that. But it is interesting seeing just like what this newer generation is coming out of school. Like, look, I don't have any money. So I downloaded Blender and this is what I'm making. You're like, wow, that's actually like not too bad. know, Fidelity, this is pretty good, you know.

Barry (20:04)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's as long as you can figure out how to like connect to the other programs that you may need. I think, I think, I think you're in a good, you can, can learn how to use it and make it flexible. That's okay. That's all technical stuff. I get it. I love it.

Mack Garrison (20:23)

Exactly.

Well, I definitely took us down this like 80 D rabbit hole on like on technical stuff. was there. I was interested

in doing so let's go back. All right. So you're, you're out in LA. You're kind of getting this generalist knowledge. Let's fast forward a little bit. Cause I don't want to spoil too much that you might talk about at the bash. ⁓ you get over to tit mouse. ⁓ when did you first arrive at, at tit mouse?

Barry (20:47)

There was a cartoon that they were making called Motor City, which was one created by Chris Panoski, the owner of the studio. It's like a show he's been working on since the late 90s. tried, he used to work at Liquid Television back in the day and he made a show called Downtown. And, you he worked on like Beef and Butt Head and Dari and all that stuff back in the day. But he was, he's been making the show for a while or at least trying to pitch it.

Mack Garrison (20:51)

Mm.

wow.

Yeah.

Barry (21:14)

develop it and some of his creative execs from MTV Liquid Television work at Disney now. And they were like, hey, you still got that Motor City thing kicking around? And instead of like, they used to have cigarettes and tattoos and shit, but now it's like they made it a little bit more kid friendly, but it was like a cool show. It looked amazing. It looked like...

Mack Garrison (21:35)

Sure.

Barry (21:38)

It looked like Robert Valley designs and crazy extreme cars and stuff like super fun, like stuff made for toys, you know? But like all things, I've learned most in this industry is like, it's really hard to get past one season, like first season. So like it only lasted one season. It came out when like the Tron cartoon came out. So it's like another kind of Robert Valley, like two Robert Valley style shows that were coming out.

Mack Garrison (21:42)

awesome.

Yeah.

yeah, that's right.

Barry (22:05)

It was a mix of 3D, 2D, and that was like the, when I started working there and working on that show was kind of when I opened my eyes, like, you can do cool, dramatic stuff in animation. Like I always thought it was like, that's only in anime, which is, not in the US, but that like Motor City was an eye opener just to see like how you could push, you know, storytelling and animation in digital space and flash and all that.

Mack Garrison (22:18)

Right.

You know, it's interesting, like, you know, you're talking about just like how you can be dramatic in animation. Do you feel like the U.S. has kind of lagged behind in that? Like I remember watching like Akira for the first time, you know, and like just being like, holy cow, this is insane, right? It's just not even having an idea that that even like existed. Do you feel like we've been playing catch up into that a little bit compared to internationals? Or do you feel like we've kind of got, you know, caught up now at this point and kind of what we're doing?

Barry (22:42)

yeah.

I mean, I feel like it's just, more of the minority than it is the majority here. Cause it's, it's, it's hard to say we've been playing catch up in that. I just feel like even with lower decks, Star Trek, lower decks, like it's an adult cartoon. It's adult comedy, but like, I feel like, I don't know if it's a cultural thing or what, but there is like the moment someone hears it's a cartoon. It's kind like the checkout. Like it's like, it's, either a kid's thing or it's one those stupid Simpson shows or something like that. like.

Mack Garrison (23:08)

Right.

Mmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Barry (23:26)

There is like a definite, like a more like an envious, like, spectrum of anime and manga that they make over there, like for all, like for kids and for, you know, they can teach you how to cook, you know, like there's anime that'll teach you, you know, how to play tennis, you know? Like there's, there's, there's things that are, there's a, there's a bigger spectrum over there of what's considered, you know, quality animation material or manga material. And I don't know if like,

Mack Garrison (23:38)

Yeah. Right.

Barry (23:56)

I don't know if it's our cultural interests or where we've just trained everyone to say like cartoons or Disney and that's it. I feel like it's a little bit of that because we still have dramatic mature comics. It just feels more like a niche audience thing. I feel like, mean, the more that kids are into...

Mack Garrison (24:02)

Right. Cartoons are for kids or whatever. Exactly.

Barry (24:19)

Like they have more access to anime and manga than we ever have. like it's, it's, it's, there's proof in the pudding that maybe it's just maybe a boomer generational thing or something that like the kids will, who are into all that stuff now will still be into it later. Cause adult swim shows all that stuff. it, still just, it's just a minority. feel like getting mature series off the ground is, is definitely more difficult, but we've done it with, you know, Joe Bennett and scavengers rain and the new casual common side effects is awesome. Like that's kind of, to me, it's all that's.

Mack Garrison (24:33)

yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yes, badass.

Barry (24:48)

That's definitely in the right adult drama. There's drama, it's a comedy too. There's some lights that are shining, some bright lights that shining that are more for that mature animation side.

Mack Garrison (24:59)

Yeah, 100%.

Well, like you alluded to, know, Star Trek lower decks, you know, and like people, it's coming a bit more mainstream in some of those ways as well too, that are bringing more people in. You know, you've worked on, you know, I'm looking at all the different projects that you've touched. I mean, you've done so many cool things. This is kind of a big loaded question because it's hard to pick favorites or anything like that. But I'm just curious, you know, thus far in your, you know, the 18 years or so you've been animating, do you have any like favorite moments or favorite projects you've been able to work on that you're just like, yeah, all this stuff is cool. I'm so proud of everything I've done, but just really especially

like being able to work on this or what I did with this project.

Barry (25:35)

Star Wars was a biggie. It's funny, like Star, Star Trek, Star Wars, like I kind of get into this, there's things that start with Star. But Star Wars and Star Trek were pretty special because like, I feel like you can't be like, you know, there's always the stigma of like, can't be a fan of both or everybody, but am a fan of both. Most people are. And getting to play in the sandbox of both those worlds was pretty incredible. And it's not something I ever thought.

Mack Garrison (25:39)

Mm-hmm.

haha

Sure, right.

Barry (26:03)

would happen, you know, like that's there's still like a bit of that nostalgia member berry stuff happening when I'm when I'm doing that and like just trying to like make like the version that you wanted that you you know, I imagine there's other kids or whatever like that are there. Me now, you know, watching whatever they're consuming now and just like hoping that you're kind of like, you know, trying to set them up or make like those member berries now like for the for what you want them to watch when they're older, maybe inspire them to make stuff that like

Mack Garrison (26:07)

Yeah.

Barry (26:33)

similar, like it's part of them to make it feel, make those properties feel as like magical as they felt to you when you were smaller.

Mack Garrison (26:41)

Yeah, 100 % because I think it's still easy. Even though we're all kids inside and we're operating this play box of animation, which is super fun, there's still the politics of the stuff that we deal with and stakeholders and all sorts of stuff. And so it's easy to feel jaded and being like, fine, whatever, we'll just do X, Y, Z, right? If it just appeases everyone. But you know the 10 year old is like, no, you gotta do this. The guts have to come out of the hand or whatever. Which I do look, yeah, sick, nice, nice, yeah.

Barry (26:53)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Mack Garrison (27:10)

Someone told me one time, know, the best place to be in life. This was actually a quote from my executive producer. So Marin, if you're listening to this, thank you for this. She said the only two people that you need to make happy in your life are, think it's like your eight-year-old self and your 80-year-old self. And I really love that because it's like, you know, the 80-year-old self is probably saying like, look, don't work too hard, relax a little bit. And the eight-year-old self is just like make cool stuff, right? And I feel like with what you're doing, you would echo that sentiment, but I don't know, I'm gonna put you on the spot. Do you think you're impressing your 80-year-old self and your eight-year-old self?

Barry (27:22)

That's good.

I think there's some moments I've done, I'm pretty, I if you're like, if a lot of us are similar, I know that we all have like a lot of anxiety and self-confidence issues and I'm like overthinking every frame of what we're making and overthink, but I think there are some moments where I'm like, I think I did pretty good on that. Yeah, I think so. I mean, there's also like a big asterisk on all of this that's like, our egos are still pushing us to like do this stuff. Like we think we can do this stuff. Like we think we, like I think I can do this. Yeah, I'm the one who can.

Mack Garrison (27:49)

Right.

Yeah.

Barry (28:09)

do this and nobody else would be better at it than me. yeah, they're still like, like, even though they're like all these like manic issues in your brain, they're still a big asterisk that's like, no, I can do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you could do this. Yeah, yeah. I'm the one who's right. You know,

Mack Garrison (28:19)

Yeah, 100%. Well, we

get so caught up in looking ahead on what we wanna do, or when we do look back, it's what we wish we would have done. I think that's a big thing. It's like, I wish I could have done this, but so rarely do we ever be like, yeah, I crushed that. Look how great this is. I'm proud of what I made here and this time and energy I put into it.

Barry (28:27)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, I don't know if you have to like end up rewatching anything you've done in the past and just like, I didn't fix this. I can fix that. my gosh, look at that line thickness. That's way off. Yeah.

Mack Garrison (28:41)

God, yeah.

Oh, 100%.

You you catch like the little error and you're like, did anyone else see that? And you're like, I'm just going to pretend I didn't see that or whatever.

Barry (28:50)

Yeah. Yeah. Or

like, a fan or like an audience member catches something you didn't and it's like, know how many, you know how many we fixed like 180, you know how many, like one, how much stuff we fixed just to mess up that one time, you know?

Mack Garrison (29:03)

I know. ⁓ I know. It happens.

You know, none of us are perfect. You know, and you look at something a million times and you kind of become blind a little bit to it, right? You know, this is a random question for you all. How do you all do like a QA process when you're like shipping stuff? I mean, is it basically like everyone looking through it and like going, are y'all going like frame by frame on stuff to analyze it?

Barry (29:23)

You mean when you say shipping, you mean like shipping stuff to an overseas animation studio to do? Or you mean like, like, or delivering it to like for TV broadcast?

Mack Garrison (29:30)

Yeah,

yeah, let's say delivering for TV broadcasts. Like, so this is like final step before this sucker is like playing to go live. Like, what does that process kind of look like? I'm just so curious.

Barry (29:32)

Yeah.

Yeah, so we call them take ones or take twos, like every time it's just like me, my art director, editor, producer, animation supervisor, where once we kind of get like a full cut of the show, they call it a take one, like when it's a first pass, where it's like every single shot is animated, you know, it's not 100 % there, but it's kind of the first time we're looking at it as a whole piece. We're literally just going shot by shot. Anything anybody sees, like you call it out, like just, we don't want to miss anything.

Mack Garrison (29:50)

Mm-hmm.

Barry (30:05)

I'm calling out probably the most, just being annoying. Lately we've been using Sync Sketch. I don't know if you use that. Yeah, yes. Just going frame by frame and just drawing notes, notes, notes, notes. Got to do this. This is for animation to fix. This is for background to fix. And then the editor on top of that is putting all this stuff together. But we also have a QC department. CBS has a QC department where they're calling us out on like...

Mack Garrison (30:28)

Sure.

Barry (30:31)

more technical errors, they're catching smaller things that we're missing, text errors, things like that. And it's kind of like we do a take one, take two, take three, you know, while we're locking, like where we're all just watching everything over and over again, excuse me, by the time it's come out, we've watched, I don't know, I feel like I've watched those shots all like a thousand times over, you know, like, yeah.

Mack Garrison (30:32)

Hmm.

believe it, because it's hard. Like you watch it for

the 10th, 11th time and you're still trying to like see if you catch anything, right?

Barry (30:56)

Yeah,

and it's like there's three to four hundred shots a show times ten, four thousand, five thousand shots sometimes. We're going through a season. It's like it's hard. there is just like a QC process. Like we also had to do one that was for I don't know if you've had an encounter before. It's called the Harding Test. It's like seizure, like checking to make sure no flashing frames and.

Mack Garrison (31:16)

Yeah, we've done

some stuff through some like ADA compliance with a lot of like websites and things. There's some various pieces that we look into, but that's interesting. So what's the process of that like?

Barry (31:25)

It's, I mean, it's also, I've been working with, worked with it since Disney. think, I forget if it was cause of Pokemon or some project, but it's software. It's essentially like Disney has licensed it or so, or so and so has licensed it. And when we submit it for the final piece, like they submit the whole episode and they kind of just run the whole episode through the software. And it kind of gives you a readout of like, this is red flashing frames. This is like white flashing frames and tents.

Mack Garrison (31:30)

Mm-hmm.

Barry (31:54)

We kind of have to go into After Effects and fix it. We're lucky that we can change it in shots, but there are times where they call it a... Sometimes it's like a post house that just does a blanket fix over everything. like, I don't know, if you ever notice... Yeah, if you never notice on like... You'll see it on like some Netflix shows or maybe a Prime or whatever, you you're streaming where all of a sudden like maybe something goes by fast and it gets weirdly gray. If you ever notice that, you'll be like, oh, that was like a post house. That was a post house seizure fix where they just...

Mack Garrison (31:59)

Yeah, right.

⁓ like a film over something basically.

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Barry (32:22)

kill the contrast until like it passes the test and then it goes back up again.

Mack Garrison (32:26)

Because

they're basically like, yeah, we can send it back to them or we just put this fix on just keep it moving forward and they do that.

Barry (32:31)

Yeah, because sometimes

they might be getting these licensed shows or whatever, like they might have been done a year from now. It could be something from 10 years ago that they're having to do that too. Yeah, yeah. But they could do it better.

Mack Garrison (32:39)

Right?

Right, crazy. ⁓ that's so interesting.

yeah, of course, of course it can, but yeah, that was really interesting. mean, like even on like a smaller level with what we do, I mean, there's similarities, but yeah, I mean, I imagine for broadcasts, especially big broadcast stuff, it's like you've got the whole, the whole like CBS team looking at stuff. You got y'all looking at it. It's just a million different eyes, which is really interesting. Well, we're coming up on time here. I got one more question for you. I'm always so intrigued on.

Barry (33:05)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mack Garrison (33:13)

who some of the people that I'm inspired by, who are they inspired by, right? I mean, there's so many folks coming to the Dash Bash who are gonna be pumped to hear from you what Titmouse has done, what you've been able to do. I'm really curious from your perspective, you know, who are some of the folks either today or even growing up that really inspired you and your work?

Barry (33:30)

The owner of the studio, Chris Pernaski, is a pretty big deal. His attitude, his overall vibe is really good, just as a person, just to try to learn how to be comfortable with people and make them feel comfortable. That's always hard. Like I said, we're all manic artists stuck in their caves and stuff, so it's like, how do I be a person again? So people who are good, you're pretty good at that, just making people feel comfortable. People like that are really inspiring to me.

Artist wise, the comic book greats, dude, it's like, I don't like, I say comic book names, I'm like, I don't know, do people know these people anymore? Arthur Adams, like, was a huge inspiration to me. He's a comic book artist from like, he's still around, he's amazing, but like the heyday was the 80s, 90s. Yeah, yeah, he pretty much like, there's like an X-Men image that's like, it's probably the most repeated.

Mack Garrison (34:13)

Arthur Adams, he was big on X-Men, right? Yeah.

Barry (34:21)

you know, put on t-shirts, put on lunchboxes, put whatever, it's his X-Men, like it's his, it's his X-Men, he's the best. I'm trying to think, I mean, there's the big guys like Jim Lee, all those 90s artists were super important to me. Joe Madiera was like a big X-Men artist for some reason, we're always the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Try to think of, man, there's so many.

Mack Garrison (34:23)

Sure. Okay, nice.

Mm.

Well, X-Men was badass, dude. 100%. Like, that's why for sure.

Barry (34:51)

I mean, there's movies that like completely kind of rock my world and maybe like Paul Verhoeven is one of them, like RoboCop, Alien, Aliens. Like, yeah, like, so like, it's like, and those, yeah.

Mack Garrison (34:56)

Yeah. dude. All the aliens 100 % alien and aliens, dude. That was like I

was obsessed with that and like Predator as a kid like those two I was like sick.

Barry (35:07)

Yeah, Predator, yes.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is super inspiring to me, dude. He's the American dream because he's a guy who came from another country and became a freaking governor and is a movie star. Arnold Schwarzenegger is huge inspiration. But no, those movies like Paul Verhoeven, Ridley Scott, James Cameron, they're all like, I always look at them as directors that like, oh, they show me what I want to see on screen before I know it. Before I know that's what I want to see, there's like...

Mack Garrison (35:31)

Mm, yeah.

Barry (35:34)

There's something satisfying. There's always a lot of payoff in their movies that pays off really well. I think I'm always hoping at the moment to be able to make something as great as them.

Mack Garrison (35:36)

Yeah.

Dude, 100

% in their attention to detail in these pieces and you can tell it's their vision on what they want it to be, which is really good. I'm always so empowered by folks who have such clarity on what they want to make, because it's a really hard thing to do. Like, what is the right decision? What do want to do? Those directors can get in and like, no, it's this, this is the world, this is what's happening. I mean, that's really incredible.

Barry (35:46)

Yeah.

Yeah, you're just hoping for the chance to do that yourself, just to make that clear vision, like you're saying.

Mack Garrison (36:11)

Oh man, well I love it. Well everyone, we've been talking today with Barry Kelly. He's a nerd from Nebraska who also happens to be an Emmy award-winning artist working in animation for the past 18 years. Director at Titmouse makes phenomenal work. Barry, I enjoyed chatting with you so much today. If you want to come see Barry, you still have an opportunity. You can get your Dash Bash tickets June 11th through 13th, 2025. That's this year, believe it or not, it is 2025 in Raleigh, North Carolina. And if you've never been to Raleigh, let me tell you, it is great.

Barry (36:24)

Thanks, man.

you

Mack Garrison (36:36)

It's East Coast. We've got a little edge to ourselves, but we're still tucked in the South. So if you're from the West Coast, you know, we're friendly. It's easy. You've got great food. You'll have a blast. Barry cannot wait to hang with you later on this summer.

Barry (36:47)

Hey, thanks. Can't wait to see y'all. I'm excited. Let's do it.

Mack Garrison (36:49)

Thanks everyone.

Take care.

Mack Garrison 1/25/25 Mack Garrison 1/25/25

Reece Parker Interview

Ahead of his 2025 Dash Bash talk, Reece Parker and Mack Garrison chat about Reece's journey from a self-taught animator to a professional in the motion design industry. He discusses his early passion for drawing, the transition to animation, and the challenges he faced in finding work. Reece emphasizes the importance of mentorship, the need to adapt to industry changes, and the value of genuine passion in attracting clients. He also reflects on his creative influences, the exploration of new avenues like tattooing, and the excitement of future projects.

Takeaways

Reese prefers authenticity over trying to sound cooler.
His journey into animation began with a love for drawing.
He taught himself motion graphics out of desperation.
Cold emailing led to his first freelance job.
Mentorship played a crucial role in his development.
Passion for work attracts clients and opportunities.
Adapting to industry changes is essential for growth.
Inspiration can come from various creative fields.
Tattooing has similarities to motion design in terms of artistry.
The importance of being confident yet humble in new spaces.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Reese Parker

01:43 The Journey into Animation

05:11 From Hobby to Profession

10:44 Finding Mentorship and Guidance

15:32 Adapting to Industry Changes

20:00 Creative Stories and Experiences

22:45 Inspiration and Influences

25:43 Exploring New Creative Avenues

29:55 Looking Ahead to the Future

Transcript:

Mack Garrison (00:00)

Hey, what's up y'all? Mack Garrison here with Dash Studio and boy, do I have a good one for you today. I'm hanging out with a talented Reece Parker doing an interview for our Dash Bash Speaker Series. Reece is incredibly talented, also a nice guy, but Reece is a creative person making art for cool people and businesses, directing, illustrating, animating. He's uneducated, lacks any in-house experience and works way too much and has been riding solo for the last nine or so years.

guessing his way through it and loving every minute of it. I'm just reading that off Reece's bio, but Reece, welcome to the podcast, the video cast. You gotta explain yourself a little bit on that introduction and like why those were the choice of words to start us off.

Reece Parker (00:47)

Yeah, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Mack. I'm excited to chat and just be involved, honestly. I think, yeah, I don't know. The intro is like, I'm a very let my work do the talking kind of a guy, I think. So when it comes down to making a bio, it just felt very real. And I guess that's what I prefer over maybe trying to make myself sound cooler than I am. If I want to look cool, go watch my work. And some people think that makes me look cooler.

You

Mack Garrison (01:17)

Dude,

it is very cool work. And I also just love the authenticity. I think it speaks a lot to your personality. I've been lucky enough to know you now over the last like nine or 10 years that I've been running the studio. But yeah, there's a lot of folks who are listening and this might be their first time finding out who the heck Reece Parker is. So maybe you could just kind of take us back to like some of the early days, you know, like how did you get into animation? What is it?

Reece Parker (01:27)

Yup.

to.

Mack Garrison (01:43)

what part of animation really excites you and what's some of the work you're doing today.

Reece Parker (01:49)

Yeah, good question. Growing up I was always drawing. I feel like I've said this story too many times, I'll abbreviate, but like...

classic kind of creative story. didn't like math. I liked drawing. So there were times like in school, I would maybe fail the math test, but flip it over and draw a portrait of my teacher and they would hang it up on the wall. Like literally that did happen. And I think that that's just like represents kind of my journey growing up. But animation, like we would have sticky notes in class in like second grade and we were doing flip books and I was really into the YouTube stick figure fighting kind

era, you know, I don't know if you remember that. Yeah, that was big, big. So I had Flash and like just kind of dorked around on it when I had time growing up. Among other creative things, I painted grip tape. That's like the stuff you put on top of skateboards. I I would sell that. did paintings and graphite portraiture and just all types of creative stuff. And then I...

Mack Garrison (02:31)

Sick. Excellent. Of course.

yeah, nice.

Reece Parker (02:58)

You know, I was really good at it, but I was also like suburban home, you know, not in like a creative city per se, very like go to college. Just outside of Seattle, a little suburban town called Maple Valley. Yeah, 30 minutes away.

Mack Garrison (03:09)

Sure. Where are you from originally Reece? Where'd you grow up?

Seattle. nice. Excellent.

Shout out to Maple Valley listeners.

Reece Parker (03:19)

Maple Valley.

So I didn't have my eyes on the future of where is the creative work. I was mostly like, I do it because I love it and I probably won't get to do it as I become an adult. And then I just found my way to like...

being intro to motion graphics. Like I saw like a commercial for Coca-Cola or something that I think Seth Eckert did who runs the furrow. So there was morphs and it was like, I was like, whoa, this is cool. Yes.

Mack Garrison (03:39)

Mmm.

yeah.

You're like, whoa, what the hell is this? Like,

what is this?

Reece Parker (03:54)

Exactly. I was like, uh, I want to do that. Whatever that is. And so I learned like exactly that. And I didn't know motion graphics was whiter than just that. was like, that was what I want to do. So I learned After Effects and I learned shapes and I learned kind of those things. And I also brought my years of sketching and drawing and illustrating into kind of that. And then over the years, it sort of shaped my voice, I think, in motion. I don't Yeah.

Mack Garrison (04:21)

that's really cool. mean, like honestly,

I think with our industry, I heard this term from this graphic designer back in the day. His name was like Edward Tufte. And he talks about this like capital T theory, which I really like. It's like, we started this one point and there's like interest. for you could have been illustration. Like I love dueling, love drawing. Then you hit this T, like the capital T part of it. And it's like, Ooh, maybe I can put this in motion. So then you're starting to play around with motion or Ooh, maybe I can direct motion. You're directing. So basically you have all these T's.

Reece Parker (04:37)

Yeah.

Mack Garrison (04:49)

that make you unique. And I think motion design in our industry is probably the best collection of all these capital T's out there with these different backgrounds, different experiences. When did you know that like, like this isn't just a fun hobby, people will pay me for it. Did you have like a first job? Did you like kind of seek it out a little bit?

Reece Parker (04:51)

Yeah.

Well, I mean, again, the time where I ran into motion design, I was at sort of a critical point in just in my personal life. was skateboarding a lot. was graduated from high school. I was not in college or on a path to sort of buff the resume in any way at all. So I was like, once I recognized that, Coke hires artists to do work like this, I was like, okay, I'm just going to do that. And so I worked for like overtime for a

year, like kind of 16 hour days just non-stop just teaching myself out of really like desperation. Because again I'm coming at it like I clean bathrooms at Taco Bell and ride a skateboard. Like this isn't my world. I don't understand this world. So if I can teach myself how to do it and be that good maybe I can get hired. And so at a certain point I had like personal works and like a little portfolio built of no client work whatsoever and I'm just

just cold emailing like jobs off of job boards, not even motionographer, I don't even know that exists yet. It's like indeed and like other general job boards like I could do the work, I could do it and then finally like somebody hired me freelance for like 20 bucks an hour. I didn't know what a day rate was, I didn't know how to charge, I knew nothing. Yeah, yes.

Mack Garrison (06:28)

Sick.

didn't know the process, know anything. You were like, they just need an animation. I gotta make this sucker

for them.

Reece Parker (06:36)

Yes,

and they literally held my hand through it. I think because I was so cheap, they taught me how to do some of it. was really, it's a small little agency in New York. I forget the name of it now, but I hadn't kept up with them. Yeah.

Mack Garrison (06:41)

Wow. Was it a studio? Was it a company? An individual? what? Cool.

That's so funny. so basically

at the time you're working at Taco Bell more or less as a janitor doing animation stuff on the side and you're like, I've got to basically bust my ass on this because I don't have any education on it. It's all self-taught. And so if I'm going to win the opportunity, it's got to be through hustle essentially. Wow.

Reece Parker (07:10)

Absolutely. Yep. Just showing up, doing

the work, learning, and I was so excited and like in love with it that it's a lot of work, but it just felt like necessary. Like absolutely. Yeah, just driven.

Mack Garrison (07:23)

There's a whole generation of kids who could be looking to this listening to this videocast and they're like cool I'm not going to school. Thanks for race. You just ruined all these parents hopes and dreams No, no

Reece Parker (07:32)

I hope not. Yeah, do what you,

yeah, yeah, do what makes sense for you, you know.

Mack Garrison (07:37)

I mean, I think that is a really interesting conversation point though with so many different fields out there that do require a certain degree of higher education. I think motion design has been one of the most amenable and like welcoming kind of everybody. So you get this first kind of gig with a small agency, you would kind of crafted a smaller portfolio website of just some personal explorations.

Did you find that that first gig like really almost opened a door? was like as soon as like almost you had a client project kind of grounded in it that kind of build off of itself.

Reece Parker (08:12)

Yeah, I mean eventually it did it was a bumpy early road For your knowledge, I didn't want to just jump in freelance. I did that because I had to I asked for Internships and like staff jobs and just couldn't land anywhere because I was so Like raw talent, but no knowledge and that was a barrier that was not allowing me to pass like I was getting interviews in Seattle for like

Mack Garrison (08:19)

Mmm.

Reece Parker (08:39)

weird like leadership role like my skill set was beyond my knowledge meaning people saw my work and put me here and then expected me to be here and so i would come in for interviews and be like an intern and so it was like i couldn't land anywhere because they didn't know how to read me yes yes

Mack Garrison (08:45)

Mmm.

You had this raw talent that was like exceptional,

but you had no of the supplemental information to go along with that. So people were like, how is this guy this good, but has no idea about process or organization.

Reece Parker (09:01)

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Exactly, and I only know that in retrospect with the information I have now, but I didn't get it at the time. I was like, just like, yeah, I could do the work. And anyway, I couldn't get a job anywhere. So I had to be freelance. And then eventually, like one odd job led to another odd job. six months later led to another one and there was huge gaps in between. And then I got an email from Buck, like my first year in like down the line. And that changed everything. Once I went to go work with them in LA, they flew me

I was in studio for a few weeks. I was like booked ever since. Yeah, yeah.

Mack Garrison (09:45)

That's crazy. It's like

an actor who gets the first big gig, right? It's like, oh my God, this is it. Don't mess this up, Reece, you gotta stay focused. I love that. When I was coming along, I think a lot of people experienced that. It's really relatable in the sense that no one ever truly knows all the right process stuff. I mean, I remember my first gig I had at an agency. I remember this guy over in the corner basically yelling like, who the hell is Mack Garrison?

Reece Parker (09:50)

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Mack Garrison (10:14)

And what is wrong with this project file? And I had to like sheepishly raise my hand and admit that I had like comp one, comp two, comp three, layer one, layer two, was atrocious. But what was really nice about this Reece is that he took time and went through and basically showed me the way that stuff should be organized. And I'm forever grateful of it. Like, you know, I know he was upset at the time, but he took space and taught me. So question for you is, you know, during this kind of transition era, if you will, of like creative, finding your way, figuring out the structure behind it.

Reece Parker (10:17)

yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Totally. Totally.

Mack Garrison (10:44)

Did you have any mentors or did you find and reach out to people to try to get some of that knowledge?

Reece Parker (10:48)

yeah, yeah, I mean a lot of people were, as I began to get...

more hired and become more hireable. Again, I was mostly raw, intuitive talent and like my knowledge was years of putting things together over time. And like all of my clients were almost mentors at that time. I would have creative directors reach out to me and be like, I'll bring you on and I'd be like, great. And then I'd ask them like endless questions or I'd reach out, like I reached out to Alan Lasseter, one of my first years in the industry, like, dude, I love your work.

Mack Garrison (11:11)

Mmm.

Reece Parker (11:25)

and I love your position and how do you blah, blah, blah. And he was really, really sweet and responded. And I'm sure he wouldn't remember that if you told him, but he had a long list answering all my questions. I probably did that a hundred times, to be honest with you. Yeah.

Mack Garrison (11:39)

man, I love that so much. Cause

I feel like, you know, for whatever reason we, we, none of us want to look like idiots. think that's what it is, right? You're young. You don't want to reach out to someone. You don't want to bother them or you don't want to feel like your stuff isn't good enough to even be having that conversation for anyone that's listening to this that might be on the precipice of graduation, whether it's from school or like a school emotion course or something along those lines. What advice would you give?

Reece Parker (11:51)

Totally.

Yeah.

Mack Garrison (12:08)

and how to reach out to some of these folks or how to put yourself out there, the confidence to do that like you did.

Reece Parker (12:14)

Good question. mean, I think looking back at how I did it, I was mostly naive, but I was also really genuine, and I think you could feel that in my approach. I wasn't acting out of any sense of like, owe me a response. I mostly was like, you probably won't read this. that's the case, that's okay. On the off chance, you do read it. Like, I love your stuff, and that's why I'm reaching out. And I think...

that energy you can feel and it's encouraging a response. And I have a lot of students reach out to me on the flip side now where I try my best to sort of honor my early days and be really sort of spend some time answering thoughtfully to them in the same way that I maybe would have hoped earlier. But also like you can't expect.

it to go that way. You sort of have to like, I hope, but if it doesn't, it's okay and I'm going to try again. That's just how, like that energy is necessary and failure isn't failure. It's like you keep moving and pushing and eventually it'll land. Yeah.

Mack Garrison (13:20)

dude, I love that so much. I had this phrase

a couple of years ago that like I just gravitated towards that's perfection inhibits progress. I feel like so much as creatives and designers, we hold stuff in such high regard. It's like, I don't want to put anything out there until I really like it. But you think about all the times that that slows you up.

Reece Parker (13:29)

Yeah.

Mack Garrison (13:39)

You're the student trying to perfect your portfolio. It's not quite there yet. I don't want to reach out where the studio trying to update our portfolio. it doesn't quite have all the projects, the reels, you know, at end of the day. And I think you would echo the same sentiment. People will critique whatever you put out there. You always have 20, 20 vision and doing something a little bit differently, but you just got to keep the bus moving forward, right?

Reece Parker (13:47)

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I think I ran into that problem more recently than ever before, honestly, where it's like...

almost inhibiting productivity because I want to over organize or over calculate or over speculate or analyze and it just yeah at a certain point it's too far and you're actually getting in the way of doing the work so I'm kind of trying to remind my brain to go back to kind of the early days of like yes I want to make great work but I also just want to be productive and make it simple you know

Mack Garrison (14:12)

Mmm.

course, simplicity rules each and every day, even with your design and your compositions, I feel like every solution usually revolves about me taking stuff away versus like adding anything new. You know, I think something that's been interesting, especially over the last couple of years, know, AI is such a hard conversation to have in our industry right now. I think just by the fact that like there's more people than ever in the space, marketing companies are turning towards, or excuse me.

Reece Parker (14:38)

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. Totally, totally.

Mack Garrison (15:03)

companies are turning to investing in AI, which is taken away from marketing budgets. So everyone's kind of working a bit leaner. I think that's from studios, that's from freelancers. So for someone getting in the space, you you had this hustle and this tenacity that I think really led you to these opportunities, got you into the door and ultimately led to where you are now. Did you feel like looking back on that, that there was maybe one single piece of advice or something that seemed to work?

Reece Parker (15:07)

Yeah.

Mack Garrison (15:32)

best when you're trying to get yourself out there. Is it the cold emails? Is it like conferences? You know, looking back on it, was there one thing like, oh, if I could do this over again, knowing what I know now, I would do X, Y, and Z.

Reece Parker (15:46)

It's hard because so much has changed, even in a short time, nine years. The landscape is different now, but what I would say through those changes, what remains is...

Mack Garrison (15:50)

Mmm.

Reece Parker (16:00)

You've got to love the work and putting that love into the work is going to attract clientele and that's true for any service. So like I spent a year rebuilding my site with a developer and just putting so much love into it kind of for no reason to be honest with you other than I really wanted it to be great. And now I'm doing sites for clients that are paying me real budgets. And I didn't do anything other than say on Instagram, I'm redoing my site and I'm here

Mack Garrison (16:24)

Whoa, that's wild, that's cool.

Reece Parker (16:30)

go check it out. It's like that's all I did. Now I have a platform at this stage in my career, but the energy in the through line is the same. Love the work that will attract the clients. It's like I don't have any formula other than that to be honest.

Mack Garrison (16:46)

Well, honestly, it's just authentic. I love that, right? It shows if you care about something, you're putting time and attention towards it. It's reflected in the final outcome. You know, from a studio owner perspective, I have a interesting question for you. You made me think of, you know, there was this long standing, I don't know if it was like a thought or long standing conviction. I think there's a good word that if you are really good at something niche down.

Reece Parker (16:54)

Yeah. Yes.

Mack Garrison (17:14)

Like get really good at this thing and that's what everyone's gonna come to you for. With all this change, you accepted, it sounds like, some of these website jobs. It's like, yeah, it's kind of what I do adjacent to it. You kind of opened it up. Do you feel like that's a change that you're starting to recognize and as you look ahead to like future reach, are you kind of open to saying yes to a bit more and should other people kind of be considering that as well?

Reece Parker (17:19)

Yeah.

This is a hard conversation because you're going to land.

It's 50-50 whoever you talk to. I do not subscribe to niching down. However, I also don't subscribe to saying yes to everything. The reason I felt it was appropriate to take some of these jobs that are outside of my normal skill set or service that I usually provide for clients is because they said we want it done in a Reece way. We want your voice on it. So it wasn't me acting as some ex graphic designer. It was Reece being

Mack Garrison (17:45)

Sure, sure.

Mmm.

Reece Parker (18:13)

Reece just for a different service. And honestly, as we move through changes in this industry, we start to question what it is that is going to remain valuable for clients. And that's a hard answer. And I'm not willing to turn away projects because they're not like they're not an animated film that are like super artistic, like that might not be valuable right now for clients. And that's okay. I can still kind of be Reece on something else. So it's been really rewarding. And yes, I've had to adapt.

my mind a bit and it's hard to go like, some artists do niche and they're great but like, I don't know, I don't know. It's a hard, yeah, it's a hard question.

Mack Garrison (18:53)

What a compliment

though. mean, like that is, that's a premier place to be where it's like, look, I want your problem solving ability is essentially what they're asking for. And honestly, this is one of the biggest things that I believe motion designers should be advocating for themselves and highlighting about themselves is just how good a problem solvers we are. mean, by definition, we're, multi-disciplinary creatives who are trying to come up with analogies and metaphors for all these different things.

Reece Parker (19:01)

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, you're right.

You're right.

Mack Garrison (19:20)

So we're naturally good at thinking on our toes and moving quick given the deadlines. And it's why I personally believe that no matter how much change happens over the next 10 and 20 years is motion designers are always going to be employable because the sheer fact that like we can navigate ambiguity, we can come up with solutions and move things forward. And so I think like that's good advice for anyone did here to who's in the space is like, okay, if the technology is changing and maybe the medium is changing, where can there be flexibility and how to kind of present myself in a problem solving way. So I love that. That's really cool.

Reece Parker (19:38)

Yeah.

Mack Garrison (19:52)

Let's see, let's change it up a little bit. One of the things I'm really curious about, you've been in this space now, what is it, nine years? Is that what you said professionally?

Reece Parker (20:00)

Yeah, I think this is the ninth year maybe. Yeah. Yeah.

Mack Garrison (20:02)

my gosh, isn't that crazy? Doesn't it both feel

like the other day and like you've been doing this forever. It's like both like I've been here forever and I just started. I bet dollars to donuts that you've had some wild creative stories over the years from like a crazy client project to something kind of unique. Is there a story that maybe you haven't shared and we don't have to like call anyone out. We can blind it over but I just want to know a crazy industry story that we could share Reece.

Reece Parker (20:10)

Absolutely, Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, there's wild stuff, a lot of wild stuff, honestly. Maybe one of the more interesting ones was a high profile, actually this has happened multiple times, so maybe it's not even weird. But it's the case of like high profile clients, you have a specific team within that client that you're working directly with, and then at a certain stage in production.

whatever deliverable you are delivering gets to the eyes of somebody above the ladder or up the chain and like shifts everything. Like they don't seem to care at all about the progress thus far and just makes a snap decision. And I've had that result in canceling half a million dollar projects. I've had that result in redoing six figure projects entirely because one color was wrong. I mean, I've had like

Mack Garrison (21:04)

the classic stakeholder.

Reece Parker (21:28)

Wild what multiple wild wild things where it's just if this person had their eyes slightly sooner Maybe it could have saved like hundreds of thousands of dollars, but for whatever reason it just doesn't unfold that way I don't know. Yeah, so I guess that counts. Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

Mack Garrison (21:39)

So crazy.

for sure. Absolutely. Someone spending that amount of money and then changing everything at the last minute is absurd.

And you're right, though. I mean, we've navigated stuff like that before. Or the one that always is so surprising to me is the one where the client spends time, energy and effort. You finish the project and it just never goes live. Like we've had a couple of projects we've worked on. They've just like eaten. It's just never gone out. And I'm just like, how in the world could you invest so much time and energy?

Reece Parker (22:05)

Yeah.

Yep.

Mack Garrison (22:13)

and never put something out in the world, you know, it's it's kind of bonkers.

Reece Parker (22:13)

Yup. Yup. I

like that too. Yeah, same. I don't know. I don't know. It's crazy.

Mack Garrison (22:21)

Well here, me this, I always am looking for new inspiration or finding out how folks think and how they tick. A lot of folks look up to you, Reece, for your inspiration. mean, you do some amazing work. I've got your website pulled up here. It looks phenomenal. So I don't know, maybe I need to get you to design our website. I might hire you for that too. But I'm curious, over the course of the last decade basically,

Reece Parker (22:37)

Thank you.

Let's do it.

Mack Garrison (22:45)

Who have been some of the creatives that inspired you? I know you mentioned Alan Lasseter and reaching out to him. Who are some others that you're just like, I love this studio's work or I love this person's work?

Reece Parker (22:50)

Absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of them come from sort of what I'm calling the golden age of motion design, but I think what it really was was like the little bubble within motion that was sort of the buck giant gunner era. Like my goal was to be as good as them as one artist. And that's a silly goal because it's subjective and whatever and impossible, but.

Mack Garrison (23:18)

You

Reece Parker (23:21)

I really, really looked up to a lot of those guys and still do, the ones that are kind of still doing work. And I know a lot of it shifted and pivoted and that's just the way of the world. But I look back on that era where, you know, every day there was a new piece that like absolutely blew my mind and taught me something or made inspire me to kind of try something new. That's really, really, really valuable. And I think it's different now. My inspirations now come from like...

Mack Garrison (23:35)

Mmm.

Reece Parker (23:49)

creators on social or designers that are doing logos. It's like, think I've expanded my mind a bit because I feel like at this point it's necessary and maybe that comes back in later years. I don't know.

Mack Garrison (23:51)

Mmm.

It reminds me of the the wine after coffee days, right? The Vimeo channel where you go there and there was always something new, some new inspiration. And that's where I would like collect my Vimeo likes. But I think you're right. I think there's something to be said about finding inspiration outside those traditional channels. So of course you have the Vimeos and the YouTube and now you you have Instagram and TikTok. Well, TikTok for a little bit. I think by the time this might be published, TikTok might be gone. But what are some of the other spots you look towards to inspiration?

Reece Parker (24:06)

Yep.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

Good question. Film, I just saw Nasferatu by Robert F. Kearney and it was like unbelievably rich. Every shot was like a painting. It's just like...

Maybe I write a movie, no I won't, but I'm just saying like, wow, I pull stuff from music and film and art and video games and life. And I'm trying to widen my horizons a bit these days, whereas before I think I was more singularly focused in an era that was really feeding me, but now it's less so and so you have to kind of go, where's the future and where do I wanna? I told my wife, I think 2025 is gonna be like a 2016.

year for Reece which is just like very self-focused doing a lot of different work experimenting a lot really productive because I think that's gonna be fruitful for the years to come.

instead of like abundant opportunity, like kind of chilling, signing checks, like they were those years too and those were great, but we gotta adapt when we need to adapt and it just feels like, you know, it's that time to really kind of explore.

Mack Garrison (25:43)

Dude, I love that the reinvestment in creative, you know, it's like almost in a way you've kind of set yourself on this path. You've been doing the path that you haven't given yourself enough time to analyze. Damn. Am I walking in the right direction? You know, like, should I be dabbling in something else? I know I saw, I think it was on Instagram maybe earlier last year about this tattoo apprenticeship where you're basically getting into tattooing is some of this kind of lending itself to kind of that exploration. Is that what kind of brought you into like trying out tattooing?

Reece Parker (25:55)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely. So I was getting tattooed often and my artist was like, I might leave this shop and go somewhere else, but if I had an apprentice maybe I'd stick around. And I was like...

I'll do it man, that sounds really interesting. Like I know how to draw, technically you can give me a pencil and I can do kind of almost anything with it. So I think that my transition and he was like, yeah, and we're like really good friends. So it was a really sweet like acceptance into an entirely different industry and they afforded me a lot.

respect based on sort of my accomplishments in the digital space. And so it was a really seamless and easy. It did not feel like starting over. It felt like, dude, come in here. We'll show you these ways. And when you need to use it, use it. So like for me, it's like five years from now. I don't know what's going on. I just cannot predict it. And if I need to fall back and like really hone in on tattooing, I absolutely can.

Mack Garrison (27:12)

That's so wild.

What do you feel like, you know, to your point, if you have a pencil, you can kind of draw something and draw whatever you can translate it over. Have there been more surprises than you realized on the relationship from like motion design into tattooing? Was there anything you're like, I didn't expect this to have this similar kind of approach, but that's cool that it does.

Reece Parker (27:31)

That's a really interesting question. Some of the...

technical aspects maybe transition in a way that you would or parallel in a way that maybe wouldn't be expected. I mean obviously learning digital software could be compared to like learning new languages. There's a lot of complexity and a lot of interesting like little tweaks and whatever. And I think the tattooing version of that is the machines and which machine and which needle and which type of ink and why and what is it doing and how is it moving and you know they're similar.

But it's also very, like it's draftsman-like. You're sketching a lot. There's a medical aspect that was the most difficult for me, by the way, because all of the art, go like, yeah, I'm art boy. But when you're like, well, this is almost surgery, so be very careful. I'm like, that's a new world entirely. I'm, you know, that, exactly. it's, yeah, connecting what does connect, but also being very reverent.

Mack Garrison (28:20)

Sure.

100%.

Reece Parker (28:37)

about the parts that are completely new and need respect.

Mack Garrison (28:40)

love that it's being confident, but not cocky, right? It's like, you know, being confident in your skillset, you're like, I can translate this over, but being humble to the new space you're in and making sure you're continuing to learn. I think all of us could take that advice with everything we do is like, be confident, speak our minds, say what we believe in, but also understand that we're still learning. We're still growing as well too. We don't know everything. All right, I'm put you on the spot with this question. Do you think we could get a live Reece Parker tattoo session at the Dash Bash? You wanna put, you wanna tattoo something?

Reece Parker (28:44)

Yeah.

Totally. Absolutely. Okay.

Mack Garrison (29:10)

on somebody on stage.

Reece Parker (29:11)

I would love to if we can figure out how to make it like above ground and not against the law. So there's like permitting and things that would have to take place before I'd be allowed to do so. But yeah, other than that, I would love to do it. And I actually, there are some people that are excited to maybe partake in that if we can kind of get it to work.

Mack Garrison (29:35)

I love it. I love it. You

heard it here. So if we can get it above grade, above par, we run a tight ship here. We'll do it legally. We'll get Reece tattooing folks. Well, Reece, thanks so much for hanging out with me today. I know a lot of folks are really excited to be hanging at the bash with you. Have you given much thought on kind of what you want to hone in on or any teasers you have for folks who might be attending?

Reece Parker (29:39)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.

Yes, Sue.

Honestly, this is my first speaking event. I'm just excited really to be involved, honestly, and I'm also excited to get out. I've got a bunch of kids and it makes it hard to get out to these events. But I think now more than ever, it's really important just to go and be with the community and relate to each other and swap stories and all those things that sort of reinvigorate us in a way that where isolation does not afford. And in terms of what I'll be talking about,

I'm just going to keep it real exactly like my bio. You can expect my bio, but just keeping it real the whole time. Very vulnerable. I think that's my strong suit rather than technical and whatever. that's what I'm bringing. If that sounds exciting, awesome. I'm really excited to see everybody there and hang out.

Mack Garrison (30:44)

man,

we're so excited to have you. It's gonna be such a great talk. It's been great getting to know you over last 10 years, and just seeing how talented you are and how you've gotten more talented. I still feel like the best Reece is yet to come. So I can't see what you're gonna do over the next decade. For everyone listening on this, tickets are on sale right now. You can check it out at dashbash.net and you can join us June 11th through 13th, this summer, 2025 in Raleigh, North Carolina for the Dash Bash and Animation and Motion Design Festival built around creativity, inclusivity, and getting to know all the cool.

Reece Parker (30:56)

We'll see.

Mack Garrison (31:13)

people in our space. Thanks for your time, Reece. Thanks everyone for listening and we'll be back with our continued speaker series. So make sure to check them all out. Thanks everyone. Take care.

Reece Parker (31:23)

Thanks guys.

Barry Kelly Interview

Reece Parker Interview

The Dash Bash venue