CPT Presents: The Ghost Frame Podcast Episode 1 "The Endless Hallway"

0:01Hey y 'all, this week is a little bit different. This episode actually comes from a different podcast called Ghost Frame. This narrative nonfiction podcast series was created by a friend of mine that you may know from the animation motion world, Sarah Beth Morgan, a.k.a. Wonderful. Sarah Beth reached out to me to tell me about the series and asked me to be a part of it on the final episode, which just recently aired. and the more that I dove into the series, the more relevant that I thought it was to the listeners of this show. So I decided to share it in our feed. On the surface, Ghost Frame is about how the commercial animation industry has been going through tough times and how things have been in massive flux and what that's been like as a freelance illustrator working in that industry as Sarah Beth has been.

0:59And I know that mirrors what a lot of folks in all creative industries are experiencing these days. Uncertain times, fears of big changes on the horizon. So that alone made it super relevant. But underneath the surface, it's a bit about coming to midlife, but even more so in the abstract, It's about being in transition, which I know so many of us feel just with how everything is rapidly changing. When before is gone and after hasn't really materialized, how do you navigate your creative practice in times this uncertain and this unstable? How do you manage your emotions in that space well enough to continue to show up?

1:48I think this series does an excellent job at grappling with these really big questions, and I found a lot of comfort and insight from it as well. So this episode is episode one of the Ghost Frame podcast. Hope you love it as much as I did, and I hope you check it out. Check out the rest of the series. It's a five-episode series. After you listen to this one, you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts or click the link in the show notes. This series features folks like me, legendary animator Julia Pott, and of course, Sarah Beth Morgan and a whole lot of other creative perspectives. I think you're going to love it.

2:28So without further ado, here is the episode one of the Ghost Frame podcast.

2:43Testing, testing. You'll have to excuse me. I'm new to this. You see, I normally draw things for a living, so this whole audio with no corresponding visual is foreign to me. But I've been thinking a lot about the world and how my life and career connect to it. And it all just felt too big for me to keep stored exclusively in my brain. So here we are, me blabbing, you listening. I know you don't know me, but you're here, so I figure you're probably along for the ride. Can you indulge me for a minute? I want to try something. You ready? Close your eyes. Imagine you're standing in a long, narrow hallway.

3:28There are doors on either side of you that continue down the length of the space. It's quiet, but the air sizzles with suspense. What's behind each door? Where will each path take you? Maybe one opens to reveal your past life, a visual list of all the steps you've taken so far. Another opens to a hopeful scene, an airy sunlit sky. Or maybe one door opens to yet another hallway, full of doors, more possibilities. Which door will you open? Now that we've got that over with, Hi, I'm Sarah Beth Morgan, and I am currently stuck in said hallway. In the past three years, I've moved across the country, had a baby, experienced postpartum depression, and I'm now going through a bit of a career crisis, one might say.

4:17Behind one of these doors is my next move, and during our time together, I'm going to peek into a few of them and even talk to people who live in each room.

4:30Thank you.

5:02Welcome to the first episode of Ghost Frame, the animation podcast in which we're currently exploring a metaphorical yet spooky hallway, a hallway that I've been struggling to navigate. Now, before we traverse this ethereal Severance-like space, which, by the way, great show, I'm going to try to describe to you what I do for a living. As many people in my industry know, this is sometimes harder than it sounds. I actually asked my family if they could describe it for me to kind of give you a better idea of what I mean. Art stuff. She designs motion stuff in commercials. I would say that you're a digital artist, that you also enjoy actually creating with your hands and paint because you've done many murals.

5:50You're an art director. You love to illustrate for animation, but you don't really do much of the animation yourself. A very versatile artist who does almost everything. Thank you. I'll take it. To repeat the wise words of my sister, I do art stuff. But my main gig is in motion graphics. And if you don't know what that is, what motion design is, let me tell you, it is everywhere. Do you ever think about who creates the snazzy text that lives on screen during a football game? Or the names of reporters floating on screen during a news program? How about those little cute animated characters in your Duolingo app?

6:32Or those cute 3D Airbnb pre-roll ads that play on Hulu or YouTube? Well, that's us. Me specifically, I design the visuals and someone else animates them, bringing them to life. In some cases, I get to lead the entire team and direct both the design and animation portions of a project. I've had the chance to work on projects for tech giants like Apple and Google, but also more playful brands like Bath & Body Works or Chipotle. I've even had my own short animated film screen at film festivals and won a few awards. I've been on this unswerving career path since I graduated college in 2014 with a Bachelor's of Fine Art in Motion Design.

7:11Until now, I didn't falter. I never felt like a distinct point where I asked myself, what's next? I'd grown confident in my upward trajectory and landed where I am now, working for myself at the level of director. I know it's a privileged position to be in to just say, I did it and it happened. I mean, sure, I worked hard, but I had the funds to attend a nice college and a family and a husband to help support my dreams along the way. I know this isn't the case for everyone. So I'm well aware that this, quote, career crisis may feel trivial to some. But I also know that it's a universal concept that many are feeling right now, especially in the creative industry.

7:49For the record's sake, it is the year 2025, and artificial intelligence technology is booming. Massive data centers are being built around the world to run this technology. Coca-Cola just made headlines with its, in my opinion, atrocious AI-generated holiday commercial. I don't know. I feel like this TikTok user, Christine Choi, summed it up pretty nicely. We have a supercomputer named Willow who confirmed the existence of parallel universes. We have aliens in the ocean, drones in the sky, volcano sharks, the threat of World War III, and not to mention we live in a society where young adults having two jobs is a societal norm just to be able to afford food and pay rent because everything is so fucking expensive and minimum wage is relatively the same.

8:31Do we all like die in 2020 and this is our new hell? Because I know too much. I should have been born as a bike or something. Get me off this timeline. I've had enough. I've had enough. Okay, wow. I mean, when you put it that way, it sounds pretty terrible. But I have had friends who were turned down from jobs because the client decided to go with AI instead. COVID happened and threw the world into chaos. And upon recovery, many companies deprioritized art making for pressing economical matters. I personally have had an embarrassingly slow past two years of work coming in myself. And now with a new president and economy, there's so much uncertainty swimming around us that I feel like I'm drowning.

9:12And I'm not alone in this feeling. Exactly. Yeah. No, it's cold comfort that pretty much all of us are in it. That's my friend Rachel. She too has been feeling the same things I'm feeling lately. I specifically wanted to talk to her about her breadth of experience in my industry, which we'll dive into in a later episode. but it was also interesting to hear that someone with so much history in the motion design world was also feeling adrift. It made me feel validated. But then I think it imploded because the entire economy got devastated by COVID and everything that it did. And while we were still spending, spending, spending in 2020 and 2021, the whiplash from that started to hit in 2022.

9:54And I feel like that's when the industry started to really crumble because people started to really look at budgets. And I mean, we all know what 2023 and 2024 were, those were two of my worst years of freelance in history. Will Johnson, partner at the Animation Studio Scholar and my former boss, feels it too. It's just been kind of bubbling for so long. And I think now it's like slamming right into the windshield. It's changing things. But I imagine it's like when we change from film to digital, right? It's like, it's everybody has to kind of shift the whole paradigm, The whole everything kind of like moves, but it's going to be similar.

10:32We just have to navigate. It's just happening so fast right now. That's the hard part. It's like so in your face, the iterations, the expectations, everything in that capacity has changed. So what does that mean for all of us? And then it's all coming to grips with the existential dread that exists outside of that. It's that's that's why everybody is tired right now. So you can see everything is just so confusing right now for the entire world, for probably so many industries, also our industry, and then whittle that all down to our singular lives. Up until this point in my life, I never really thought about changing my career path or even just moving career adjacent.

11:14But let me tell y 'all, having a baby makes you question a lot of life things. Besides birthing a literal child from my body at one of the most uncertain times in our industry, I also have been mulling over big philosophical life questions like, do I want to be contributing to and benefiting from big tech companies? Is my art too commercialized now? Does my design style look like everyone else's? But what if I enjoy making silly ceramics more? Should I try doing that instead? Is it still a hobby if it becomes monetized? Will it still be enjoyable? What's the point of having a hobby anyways? Is having a hobby about satisfying my own creative energy or is it about showing other people online that I'm making stuff so they'll follow me and give me money?

11:58Do I need social media to be successful? Will people still hire me if I'm not chronically online? Can you tell I've been spiraling? If you're like me and you live in this chaotic world and you work alone in a home office by yourself and you have even a lick of anxiety, you probably have been spiraling a little bit too. Working alone all day and then talking only to your partner who you spend every second with and a two-year-old who can't form full sentences, it turns out, is the perfect recipe for a nice steamy spiral soup. What better way to dump this soup down the proverbial drain than to get out of my own head?

12:35I decided I wanted to answer a question for myself. Well, technically, a few questions. Maybe a lot of questions. That's probably why I'm making an entire podcast about it. So here's my first question. Am I even in the right industry? And a couple follow-up questions because I truly can't imagine myself doing anything full-time that's not creative. Is motion design right for me? Do I want to work in a career adjacent industry? I did pursue murals and children's books last year. Maybe I should focus on that. I'm also pretty good at branding. Could I try that instead?

13:13After the break, I get some answers. I catch up with an old friend who left a surprisingly different industry for the animation world.

13:37The cold is here. I used to hate the cold weather until I started to embrace it, dress for it, build a wardrobe of layers that were made for the season. And that is where Quince comes in. They've got down jackets, wool coats, leather and suede outerwear that holds up to daily wear and still looks good. Quince uses premium materials and trusted factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. but because they cut out the middlemen, they can deliver the quality of luxury brands for a fraction of the price and bring you classic styles that you'll love and will hold up year after year.

14:16Still loving my Quince button-down shirt. I feel very legitimate when I wear it. I have been eyeing their affordable cashmere collection for Sophie's birthday that's coming up. Don't tell her that. And we got Quince's European linen sheet set. And let me tell you, nearly every night when we go to bed, Sophie says, I love these sheets. It's like our new nighttime ritual. They're soft, cozy, and the material just feels real and whole and homey. Very cozy for winter nights. Refresh your winter wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com slash pep talk for free shipping on your order in 365 day returns.

14:55Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash P-E-P-T-A-L-K. Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash peptalk.

15:11Hey, it's me again. Before the break, I was spiraling and I wanted to do something about it. I decided to reach out to my friend Kruthi. You see, she happened upon the motion design industry in an entirely different way than me. Her career path has been drastically different than mine, and I thought maybe this would help put things in perspective. And hey, I think I was right. I am a technical director, and I work with projects where there's a lot of data that needs to be modular, and I automate the production workflows. And I currently live in India, but I also go to Germany back and forth. So to summarize, Kruthi's in the same industry as me, but we work in different pipelines.

15:58We work on different parts of projects that don't really overlap. We caught up over a video call and she acknowledged that our industry is in a pickle too, even from her side of things. Okay, so continue what you were saying about this year because that is like a cornerstone of what I'm doing right now. I'm like, I'm not getting work. No one's getting work. Like, what's happening? seriously I mean I actually thought of quitting LinkedIn because of how depressing it was getting because you know people with experience of like 20 years are being laid off or like they're posting on LinkedIn saying that they're available for work and I'm like if people like you are looking for work then people who've entered the industry like a couple of years ago have no chance like where do you even go?

16:51Like it is so hard not to lose hope. Yeah exactly. And like try to keep doing what you're doing. Like initially at least in the beginning of the year I was trying to do as many personal projects as possible and like trying to reach out to people. Eventually it got so depressing I was screaming into the void. Like many of my friends in the animation and motion design industry, I've never actually met Kruthi in person. We first connected online a few years ago when she attended Hyper Island, an intensive creative college in Sweden. She reached out via email inviting me to be her industry mentor.

17:33I agreed, and when we did our first call, I was blindsided when she told me she was switching to animation after pursuing a PhD in aerospace engineering. Like, what? I couldn't imagine leaving something so important-sounding to pursue a creative path. I was starting my PhD in aerospace engineering. Honestly, the PhD itself was good. My professors were good. The topic was so interesting. But mentally, I was not in a good place. I was so depressed and I knew that I needed help. And when my nephew was born, I had come to India and I was home and once I started talking to a therapist I realized that this PhD I was not doing for myself.

18:22I was doing my PhD to impress everyone around me or like satisfy everyone around me and this had been the case for as long as I can remember like the need to achieve more and more just so that I don't disappoint people around me. Yeah, that had to stop. So I quit my PhD. And then one thing that I always wanted to do was learn how to animate. This was something that I had thought about when I was a kid, when I was maybe like fourth grade or fifth grade. And then I never thought about it again. But then because I was not doing anything and COVID was just starting here in India and it was looking like I was not going to get out of India anytime soon.

19:13So there was no possibility of continuing with PhD. So I was like, yeah, maybe, you know, I should take Skillshare subscription and like start animating. After coming to this very personal and heavy realization during COVID, like many of us did, Kruthi started taking more online animation courses and eventually stumbled across Hyper Island during her research. She applied, and to her excitement, she got in. She was so excited, in fact, that she started an online Facebook group for members of her class. People came to know her via the internet. She made internet friends. Then she packed up her bags, hugged her family goodbye, and was off to start her new adventure in an entirely new country.

19:56And her creative internet friends finally became her real friends. When I got into Hyper Island, right, like I hadn't even moved to Stockholm yet. But we had like a community page on Facebook. And I started a page for just motion creative. I made like a WhatsApp group and everything. And then once I actually went to Hyper Island, I just introduced myself like I'm Grooti. Somehow, everyone knew me. They were like, oh, you're the person who's like the unofficial representative of us because like you are the one who put everyone in touch with everyone. Like I had helped a few people with like their visa applications, with like finding their accommodation and everything.

20:45I don't know why I did it. I just did it. like I was not expecting anything I was just so excited that I was going to be able to do this I was like okay I'll help you in anywhere I can and I remember this exact moment when it was international people's orientation and we got there and everyone was introducing and I was just standing there and one girl comes like she introduces herself and I'm like oh hey I'm famous in the group. I'm like, huh? It was so surprising to me because just a year and a half ago, I was at the lowest of my lows, right? Like I was so depressed. I was barely talking to anyone and I was having panic attacks anytime I was in a social situation.

21:35But there I was a year and a later and I'm like the most popular person in the class and I was like what you just got an infectious personality you're you're easy to talk to you love what you're doing and it just goes to show that like you were in the right place exactly right because I had definitely not felt this confident when I was in my master's I felt like I was an imposter I would just hide in my corner I mean, of course, I would go hang out with people and everything, but especially in like an academic scenario, I was not as outgoing because it just felt like I did not belong. But here it was just so easy for me to fit in.

22:21Yeah. And I think that made doing all of these social things a lot easier. I definitely would not have imagined I would be in that position. I loved hearing about Kruthi's origin story because it just felt destined to be. She opened the metaphorical hallway door to a room that fit her perfectly. She stepped beyond the threshold and found warm, welcoming arms and pieces to puzzles that just clicked into place. That's not to say she can't take a trek down the hallway some other time in her life, but for now, the room she's in feels like a perfect fit. I don't know that I really had a crazy 180 moment where I suddenly felt like everything was meant to be.

23:01However, for me, everything also fell into place pretty naturally. That's why I'm unsure that I need to completely switch things up. I think the room I'm living in just feels a little crusty or empty or doesn't fit my life anymore. Maybe it's like squeezing a family of three plus a dog into a small one bedroom apartment. And one of those is a tornado toddler throwing Legos all over the floor and you keep stepping on them when you're not wearing shoes. So I guess I'm looking for a new place to live. It doesn't have to be in a new building, but maybe we could add an extra bedroom that wasn't there before, or two in case we want to have some friends over for a night of wine-drinking debauchery or something.

23:43Speaking of wine, you want to know something crazy? While talking to Kruthi about her entrance to the motion industry, I remembered my friend Alec, who had quite the opposite journey. Don't worry, I'll get to the wine part in a minute. Alec and I crossed paths in 2016 when I was working as a staff employee at a motion studio called Odd Fellows, and he was freelance animating there. I have fond memories of working on Google Jobs together, me designing cute dogs and chefs and him animating cute dogs or chefs using mixing bowls. He was always so easygoing and fun to work with. My name is Alec Cummings.

24:17I'm from Berkeley, California. I am the wine director at the Morris Restaurant in San Francisco, and now I'm the wine director at another restaurant called Saran that we're opening up in Oakland. Plot twist, right? I hadn't caught up with Alec in years, so I was excited to hear about his experience leaving the industry. A complete 180 from what Kruthi did. It happened quickly. I mean, at this point now, it's been over six years, and it really started as a little trickle. I've always really been interested in beverage in general, how things are made from spirits to beer to wine. At first, I was really into spirits and cocktails.

24:59I don't know how familiar you are with San Francisco, but there's like this speakeasy bar that was really popular 10 or 15 years ago called Urban and Branch, but they would do like cocktail classes. I went at least five times just to learn how to like taste and make cocktails. Anyways, I learned that having a bar to make cocktails at home was really cumbersome, having all those ingredients and fresh juices and stuff all the time. So that's sort of how I got into wine is because everything that you need is just in the bottle, ready to go. It was through tasting, exploring that I realized that you can really dive deep into it.

25:31And there's a lot to learn. And once you learn one thing, it's sort of like you realize the potential to learn about that thing is just felt infinite and that my ignorance in general on wine and beverage felt vast as well. So I wanted to like keep diving into it. and it became a very passionate hobby alongside just my motion graphic career. Alex started pursuing his wine journey while working freelance at the animation studio Odd Fellows. Every Tuesday after work, he'd walk up from their tiny motion studio in the San Francisco Mission District to a random holiday inn on Van Ness Avenue to take a two-hour wine class.

26:06He dove in deep, studying for a huge exam that might open a new hallway for him in the wine industry, a new path. After taking an intense, honestly way harder than expected test that included an actual wine tasting, he realized that he might want to take this more seriously than hobby. It was at this point, coincidentally, that Odd Fellows thought they might stop using their studio in San Francisco, and that put Alec at a crossroads. Maybe it was fate. And it was after that when I started thinking about, oh, what if I could take this more seriously? What if this was more than just a hobby for me?