Michelle Higa Fox Interview
In this conversation, Mack Garrison interviews Michelle Higa-Fox, an Emmy award-winning artist and filmmaker, about her journey in the motion graphics and animation industry. They discuss the importance of community, early influences, navigating new technologies, innovative projects at BUCK, and the future of technology in creative spaces. Michelle shares insights on how to foster creativity and collaboration, the significance of learning through experimentation, and the skills that will remain relevant despite changing technologies.
Takeaways
Michelle Higa Fox is an Emmy award-winning artist and filmmaker.
Community plays a crucial role in the motion design space.
Early exposure to technology and creativity shaped Michelle's career.
Web design was a friendly entry point into the arts for Michelle.
Engaging with others accelerates the learning process.
Innovation thrives in collaborative environments.
Smaller experiments can lead to significant learning opportunities.
Character development is essential in storytelling across mediums.
Skills in user experience translate across different technologies.
Understanding one's learning style is key to personal growth.
Chapters
00:00Introduction to Michelle Higa-Fox
02:11The Importance of Community in Motion Design
05:17Early Influences and Family Background
07:08Navigating New Technologies and Learning
10:09Innovative Projects at Buck
15:34Creating Systems for Innovation
19:23The Future of Technology in Creative Spaces
Transcript:
Mack Garrison (00:00)
Hey, what's up y'all? Mack Garrison here, co-founder and director of content over at Dash Studio, and I am so excited to introduce y'all to Michelle Higa Fox, an Emmy award-winning artist and filmmaker who combines code-based visuals with handmade animation. With over 15 years of experience in motion graphics, animation, and experience design, her work has earned a Peabody Award, Art Directors Club Young Guns Award, and Best Music Video Award at South by Southwest. I'm impressed already, Michelle.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (00:28)
You
Mack Garrison (00:29)
In 2012, she founded Slanted Studios to develop commercial projects, music videos, and interactive art installations at the intersection of animation and emerging technology with clients including Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Adult Swim, Coach, Nike, Samsung, Viacom, all the groups you want to work with and is now the current group creative director at BUCK. Michelle, thanks so much for hanging out with us and glad to introduce one of our Dash Bash speakers to our growing audience.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (00:45)
you
Thank you so much, Mack. It's a bit overwhelming to hear altogether. But I'm so excited to join y'all at Dash Bash. I can't tell you the number of people who have had the best time. I would say even a life-changing time, and that it really reminds them how going to Dash Bash captures a lot of the early feelings of motion graphics for all of us who were there in the late 90s, early 2000s. Great energy.
Mack Garrison (01:20)
Ugh, I'm gonna play that
on repeat. That's why I'm gonna fall asleep to it at night. Thank you so much. Yeah, I think, and I know you would agree just based on that comment, just the importance of getting together. The Motion Design Space is such an eclectic group of people with different backgrounds, different specialties who have found their way into this soup of an industry that's just got so much cool creative in it. And it's easy to forget, I think, sometimes with our day-to-day and client work.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (01:31)
Yes.
Mack Garrison (01:47)
just how great each of us are and sharing those stories and connecting. And so the bash was really born in a way to facilitate that. My business partner and I, we went to conferences over the years, always got so much out of it. And so it was a way for us to kind of bring it back to the community and also recognize that the industry has changed, that you don't necessarily have to be in one of these big markets, you can be in a smaller spot. So yeah, it's gonna be super fun and maybe a good place.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (02:05)
Hmm
Mack Garrison (02:11)
for us to start, Michelle, would just be talking a little bit about yourself. was on your website. I love this picture that you have up there. I think it's like you're described as your parents' living room with all the computers as a little kid. Could you describe that picture maybe to the audience and kind of what I'm seeing and why you chose, is that like a leading photo on your website?
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (02:32)
absolutely. Hopefully it'll be inset in the video. Maybe we can refer to it. but, this is a kind of famous internal family photo. So, my family's Japanese Peruvian.
Mack Garrison (02:35)
Yeah, there we go. That's right.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (02:46)
And legendarily, the only photo for a long time that my father sent back to our family in Peru was this photo. Which was really more about the fact for anyone that hasn't seen the photo is that there are three large, very large floppy disk driven computers, two dot matrix printers. I think there's also an oscilloscope and then me as a little two year old in a bonnet in the foreground. Which I think conveyed.
Mack Garrison (02:53)
Nice.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (03:12)
how proud my family was of the life they were building in America. But yeah, I was only two years old, but my family was very, very into the entire computer industry as an early age. And I will also make a note in the background of the photo, there is a handmade macrame.
Mack Garrison (03:16)
I love it so much.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (03:32)
table hanging sort of object, which I believe my mom made by hand. So I think that's also a characteristic of the family.
Mack Garrison (03:33)
yes.
How cool.
I love that. And your
parents were both kind of engineer focused, right? Was it your mom was computer programmer and dad was a field engineer? that right?
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (03:50)
Yes, so my mother...
learned computer programming in the 70s and Lima Parushi actually learned on punch cards, so by hand computer programming early days. And my father was in the early fiber optics days, so he was part of the cohort of engineers who first established all the fiber optic networks. But they were both incredibly creative. I mean, to do that type of problem solving, you also have to be creative, but they had a lot of craft outlets. So my father was also a carpenter. He always played
Mack Garrison (04:06)
Wow.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (04:23)
music, guitar, piano, and my mother. I have these memories of going with my mother to Michael's, the craft store. It's great, it's great. And she...
Mack Garrison (04:31)
Yeah, my god, I think I was literally just there last week. I still go to Michael's. It's great.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (04:37)
I feel like as a child she just went aisle by aisle and was like, I'm going to learn flower arranging. Now I'm going to learn cake decorating. And I have memories of like helping her cut out felt and puffy paint to make like the soccer banners for my brother's soccer team. So they were both pretty invested in those sort of things.
Mack Garrison (04:52)
How fun.
So I guess it was kind of a natural tendency for you growing up to kind of be around this engineer mind, this technical mind, but also it sounds like the arts were a really important part of the family as well. Was that kind of what started to push you and move you towards this kind of new technology creative space that you really operate in today?
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (05:17)
I so. the web, email on the web came around mid 90s.
around the time I was in high school. So I remember as a hobby kind of teaching myself web design, but I had never thought I would go into the arts. So I think that's something that's lovely about motion graphics is it attracts people who are into mixed media. So there's a lot of different ways in, you get filmmakers, you get art illustrators who can draw, you get photographers. And so I...
I am still surprised and delighted that I get to touch animation every day because I actually didn't take any art classes in high school. didn't think... Yeah, all self-taught, but web design seemed like a friendly way in. But in retrospect, I look back and I remember there's another family legend.
Mack Garrison (06:00)
wow, kind of all self-taught a little bit.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (06:11)
where my parents wrote a program where if you type train into the keyboard, a little like ASCII text-based train would go across as a thing to delight me. And one day my mom came into the office and she found baby me on the chair just typing train over and over again, even though I didn't know how to read. I just knew the buttons to press to make the thing. So I think.
Mack Garrison (06:19)
that's fun.
That's amazing.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (06:38)
I think web design was a natural way in and also the start of really enjoying spaces that felt new. So while I know sometimes things that are new absolutely can feel intimidating, the flip side of that is that...
there is not necessarily a structured or right way to do it yet. So it actually invites experimentation and it evens, in my mind, it evens the playing field and it encourages play.
Mack Garrison (06:59)
Mm.
I love that. And I think, you know, it's interesting as someone who's always had a fascination with the intersection of technology and design. It really does feel like it's on the forefront of like what's next because to what you just said, there's not really that clear path. I think it also makes it intimidating to get into like, you know, anything, anything new, you don't know, you're never good at it right away. And as designers,
and creators, think we have a certain bit of perfectionism already. It's like, I know how to use this tool. I can make it look good here, but to try something else, it's just in a space I don't know. Do have any advice for folks listening who might be considering, like, I want to try something? Like, where do you begin?
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (07:49)
Mmm. Yes, especially in new areas. Where do you begin? I think whenever I'm thinking about almost even trying a new hobby
or a new medium or something, I actually usually start by trying to see if there's a community there. especially now how learning has changed so much in the last couple decades. Like, are there resources? Are there videos I can watch? But even more so, are there local meetup groups? Is there a discord or a slack? Because for me, when I'm thinking about a new technology or something I'm interested in, like I go where the people are because
I find I learn so much faster instead of trying to, because sometimes I don't even have the language for knowing what I want. so, yeah, so it's like, if I'm, you know, learning compositing, but I don't even have the language to describe like what it is about the lighting that doesn't look right. I can't look it up. But if I'm talking to another person,
Mack Garrison (08:38)
Right what you're referring to or what you're trying to achieve. It's like I want this thing, you know
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (09:00)
It both makes it easier for me to use my own language in where I'm at and what I'm excited about, but then also whenever you're talking to another person, inevitably if they're passionate about it, then they're gonna tell you what they're excited about, which then excites you even more. So I just tend to go where the people are.
Mack Garrison (09:17)
Wow, I love that. Well, and it's
a good reminder that I think it's especially in this post-COVID world of being decentralized, working in different places, it's kind of easy to get caught up in your own little silo. You're doing the same thing day in and day out, and sure, you may be good at it, but it's a reminder like, dang, I should reconnect with other people because that's how we're learning from one another. And I imagine that's probably what's so exciting about working at a company like BUCK that is this, you know,
global powerhouse when it comes to creative and tech. With that job and all these people that you work around constantly, I'm curious, there's so many projects that I'm sure you've worked on that you're proud of. Is there one that maybe sticks out recently or rises above all the rest that was just like either particularly challenging or particularly rewarding that's just like, I loved how this turned out?
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (10:09)
I so part of the reason I was so so so excited to come to BUCK was obviously the level of design and animation is very high and you're working with just
these artists with these amazing minds, they're creating visuals you couldn't have imagined. But I was really excited for some of these artists to get to work in a way they haven't before. So it's like, what happens if we take your art and all of a sudden it's interactive and you can talk to it or you can actually play with it and it pushes back? And so a lot of the juice for me at BUCK has been trying to create the safe space where people can see their work in a new way.
think some of the most satisfying work has been doing augmented reality work, virtual reality work, AI adjacent work.
but specifically with teams who have never gotten to do this before. And simultaneously, we've brought in a lot of amazing talent who is experienced first, but maybe they haven't gotten to work with illustrators or stop motion animators or sell artists before. So then they're actually getting to realize what they know in a different way that they haven't. And I think maybe a culmination of this was we...
have an Asian Pacific employee resource group at BUCK and I think one of the really
gratifying collaborations I've gotten to do is for the Lunar New Year a couple years ago, we did AR filters and it was all with artists who had never done an AR face filter before and it was a really great entry for them to try that out for the first time. And then that kind of morphed into a group art show that we curated and collaborated last year, which was really gratifying. Again, to have something in real life, everyone gets to have physical art hanging on the wall that just people
in Brooklyn get to see who might not know anything about BUCK, but then the art that was there was flown in from all over the world because there were LA artists, there were Sydney artists, everyone getting to contribute. And the mediums were also really far-ranging. So there was Needlepoint, there were digital painting posters, there were films, there was like resograph animation. And so just collaboration, I would say.
Mack Garrison (12:32)
cool.
Well, it's so interesting to me
about that and elementally I've experienced it on a smaller level where like in simplest form, you know, if you're an animator and you're designing something for animation, you're making it easier for yourself, right? You're like, I'm gonna design it this way because I wanna animate it this way. So that'll be easier. But if you're an illustrator designed for an animator, sometimes you might create something that's wild or intricate and the animator would be like, dang, I have no idea how I'm gonna animate this. And it challenges them, right? To figure it out.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (12:47)
Right.
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (13:01)
And I imagine the tech is the same way. Someone who's in the AR space, like, don't know what I'm supposed to do here. I like this, so let me try that out. It kind of pushes the tech maybe in a place that it hasn't typically gone. Would you say that's pretty accurate?
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (13:14)
Yes, definitely. think that's one thing that I've learned over the years is the work always ends up being the best if instead of saying like, you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this. It's more focusing on opportunities like what can you do or relaying to the artist or the team member to be like, hey, you're here for a reason. I think that's another thing is when people are doing something new, a lot of times
they're like, why am I here? Or like, I'm kind of excited to be here, but I'm kind of scared this might be kicking in my imposter syndrome. And so I think what we try to do is make sure people understand, like, no, you're absolutely here for a reason, and it's actually super exciting that you're here. And like, this is what we want to bring to the table. Like, don't worry.
we're not going to let you walk out on a plank and not tell you. But then I think it's also creating an environment for collaboration then also. So it doesn't feel like things are getting known. It's more like they're always just getting steered towards a new thing that we probably wouldn't have made, anyone on the team would have made as an individual. We're creating something new that was only feasible because it was this team of people land.
Mack Garrison (14:10)
Sure.
Hmm.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (14:36)
in a certain spot. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (14:37)
It sounds like a conductor in a symphony, honestly. You know, as creative director or a director, it's like you have this focus of kind of generally where things need to be and what some core constraints are that are maybe inflexible. And as the, as the player, the musician and the creator, you're unsure of how to get there, but it's a conductor like, look, keep doing this, or I love what you're doing here. Let's, let's pair you up with these flutes or the brass or whatever it is. And you're kind of in concert together and
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (15:02)
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (15:05)
I just love that. Maybe this is a good question that stems off of it. Let's say, you know, let's say it's a smaller studio like Dash or someone else similar. We're trying to create some sort of system around innovation. You we hear about all this change. We want to get into innovation. want to try something. Have you found that there's like a good place to start or even broader thinking that helps kind of create systems around things that are a bit abstract and unknown?
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (15:34)
So I'm a big believer in sprints and making. I am a huge believer in actually taking something from concept through execution, through posting it on the internet. There are so many steps and parts of it that you don't realize that you learn actually by doing that are really important.
And so for me, I always like to identify a target like, hey, we've never done.
a postcard that we could send out that also has an augmented reality overlay. So we actually did this for the Adobe Max talk because Adobe now has a software package called Arrow that's part of the creative suite and they make it super easy to make a postcard that then you can like lift up and see a 3D model that you can actually like hold and twist. But that's a great example of something where you're like, I don't know how to make that. But you could probably, if you set aside
Mack Garrison (16:33)
Sure.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (16:37)
a week, I would say one to two weeks is a small studio because you're trying to balance this with work or if you're an individual maybe you devote a couple weekends but you identify something and you actually try it out. And kind of starting small I think part of it and this was something that was learned over time many many years I think when I was younger I always identified as my
innovation experiments, actually something that was like gigantic and it was only in retrospect that I realized I was like, I shouldn't have started with a 10 minute short film as my goal. I probably should have started with a 15 second looping gif as my goal. And so I think knowing that there's these smaller bite sized experiments to dip your toes in.
Mack Garrison (17:11)
yeah, right.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (17:23)
is really great. And sorry, I'm keeping going, but I think I first heard this on an old Grayscale Gorilla podcast, but he had mentioned this experiment where I think they divided a class in half and one half they asked them to make.
as many perfect pots as possible, like throw as many perfect clay pots as possible. And then the second one, they just asked them like throw as many as possible. It's just a volume game. And then after five hours, they went back and they found that the half of the class that had just been instructed to do as many as possible, even though there were more that were not quote unquote perfect.
they created more pots that were exactly like the model than the people who were instructed to do perfect, something perfect. So I resonate a lot with that story where you don't have to show everything you make publicly, but the most important thing is to learn to keep making and just keep making as a practice.
Mack Garrison (18:26)
I love that so much. It's
this idea of basically, know, perfection inhibits progress. Like you've got to just keep moving, keep kind of taking one step forward on it. I feel like I might've heard that study as well too, which is really interesting. Also shout out for anyone looking for TV, The Great Pottery Throwdown, if you like, The Great British Bake Off. I'm telling you, my wife and I have just been crushing that recently. It's the next one up from The Great British Bake Off, but it's really great. I love that.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (18:32)
Yeah.
Yeah
Mack Garrison (18:53)
You know, another question I think a lot of folks have is tech is just changing so quickly. So there's also this fear I think people have where you learn something new, you invest this time and energy into it only for it to move or transition or be somewhere else. And maybe it's not invoke like it used to be. Just from your perspective and the stuff that BUCK is focusing on, do you think there's a particular area or kind of new tech, VR, AR, some of this stuff in AI that feels like it might be
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (18:59)
Mm-hmm.
Mack Garrison (19:23)
a bit long lasting. Like is there a focus y'all have or like yeah we think that this area is probably going to be something in the future based on data or information we've gotten as a bigger company.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (19:35)
Yeah, I think always the underlying things to focus on are the skills that translate no matter what. So good character development, understanding how to convey a character quickly. It doesn't necessarily matter if the text shifts, like that storytelling.
holds through no matter what. And it's interesting because BUCK did a lot. We were actually foundational partners with the Spark AR platform, which is like those Instagram face filters. When those first popped off, that was BUCK. And Spark actually was sun, as a platform, was sunsetted earlier this month. So it's wild to me that there is this entire platform.
Mack Garrison (20:05)
yeah, that's right.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (20:18)
where all these creators were making their living in entire freelance culture and now they're having to pivot. But what's interesting is it also provided a way that a lot more people could learn user experience and could learn the principles of augmented reality. And like, how do we put design elements overlaid with physical space? Like, what are the rules? What makes for a good experience? That still translates into VR. And we've seen, know, Helena Dong
as
an amazing example, she's a senior ADF buck right now. She started in Spark but then was helping direct VR experiences and larger AR experiences. So I think the skills can still translate and I would say I don't know if VR as we know it now, who knows if it will continue or AR as we know it now where you're always holding up a device, but I think if you look longer
10, 15 years in the future, some sort of persistent digital layer is probably gonna hold. But there's also a world where it's like the tech that's going to allow us to experience that doesn't exist yet. So it's you're almost concepting about, hey, what are the skills and world building and pipeline understanding we're gonna need actually for the thing after the thing after the thing we have now?
Mack Garrison (21:22)
Mm-hmm.
I love that. It's also, it's building problem solving skills, right? At a foundational level, it's yes, this tech might change or evolve, but if you're figuring out how to navigate something new, getting comfortable in what we talked about before we even hopped on the podcast, like the deep end of the pool where you can't quite stand, but you're kind of navigating comfortability there, then you're basically setting yourself up for success in the future, because you can evolve as the tech evolves.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (21:49)
Mm-hmm.
Totally. I actually think one thing about learning to...
learning new technology is you learn yourself. Like how do I learn best? Right? When we onboard new artists at BUCK, a lot of the onboarding decks have this one slide at the end, which is almost like, what's your learning style? Do you like one-on-ones? Do you like materials you download at your own time? Do you like lecture series? Do you like references? Because people learn in different ways. So by constantly learning, you get to learn how you like to learn. And that is probably the most
important skill.
Mack Garrison (22:47)
100%. You gotta know where you're gonna be able to succeed, right? You can't try to force something down that's not the right fit. I love that so much.
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (22:49)
Yeah.
Yeah, and also like learning what helps you navigate uncertainty. I think that's something a lot of the artists in, we call it the experience group at BUCK, it's like our whole thing is like, Like uncertainty is table stakes here. And so we're just helping each other and helping our clients like understand how to navigate that uncertainty.
Mack Garrison (23:22)
I love it so much.
Michelle Higa Fox, she's the group creative director over a buck doing some really smart things and really creative stuff. If you want to come see Michelle and you want to come have a great experience at the Dash Bash, June 11th through 13th, 2025, we're hanging out in Raleigh, North Carolina this summer. Two days of great speaker series, of great hangouts to connect with some of the best in the industry. Hope you can make it. Hope you can join. If you haven't got your tickets, come grab them, come see Michelle and we can't wait to hang out with you. Thanks so much for the
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (23:25)
Hahaha
Hey.
Mack Garrison (23:51)
brief and quick intro. feel like I could pull this out way more, Michelle, but we're just going to tease them. everyone's going to have to come. Everyone's got to come see you at the bash. We're going to hang. Thanks so
Michelle HIga Fox [BUCK] (23:56)
Okay, excited. We're gonna hang. Everybody come hang.