If you remember, we had a project a few weeks ago for a company named Spring Leads, who wanted a 30-60 sec animated introduction to their business. Some of you pitched, and the winner was Ben Luce, aka magneticgoat. In this post we’ll have a bit of a Q&A with him about the project and show you the finished video.

Here we go:

1. First of all, can you tell us a bit about your creative background? I’ve been making animated movies since elementary school, starting with simple clay animation and moving into flash, after effects, and 3d.  This includes special effects for my own low-budget films.  I’ve worked for a toy designer in Connecticut and interned at 1st Avenue Machine in NYC.  I’m going into my senior year at the Maryland Institute College of Art, majoring in animation.

2. Have you pitched on Wooshii before? This was my first pitch

3. Can we see your original pitch? Why do you think you won it? Here’s my pitch: Once I have access to your script, I’d be more than happy to adjust the concept as necessary. That being said, here is what I have in mind: The job market is represented by a central bee hive. The agents are worker bees, and the flowers/pollen are leads, which could eventually turn into honey ($$). Scenario 1 (bad): one bee going to many flowers, getting tired, and not producing as much honey. Scenario 2 (good – Spring Leads’ approach): many bees reaching more flowers, producing more honey. Perhaps it could be narrated like a nature documentary. It all depends on the vision that you have. Thank you for your consideration. I think I won it because as far as I know, I was the only one who gave a concept.  That immediately made my pitch stand out, and it appears they liked the idea as well.

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4. What was the process like of working with the client? I was lucky to be given free reign over a large portion of the process.  They gave me a lot of creative control and seemed to approve of nearly everything I sent them.  Although it took a little while to receive a script, the majority of client communication went very smoothly.  The only other quirk was the 5-hour time difference.

5. Can we get some specifics also, for example on working with the voice over? And was there a script in place? There was a script in place.  I have my own set of audio equipment (a mixer, a mic, and cables).  I did a lot of different takes for each line of the script.  Then I spliced them together to make it fit within the time line.  Although I was not asked to, I decided to make the music as well because I had a tune in mind and it helped me pace the animation.

6. What was the most difficult thing in making this project? Making it coherent and professional.  I put in a lot of effort to make sure that the color scheme was solid, the actionscript worked, and the audio levels were stable (Ultimately the actionscript didn’t matter because of the version they used).

7. What was the thing your most proud of about this project? My ability to exercise restraint.  Whenever I begin a project, I always have very ambitious ideas and I often need to trim them down.  In this case, the philosophy “less is more” really shined through.  Whenever I wanted to use lots of shading, add more colors, or go crazy with effects, I held back.  I think the simplicity speaks for itself.

8. Have you pitched more projects since winning the Spring Leads one? Not just yet.  I’m preparing for the new semester and don’t want to commit to anything until I know I have time for it.  Still, Wooshii is a great resource and I’ll certainly use it in the future.

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9. What are your plans for the future? With the economy like it is, I plan to be flexible.  There are a lot of great opportunities for artists in places you wouldn’t expect.  For now, my priorities are freelancing, commercial animation, and possibly VFX.

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Alright, that’s it! Great answers from Ben and great insight into how this process went along. I’d like to thank Ben for his time in answering these questions, and wish him good luck with the semester in school and wherever his future takes him.