(above photo is of my brother and myself at the Dunes in Los osos.)

Being the creative director of a small studio is kind of like being a child with a never ending toy chest at his disposal.  I get to come to work each day and dream up new ways of bringing something new and exciting to the world.  Being that I have always been a bit of a dreamer this path must have been designed in some divine fashion from the get go.  As a child I spent countless hours trying to craft wings that would get me off the ground.  knowing nothing of aeronautics this was of course not successful.  thankfully I was just as content mind-flying or I would have seriously hurt myself   Lets just say that jumping off a two story porch with a garbage bag for a parachute is not the best way to tap into ones creative side.  Thankfully children bounce.

Now that I am much older then that young boy I can say for certainty that I do not bounce anymore, physically or mentally.  Instead of arming myself with wooden swords I now arm myself with a myriad of badges of triumphs, consequences, and of course my trusted failures. The later being the most important, or right up there anyway.  Somehow along the way I learned that just because you fall on your face it doesn’t mean that its time to throw in the towel.  Brush yourself off and take another leap off that porch.  If the one bag didn’t work, then tape two together.  If that doesn’t do the trick then try wings fashioned from plywood, and if still nothing then find something else that captures your attention like sliding down the steps inside of a large refrigerator box (this also ended with a lot of bouncing if I recall).

Throughout the rest of my life I have tried countless ways of getting off the ground.  I began to race BMX, this led into motorcross, somewhere in there came and went rollerblading, snowboarding, skating, and other sports that would propel me off the ground and into the air.  This was all well and good until I landed fairly hard on solid ground as an adult.  adults DO NOT bounce, we break.

Again, dusting myself off and trying again took me through a good 30 years of searching for flight.  My brother and I are very similar in this way.  very driven and stubborn (my brother more so).  Each of us had some rocky twistes and tuns along the way and some how managed to both come out with loving families and successful endeavors.

so here is to all the frequant flyers, never stop reaching for the sky, if gravity keeps pulling you down then find new and improved ways to catapult you to the heights that beckon….and above all never stop dreaming.

coop

Ohhh boy my first post! What ever should I write about? I guess the best place to start is at the beginning, so lets do a nice little recap of our year and see where that gets us.

Its been a busy one so far. many of you have not heard much from us lately due to the comings and goings on around here. We started the year off strong with a large project from DTV ushered our way by Exopolis. I’ve been working for them as a freelance Art Director for several years now. They called me up and asked if I was able to take on such a large job. The job would require a minimum of 4 to 6 people and a few months to pull off. The project in a nutshell was the re-branding of their CIC channel. This is basically the place you can go to learn everything you wanted to know and more about how to navigate the complicated world of DTV, using the controller, the set top box, the user interface, I mean EVERYTHING! We had to create and manage the development of 30 different 3 to 4 minute animations. I had been considering expanding Cardboard Castle for some time and this job made it clear that the time was now…so I went out and found myself a few freelancers that were just as obsessive as I am, asked my talented wife Alicia if she wanted to be a partner and we got to work. We spent about three months on this job and at the end I had myself a great little family, a client that was very pleased and the momentum to keep growing CBC.

That was the beginning of the year and now we are rounding the bend on the fourth quarter looking pretty strong. We’ve completed projects for MSN, BING, NIKE, E-entertainment, DTV, EPIX News, Iron Planet, Foster Grant and are currently working on an internal spot for Nascar. It’s been a good start, I’m extremely proud of my team and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Lets hope the momentum continues and the future holdes more jobs and possibly a production studio