An interview with Dylan Casano: a motion designer/illustrator from Oakland, California who has over 8 years experience in animation specializing in 2D After Effects Animation, including motion graphics, character animation, and compositing.

Interviewer: Bella Alfonsi.

Read time: 5min

Bella:

Hi Dylan! I'll never stop saying it, your Earth Day 2020 animation is glorious and one of my favorites of all time. But for those who are unfamiliar with you/your work, please introduce yourself!

Dylan:

Haha, thank you! I'm a human 2D Animator and Designer currently based in LA! My personal work tends to be colorful and graphic, and I'm usually breathing life into something that shouldn't be alive, like a taco, a bra, or the Earth.

I think putting sad faces on random inanimate items is hilarious, and you can't tell me any different.

I'm always trying to think of new ways to use After Effects in funky ways to get new looks! I believe every kind of illustration style can be animated, just comes down to how you do it, and how much sleep you want.

I'm primarily an After Effects Animator, with a propensity for adding character to things. I've been picking up Cel animation in the last 6 years because drawing can just make characters waaaay more expressive. Through a Mograph Mentor course with Henrique Barone, I discovered that Cel is very similar to how you would animate something in After Effects, but you’re just drawing it—a lot.

Bella:

How did you find yourself in the motion design world?

Kyle:

I went to school for Graphic Design for way too long and the most valuable thing I learned was that I’m not very good at Graphic Design. Animation has always come easier for me, and I'm a big nerd about it, but in my school there were no Motion Design classes. “Mograph” was barely a thing in schools at my time.

When I was looking for work with my fresh GD degree (Stands for both Graphic Design and Gol’ Dern), I came across a cool Creative/Branding Studio in Berkeley, California who was looking for a flash animation intern. I knew flash from my “Newgrounds.com” days (if you know what I'm talking about then your back probably hurts rn) so I took it on! After I finished the flash stuff, I was moved onto some After Effects projects which I learned as I went. They liked what I did, and I was hired as a Motion Designer.

After 4 years (to the day!) I broke from that Full Time nest to spread my wings in the Freelance world, a phase that would be pretty short lived because of the ever-present and ever-tempting long-term Tech contracts that would beckon me. After a few stints at some beefy internet companies, I decided to venture to the Mograph wilds of Los Angeles to work with We Are Royale!

Bella:

The behind the scenes content you share is super interesting and helpful to see as a fellow artist. Have you ever considered creating a class/being a teacher to share even more of your knowledge?

Dylan:

Thank you! I've always strived to make "Behind the Scenes" content both informational as well as entertaining. Sometimes the BTS is more interesting than the piece itself, and the animation process is very complex and really deserves some extra love.

I absolutely LOVE the BTS breakdowns made by Stéphane Coëdel and Chromosphere (look them up!). Their breakdowns always seemed to go further than a lot of the BTS content I saw out there at the time, they would stop and start the animation, break it down layer by layer, and then use fun sound effects and music to bring the whole thing home. I took a few pages from their books.

In addition to BTS content, I've spent some time teaching a Workshop or two at my alma mater and loved it! I definitely see teaching in my future in some capacity. I would absolutely love to teach an online class if there's enough interest out there.

Bella:

As someone with over 8 years of experience in the industry, how do you think it's changed since you first started? Is there anything you're excited or worried about?

Dylan:

Oh yeah, things are always changing! When I was in school Motion Graphics wasn't even a thing; there was Animation, and there was Graphic Design— they are both very different from Motion Graphics. There may have been some private art schools somewhere that had motion graphics classes but for the most part, I wasn’t aware of it existing in the US education system at the time. Now, Motion Graphics is straight up taught in school, which blows my mind!

The ‘Elder’ generation of Mograph (*cries a little*) used to come from various backgrounds like film, design, or even architecture—so it was easy to meet people who had a good general knowledge of all Mograph trades and beyond. Now that it’s been integrated into the school systems, I’ve noticed a lot more specialized (and crazy talented) people, which definitely changes the vibe a lot.

As far as my fears for the future go—I share, with the rest of the art world, the hesitation about the integration of A.I. art into the field. I’m not afraid that it will take our jobs, but I do worry that the lines between Human created and A.I. created art will blur, and integrity amongst artists will be compromized. It is a dazzling tool, however, and I know we will find great uses for it.

*“Workout” from Dylan’s personal explorations.*

Bella:

What's it like working with We Are Royale? What does being the lead animator/designer entail?

Dylan:

At WAR we do things a little differently. Typically, a Lead Animator/Designer would find themselves mostly delegating and managing people. Because of WAR’s light staff footprint, and our passion for the work, the Leads are still “on-the-box” as it were, typically before the project has even started. We “Lead the Creative '' as our bossboss Brien Holman says, and then we disseminate this special knowledge or technique amongst the rest of the team as the project nears production.

Management was a natural step forward for me at this point in my career, but I just love animating so gol’ dern much that I couldn’t give up being an individual contributor—so I do both.

On bigger projects, I’m definitely finding myself delegating more than animating—but for the most part I straddle the line between Senior animator and management. I learned the hard way that delegating assignments and Animating/Designing are two distinct and very complete jobs, and you can’t do them together very effectively. The lovely people at WAR help me walk that line and help me pick up the slack where needed.

Bella:

When in a creative rut, do you find it helps to step away from what you're working on? Where do you find inspiration?

Dylan:

When I’m in a rut, I find a few things very helpful

1. Just get your first idea on paper, you overachiever, you. Got an idea that you hate because it’s “too basic” or “too obvious” and you can’t think of anything else? Or maybe you don’t have any ideas beyond what was already provided for you? I find it most helpful to JUST DO THE MOST OBVIOUS THING very quickly. Just do it, don’t overthink it. Feel free to keep thinking of ideas, obviously, but your brain just needs some stimulation. Get that idea down on the screen, there ain’t no shame in using your ol’ standby tricks of the trade. Then look at what you got, now tweak it. Still hate it? Please refer to #2.
2. Walk the heck away. Get some water, take a walk, or work on a different aspect of the assignment. Just do something else for a while—ideally with enough time to kinda forget what your art looks like. When I return to a piece after some good time, I definitely have a very immediate reaction, and my first urge gives me a pretty good idea what needs to change/improve; or at the very least, I hate it still and probably need to start over.
3. "Faked-it-til-you-make-ed”. If none of that has worked, boy oh boy, you must be pretty stressed, huh? Well, tough, you’re a hack and you just "faked-it-til-you-make-ed” your little heart out your whole career. Congratulations for tricking literally everyone, everywhere, simultaneously into trusting you. What a mess—your parents were right—wait until your boss finds out you have as much skill as a dressed up Golden Retriever sitting at a computer.
4. Chill out and start fresh. Ok, now that you got all that negative energy out, listen to how ridiculous you sound right now. You’re not a dog. Now breathe. You got this. Now put that thing you made away for a second and start over. I hear you, “But I spent so much time on it, I can’t start over now blahblahblahblah” STOP. Just DO IT. Chill out and start fresh. Stop fiddling with something that’s not working. You’ll either: make something way cooler way than you thought—way faster—and you’ll be very proud of yourself, or hate what you make and that makes the first idea not look so bad after all. At the very least, you’ll get more options for your AD / Client / Sentient Golden Retriever, and they can help steer you in the right direction.
5. Make it fun, silly! We make pretty pictures for a living. Creative brains hate work, so trick yourself into doing work by making yourself laugh. Keep it simple and don’t forget the original reason you started.

Bella:

Your character animation has a lot of personality, but so does your non-character animation. How do you give personality to something that is not a human?

Dylan:

One main challenge I give myself is to try to move more properties than just the “Position, Scale, and Rotation.” When I just do the ol’ P-S-R, it can look pretty flat and lifeless—try to throw in some path animation, or some clever masking for depth, or maybe slap some effect on there for something unexpected. Surprise your viewer! When you treat a flat shape like a flat shape, it’s gonna look like a flat shape; there, I’ll give you that one for free.

Other than that—it’s pretty much Easing, Drifts, and Overshoots/Bounces.

Easing doesn’t have to be complicated, I have basically 2 Easing curves I use for everything, but that’s a secret so please don’t tell anyone.

Drifts are when something stops moving it kinda just keeps going forever—just like my responses to these questions. Learn how to master this move well and most modern mograph is in your bag. I like to use the loopOut(‘continue’) expression and make my curve kinda end abruptly—that’ll do it.

Overshoots and bounces are essential to breathing life into things. Nothing in this world moves from A to B in a linear way and just stops, nothing kills the illusion of life more than those silly diamond linear keyframes. Introduce ‘em to a nice ease curve and they’ll be living before ya know it.

Bella:

How did you start working with Balkan Bump? Are you interested in working with other musicians as well?

Dylan:

Balkan Bump is a band started by my brilliant buddy Will Magid. He was my neighbor in Oakland and he was always filling the halls with sweet sweet Trumpet sounds. We became friends pretty instantly, because how could you not? I started helping him with his album art and branding pretty soon after that. It has been a very rewarding experience seeing my friend climb in popularity and as a result I’ve gotten to go to his shows and meet some of my favorite music producers like Grammatik, and Opiuo to name a few!

I’ve also been privileged to have worked with one of my favorite bands, Vulfpeck, through a completely different set of friends. Woody Goss, the pianist of the group, asked me to help animate a little Christmas special reminiscent of Charlie Brown one year. It’s still one of my favorite pieces to this day!

I love working with musicians, because a lot of the work gets to be more interpretive and artsy than your everyday commercial work. No one hates you when you make it a little funky.

Bella:

Are there any upcoming projects or anything else you're looking forward to this year?

Dylan:

I am looking forward to getting a few more personal short short animations out there and venturing into the Tiktok world of animation—provided it sticks around with us.

Still from the motion graphic spot for Maksoi.

Bella:

Any final words of wisdom for our readers?

Dylan:

Don’t overwork, don’t burn out; energy is precious and finite. Don’t marry your job and don’t date your coworkers. Then, break every single rule I just said, and have a f*cking blast!

Takeover Tuesday with Dylan Casano

The Dash Bash venue