the MARTINI SHAKER

I went to an acceleration luncheon at the AAF-KC offices today. The presenter was Timmy Fisher from MK12 talking about their experiences working on a project for Swiss Air.

Those of you who know much about me know that I have an extensive background in motion graphics and that MK12 has been an influence, an inspiration and an aspiration of mine for years.

In fact, when I was rather naïve and green in the motion graphics industry, I took a demo reel to the MK12 studios when it was accessed by an alleyway entrance in the Kansas City Crossroads.

I was a freelancer at the time and had been working professionally with video for only a year and a half, and all I had to show in my reel were a bunch of motion graphics treatments I had done for local level car dealerships. Hardly anything that would captivate their interest. But still, there I sat on a crushed green velvet couch with my mograph heroes as I paraded out one ugly, awful spot after another. When I came to the studio I started confident, but as we watched each piece, I started to feel so small. I had overshot my league, and I was about to have a moment of comeuppance.

I remember that their response was quite polite and we talked for quite a while afterward about a myriad of things, but I could tell that there was no chance that I was going to be able to do any work with them. I left feeling deflated, but I didn’t give up. I spent the years following working as hard as I could to create work with the level of sophistication that would validate what I was trying to accomplish.

I have kept in touch with some of the members of MK12 over the years as I’ve grown but have never had the courage to share much more work with them. I feel I would be close, but still not quite there.

Today’s presentation brought out a number of interesting feelings within me. The part of me that should have been inspired and giddy with possibility was rather bored. And, not because I found the work substandard¹, but just because the time and effort I’ve put in to creating work of that caliber has not so much jaded me as it has made me realize that I could actually pull that stuff off now.

But I don’t. In fact, I’m so far removed from that world now that something tells me that if I tried to do something on that level, I’d find myself feeling more like that silly kid 10 years ago before I ever regained my bearings within the tools and technologies needed to do such work.

Today’s presentation really made me miss doing motion graphics work on a regular basis. I really think that I walked away from that world right at a point that I was about to make a stylistic breakthrough for myself and work at a level where I could confidently take a reel to them again and possibly be able to pick up freelance work from them (if I were still doing that). I wonder if I could pick back up at that point? I probably could. Not easily, but I think it could be done.

At the same time, it also made me realize how incredibly glad that I’m not in that world anymore. There’s a certain amount of crap associated with that world that I just don’t miss, and I’m so incredibly glad to be able to be on its periphery… able to appreciate it and dip my toes into it when I want, but in the end to be so terribly grateful to be doing my own thing.

So, I’m grateful to MK12 for the inspiration they gave me years ago, the great big piece of humble pie they served me eight years ago, the determination they gave me in the years following, and finally the realization that I’m pretty damn happy being the guy that I am without having music videos or James Bond films on my resumé².

Who would have known lunch would have been so productive?