Q&A with Dash Bash Speaker, Jorge Canedo
dash’s, Mack Garrison, had a chat with Ordinary Folk’s owner and creative director, Jorge Rolando Canedo Estrada. Read on to get his take on starting a studio, portfolio vs. paying projects, and the importance of industry camaraderie.
Q&A with Jorge Canedo
Read time: 15min
Mack Garrison:
So maybe a good place to start would be, how did you get into Ordinary Folk? Where did Ordinary Folk originate from? Were you always thinking about wanting to start a studio?
Jorge Canedo:
I had the idea before I went to school. I had this bug in me that it would be cool to start something from the ground up. It never became real until after having had the experience of working at different studios. I worked at Buck, and then Giant Ant. Afterward, I decided that I was going to go freelance and got the chance to work with a bunch of other studios. Those experiences solidified my desire to start my own.
I didn't have a name for us for a long time. Then, I was reading a book and the last chapter talked about our role in the world. It talked about how people try to make it feel like making designs is going to change the world when in reality they won’t. At the end of the day, it's what you do, how you do it, and who you do it with that matters. Then, he quoted Gandalf. Something to the effect of, “it's the small deeds of ordinary folk that make a real difference.”
Jorge Canedo:
I was working as an Ordinary Folk incorporation for some time, but it was just me. Then we had a big project come in and I was like, "Oh, I could use some help." So I brought Victor in on a six-month contract. That six-month contract became a year contract. The year contract became a year and a half contract, but I still hadn't hired him because I was just so scared. Around that time, a lot of things fell into place. One person that I had worked with on other projects as a client said, "Hey if you ever need help producing, let me know." That was Stefan.
Shortly after, his department got dissolved so he was looking for a job. His last day was on a Friday, and his first day with us was the next Monday. Around the same time, Greg decided to come and visit out of nowhere. We had started talking seriously about hiring more people, so we hired Greg, hired Victor finally, and then decided to launch the studio.
Mack Garrison:
Wow, it sounds like it all happened pretty quickly. There was planning and thought, but it sort of was like, “all right, now's the time.” Do you feel like that's accurate? That it just came together?
Jorge Canedo:
I think so. It was stewing in my brain for a couple of years. Then in six months, we were doing the thing.
Mack Garrison:
How do you feel all of your past experiences have influenced what you're currently doing at the studio?
Jorge Canedo:
If I hadn't had the opportunity, if Jay wasn't as open as he was when allowing me into the core team of Giant Ant; seeing behind the scenes, and even being a part of more executive decisions. Without that experience, I wouldn't have felt as comfortable as I was to go on my own.
Ordinary Folk’s, “School of Motion: Manifesto.”
Mack Garrison:
When you started Ordinary Folk, how much of a plan was there around your work culture? Was that something you were cognizant of as you were starting to build it with the team that you wanted to bring in there? Or, did it naturally happen?
Jorge Canedo:
I was very, very conscious about it. Mostly because at the time I started Ordinary Folk, we had just had our second child. I knew that I wanted it to be a place where I could drop my kids off at school, come to work, and then be home for dinner-type thing. A place where if we wanted to do personal projects, we could just carve some time during the eight-hour day and make it happen.
A lot of times we will say no to projects because we know that they’re going to eat our souls. Or sometimes as a team, we will do these projects, but after we're going to do a whole bunch of other fun things or we'll close the studio for a week so that everyone can make up the time with their families. We do try to be family-oriented, and that doesn't just apply to our own, but also to us treating each other as a family. We're in it together. I try to keep it as close as possible. So in many ways, that dictates the people that we work with.
Mack Garrison:
One of the things that constantly surprises me is just how many new things pop up that I would never have accounted for in running a studio. You think you have a general idea of what's coming and what to plan for, but then there's always something unexpected. Is there anything that sticks out to you on your anniversary of Ordinary Folk that was surprising?
Jorge Canedo:
Yeah, the part that sometimes is hidden is dealing with people. Each person has a different way of taking feedback, responding to a brief, or solving a problem. All those things are so individual-specific. Being a good creative director at A studio doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to be a good creative director at ANY studio. It's knowing how to properly direct a specific person on your team. Learning how different it is with each person, each individual, and each personality is probably one of the biggest surprises I'd say in the work-sphere.
Mack Garrison:
That's interesting.
Jorge Canedo:
Another thing has been trying to understand our holes and how to go about filling them smartly. There's been a temptation for us to bring in a bunch of animators for a single project. That struggle to keep the culture, keep the team small, and not to get too much into the new, shiny thing is always an effort.
Mack Garrison:
Definitely. For us it’s been, how do you scale your creative without losing the "it" factor? How much do you balance? Do you guys find yourself saying no to a lot of projects? Or, if the client is the right fit with the right budget, do you guys make it work?
Jorge Canedo:
We do say no a lot. Honestly, most no’s have been because of timelines. We try to keep a healthy work-life balance. If they ask us, "can you do it in three weeks," we'll try to push to do it in five weeks. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't, which means that we're fairly booked for one to two months in advance. Unless it's something incredible that we all want to do, generally the timeline doesn't work so we have to say, no.
That being said, I think I try to involve everybody as much as possible before we say yes to a project. Is it creatively fulfilling? Is it something everybody believes in? Does it benefit us financially? If we say, "okay, this project is going to be terrible, but we're going to be done with it in two weeks and it's going to be really, really profitable." And by terrible, I mean boring.
“it's the small deeds of ordinary folk that make a real difference.”
Mack Garrison:
...bad?
Jorge Canedo:
Just, very simple stuff that we could do in our sleep-type thing. When everybody seems to be on board with it, then we do it. On the other hand, this project came in and it was a pitch. We generally have a rule of no pitching. The team seemed to be okay with doing it and they were willing to sacrifice the extra time. But I wasn't. There were a lot of red flags that the team maybe couldn't see, from a production point of view. For example, the way they were managing communication.
I was like, "You know what? Even though this could be really cool, I think the safe bet is to stick to the projects we have and try to protect the team from this and ourselves." So, we ended up passing on it, and I'm not going to lie, it hurts. I feel like it could've been awesome, but you have to make the right choices. The hard choices.
Mack Garrison:
I find that one of the lessons that I've learned in the four years of doing dash is that I felt so obliged to say, yes, in the very beginning. As we've grown, I felt more comfortable saying, no. It's a hard thing to do, we still struggle. We have those same things you're talking about where it's like, “this is a cool project, but is it pressing our timelines? Is it pressing our process and how we go about stuff?” But, even when you say, no, to those things, it's still in the back of your mind.
You brought up something that I think is interesting; the balance of projects that pay the bills and keep the lights on for the studio versus the projects that are great portfolio pieces. Do you feel like you have a good grasp on the percentage of the work you're taking on throughout the year that just keeps the lights on, as opposed to the percentage of work that you feel like is portfolio-worthy?
“Epic;” partnership with Stephen McCaskell.
Jorge Canedo:
That's a great question. Because we've intentionally kept it small, we've been able to be picky. It's a blessing that we can say no to projects. A privilege that I don't take for granted, and it's a privilege that I feel like we may not always have. But because of that, I feel like we're still in the honeymoon phase. If there’s been a piece that we haven't been able to show, it's because the client hasn't let us. But everything else has pretty much made it into our portfolio.
Mack Garrison:
That’s great.
Jorge Canedo:
The only thing that we haven't shown is NDA stuff. This was for Google, or whoever. It can only live once, and once it's viewed it needs to be burned after reading. It's a shame because we were really happy with them. But other than that, I would say about 90% of our pieces have made it into a portfolio.
Mack Garrison:
That's fantastic.
You've brought up something I think is interesting. It's something I know I’ve struggled with in certain moments: when you're working with a big client and they have certain stipulations where they don't want you to show the project. Do you guys add a fee to that? Have you gotten any advice on how to handle a project when it's like that?
“being a creative director at A studio doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to be a good creative director at ANY studio.”
Jorge Canedo:
Yeah, we're trying to set up a system for that, because more and more have been. We have a list of questions that we send before saying yes to any project. Are we going to be able to say that we did it? If not, then there's a conversation that it's going to cost you X more. We don't have a percentage necessarily because it's very much case-by-case. But even if we can't show it, we're going to put all of our efforts into it. In the end, we're making it for you.
Mack Garrison:
It's such a shame because our industry is so visual, and a lot of our work comes from what people are able to see in our portfolios. For the most part, clients only hire for what they can see, which is always a struggle.
But that's an interesting point. Let's pivot the conversation a little bit. Coming off of Blend Fest, I felt like you went from the talk of the town on where you wanted to go, and inspired us of course to do the dash bash. But I'm also seeing Camp MoGraph popping up, you have Half Rez in Chicago, I think I may have even seen that F5 is coming back. Why do you think there's such a resurgence in the popularity of these motion festivals? What do you think it is that gets people so excited?
Jorge Canedo:
That's an excellent question. I've talked with people in different industries; the film industry, the editing industry, even the gaming industry. There's something special about the motion design industry, in which it started with such a basic entry-level. You can watch a video tutorial and start moving stuff. It makes people connected online and it builds the foundation of a community that I dare to say is unlike any other; where people are very open, and willing to help each other out, answering questions, sharing things, and complimenting each other. That's what we saw on Vimeo. It’s how everybody got to know each other and see each other's work. So, it's just a natural consequence.
The way I see it, we're hanging out online. We might as well do it in real life. It's a reminder of why we do it, to get people excited again about what got them interested in motion design in the first place. All these various things. There's Mouvo, there's NodeFest, and there's so many more happening all over the world. It's great to see now. This is not just a Blend thing, this is a community mentality because we want to get together and see people's work. I don't think that's going to go away.
Mack Garrison:
I love it. Honestly, for us at least, dash started, let's see, what year was the first Blend Fest?
Jorge Canedo:
2005. No, 2015.
“there's something special about the motion design industry...you can watch a video tutorial and start moving stuff. it makes people connected online and builds the foundation of a community that I dare to say is unlike any other.”
Mack Garrison:
It was like September 2015 right? So, dash started in October of 2015. We were one month in when we went to Blend Fest. I remember as an upcoming studio in the middle of Raleigh, North Carolina, the middle of nowhere for most folks, it was so important to me to be able to go somewhere and connect with all these people that I'd known online but had no idea what they looked like. To be able to get their advice.
It was an incredibly helpful thing for an up-and-coming studio. Which is, of course, one of the reasons why we wanted to put this on. To give back to the community. As a final question before we can let you get out of here, after putting on Blend Fest for the last five years or so, what advice would you give for the dash bash that we should consider as we're finishing up our planning?
Jorge Canedo:
Just one?
Mack Garrison:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, maybe a couple of key takes. Highlights, not to scare us.
Jorge Canedo:
I think that one thing that we keep remembering is that ultimately it's not really about networking. It's not about your speakers. Don’t get me wrong, those are important things. In some ways, those are your selling points. But, at the end of the day when you're there, it's about the people; making the people feel special. Be worried about the experience of someone coming in. How do they feel? How do they feel they’re being treated, like we're happy that they're there? Think of it as a party and you're the host, more so than you’re creating this networking event where you're going to come out with free contacts and merch.
Focus on the people. Like the way you speak of your studio; the culture, being a people-center. Bring that to the festival. That is one of the main things that Teresa, who is the other brain behind Blend, always cared about. Of course it's also one of the things that Claudio and Sander focus on, the four of us always tried to make the festival one we would love to attend. Another thing I keep going back to again and again is to make sure people remember the inspiring talks. Unfortunately, that's not the first thing people talk about when they experience Blend. They're talking about, "dude we had waffles and there was a band at the end!"
Mack Garrison:
Right!
Ordinary Folk’s, “Keep Looking,” for client, Desiring God.
Jorge Canedo:
Little things like that make people feel special, and I think that's one thing that I would say is very important. Be a good host.
Mack Garrison:
That's a good takeaway. We're excited about what's going to come this September. I’m looking forward to hanging out with you and everyone else who descends on Raleigh. Man, it's going to be a lot of fun. Well, Jorge, I can't thank you enough for hopping on a quick call with us for the interview.
Jorge Canedo:
It's worth it, man. I'm excited. I think you guys will do an awesome job, and I'm very excited for you guys.
Mack Garrison:
Awesome, thanks so much, Jorge. Say hey to the studio for us.
Jorge Canedo:
Will do. Bye.
Mack Garrison:
All right. See you, buddy. Bye.
A collection of some of Ordinary Folk’s favorite moments from their favorite projects thus far. Original music by Ambrose Yu