Takeover Tuesday with Jake Sojcher
An interview with Jake Sojcher: a motion designer and visual artist.
Q&A with Jake Sojcher.
Read time: 5min
Matea Losenegger:
Hey Jake! Thank you for taking part in our Tuesday Takeover series. Can you introduce yourself and your work?
Jake Sojcher:
Happy to be a part of it! I am a motion designer and visual artist working primarily with the Adobe Creative Suite, using After Effects, Photoshop, etc. I’m also just generally an explorer, always jumping around between various hobbies relating to art and music.
Matea Losenegger:
What shaped your path into motion design and pursuing a creative career?
Jake Sojcher:
I’ve always loved making things. As a child, I would spend countless hours building spaceships and fortresses with Legos. As I got older, I took various art and music lessons. In high school, I was playing the drums, recording, and mixing audio. Then in college, I got really into photography and video production, so I became a media studies major. I really wanted to pursue a creative career, but I was afraid. I had heard things about how difficult it can be to make it in the creative fields. I was shy and I didn’t have the confidence in my ability to put myself out there. I thought maybe marketing would be a safer creative path, but the only aspect of my one marketing internship that excited me was when I got to assist with a video shoot at the office. After college, I was scraping by on small freelance video gigs, and feeling very unsure if I could make this work. I eventually found a one month temp job editing videos for a local production company. They liked my work, and it turned into a full-time gig. There I got to learn a lot more about the various aspects of post-production. There was another editor on staff who handled motion graphics, and I thought what he was creating was super cool. So I started watching After Effects tutorials on YouTube and asking him for pointers. Eventually when he left, I became the motion graphics guy and the rest is history.
Opening shot from Jake’s reel.
Matea Losenegger:
What inspired your decision to freelance full time and how has the transition been going?
Jake Sojcher:
After a few years at my production company job, I felt like I was ready for new challenges and opportunities for growth. I would periodically apply for jobs at larger companies, but felt discouraged when I consistently wouldn’t hear back. Another coworker of mine had gone freelance, and the idea sounded enticing, but I was also afraid of giving up the stability. Things really changed once the pandemic hit. Until then, I was still very much splitting my time between editing and motion design. But once it became hard to shoot videos in person, I started having opportunities to do even more with motion graphics and really leveled up my skills. I also met my wonderful partner, Lyndsey, on Hinge during the pandemic, and we eventually moved in together. Having a partner who had a steady job, and who gave me lots of encouragement, helped make the idea of freelance feel much more feasible. Then I read The Freelance Manifesto by Joey Korenman, and that was the final push I needed. I left my job, and my boss became my first client. Business was pretty slow at first, but I managed to scrape by. By the end of 2022, after many months of emailing and reel-tweaking, I finally started getting booked more consistently. Work can still ping-pong pretty quickly between very busy and very quiet, so I’m still learning to trust the process. I keep reminding myself that the ebb and flow is just part of freelance life. Overall, I’m really enjoying the lifestyle and the freedom to skip the commute and set my own hours. I especially enjoy having more control over my professional destiny, feeling like my efforts can quickly lead to greater opportunities. I’m really excited to see where the coming years take me.
Matea Losenegger:
From animation to drawing music, photography, and video, you have a pretty diverse skillset - is there a particular medium or type of work you would still like to explore?
Jake Sojcher:
Yes! I’m currently working on building up my illustration skills. I’ve been attending a lot of figure drawing sessions and trying to practice almost every day. Considering most of my work is on a computer, it’s nice to switch it up and spend time with good old pencil and paper. But I’m also working on digital illustration with Procreate and Adobe Illustrator as well. Most of the work I’m hired for involves picking apart graphic art provided by clients and bringing it to life. I’ve dabbled in graphic design enough to scrape things together from scratch when I need to, but I am still learning. I definitely want to be able to animate even more of my own original artwork, both for clients and my own personal projects.
Some characters from Jake’s Crossriver Funding Announcement video.
Matea Losenegger:
As someone with a lot of creative interests, do you find it important to experiment or create work for fun?
Jake Sojcher:
Oh absolutely! One of the big reasons I wanted to go freelance was to free up more time to work on my own projects. I feel very fortunate to be able to do creative work for a living, but there’s also way more I want to do outside of client work. Personal projects are great for building skills I can use professionally, but also for finding my own fulfillment as an artist. It’s nice to have free reign sometimes to make something weird, epic, or silly, with no directions to follow.
Matea Losenegger:
A lot of your work has a very distinct ethereal aesthetic. What inspired this visual flare and where do you seek inspiration from as a whole?
Jake Sojcher:
First off, I love ethereal sounding dream pop bands like the Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, and Beach House, so that’s definitely a part of it. I’m also influenced by Vaporwave and Cyberpunk inspired art that I see online. I like the use of gritty urban settings decked out with vibrant neon colors. It feels so cinematic with a sense of danger, mystery, and intrigue. I started playing with Photoshop to add a similar flare to photos that I take around the city. Then to take it even further, I started bringing some of my edits to life in After Effects as well.
Jake has been developing art style that fuses photography and Photoshop to create surreal cityscapes.
Matea Losenegger:
Do any of your projects stand out as a favorite?
Jake Sojcher:
I made a silly little animation of an octopus riding the subway, which was my first time trying to implement a character I drew into one of my photo edits. I also recently made an animation of my home office setup, where I animated all the stickers on my laptop as well as various elements of my desk. I even composited a screen recording of the After Effects project onto my monitor in the video to get extra meta with it. I think that came out pretty cool, so I’m proud of that one.
Matea Losenegger:
When it comes to client work, what sorts of assignments pique your interest?
Jake Sojcher:
Recently I’ve done a couple projects I’ve enjoyed with an ad agency called Terri & Sandy. One project was for an organization called Strands for Trans. Their mission is to build a network of trans-friendly barber shops and hair salons around the world. It’s nice to do work for a cause that I can see is doing a lot of good. The other project was for Sennheiser, which was cool for me as an audio nerd and a long time fan of their headphones. The ad featured Dee Snider from Twisted Sister. In terms of future projects, I would love to be able to work on more music related graphics. As a big music fan I’d like to work with local bands to create graphics for music videos, animated album covers, or stage projections.
Dee Snider - Extended Commercial for Sennheiser.
Matea Losenegger:
What advice would you give to aspiring creatives?
Jake Sojcher:
Don’t underestimate the importance of persistence. It can take a lot of reaching out to people and following up before you hit your stride. Also never stop learning and building up your abilities. You can learn just about anything on YouTube these days. If you have skills to offer, and you keep putting yourself out there eventually people will take notice, even if it takes longer than you initially hoped.
Matea Losenegger:
What are you looking forward to in 2023? Are there any creative endeavors you're excited about?
Jake Sojcher:
I feel like my drawing skills are really starting to come along and I’m excited to find new ways to implement them into my work. I’ve also really started to hit my freelancing stride, so I’m really excited to see where the year takes me.
Takeover Tuesday with Murat Sayginer
Q&A with Murat Sayginer, a Turkish self-taught digital artist who works in motion design, filmmaking, photography, and music composition.
Q&A with Murat Sayginer
Read time: 5min
Zodiac - Evolution, 2014. Murat Sayginer.
Madison Caprara:
Hi, Murat! If you don’t mind, I’d like to start the interview by having you give a little background on yourself and your work for those who may be unfamiliar.
Murat Sayginer:
I am a self-taught digital artist and I work as a motion designer, filmmaker, photographer, and composer.
I got involved with photography and digital art in 2007. As early as 2008, my works started getting recognition. I got selected for the IPA Best of Show exhibition in New York and in 2010, I was awarded Emerging Talent of the Year in The Photography Gala Awards. These awards motivated me even further to pursue my creative calling.
Murat Sayginer:
Later on, I got into 3D and motion design. I wanted to create new realities that break free from the limitations of the physical world and use them in my storytelling. Starting in 2013, I directed and produced several animated short films which were screened in over 200 film festivals including Academy Award Qualifying Festivals, such as Animest and AIFVF.
In 2019, I assembled ten of these short films under the title of The Flying Fish which is one of my seminal works. The Flying Fish went on to receive the Vitriol Award as the Best Experimental Film in The First Hermetic International Film Festival in Venice.
Madison Caprara:
Motion design, filmmaking, photography, music composition...what niche did you being exploring first, and what originally drew you to it?
Murat Sayginer:
I started with photography but couldn’t get enough of it. Now, it’s more about creating no matter the medium.
Madison Caprara:
Do you find yourself prioritizing or favoring one niche over the others?
Volans, 2013. Murat Sayginer.
Murat Sayginer:
I believe that the essence of a piece should define its format before all.
Madison Caprara:
Now, I understand that you are self-taught. How did you go about developing your skills?
Murat Sayginer:
I learned a lot from online tutorials. That’s really it. The rest is the effort you put in.
Madison Caprara:
You are pretty involved in the NFT space. When and why did you start?
Murat Sayginer:
I got into NFTs about 10 months ago. “Because it felt so empty, without me.”
Madison Caprara:
There seems to be a lot of debate on the differentiation between “artwork” and “crypto artwork”? Do you notice a difference in the two’s creative processes?
Murat Sayginer:
NFT’s didn’t bring anything new to the table in terms of digital art. It’s just a matter of presentation and circulation.
Extremes, 2015. Murat Sayginer.
Madison Caprara:
How do you decide if you are going to create a “normal” or a“crypto” piece?
Murat Sayginer:
It really doesn’t make a difference to me. I create a piece and it becomes part of the blockchain when minted.
Madison Caprara:
From your experience, what is the most important thing new artists and collectors need to be aware of before delving into the metaverse?
Murat Sayginer:
Security, research, communication, and your network.
Madison Caprara:
What is your opinion on the current NFT scene? Where do you see it going in the future?
Murat Sayginer:
My latest project refractions.xyz puts a finger on the map. Let’s include the intro in this interview!
“We’ve lost track of The Flying Fish. This is a new, yet familiar, territory. A dimension where physics is ruled by metaphors, and fiction builds reality. Those CryptoFish seem to be leading the way, looks like we’re gonna be sailing for a while…
Morphing Dreamscapes from a Cosmic Exhibition
The migration is happening. Feeding on all sorts of creations. The metaverse has become a digital playground with an ever-expanding gravitational mass. The transition won’t be simple as we’re building a home made of light in the pivotal phase of our evolution. Not that any of this requires conscious effort.”
Say That You Love Me, 2020. Murat Sayginer.
Madison Caprara:
Pivoting over to your filmmaking experience, your short film, The Flying Fish, gained quite the notoriety. You briefly mentioned it, but can you tell us more about the film?
Murat Sayginer:
Collaborative efforts were made for the music, but the rest took about seven years to complete. As for the inspiration, I wouldn’t know where to start. Astrology had a great influence on the story.
Madison Caprara:
Though the film lacks the traditional sense of a narrative, it still conveys an important message: the human condition and our progress as a whole. Why was this theme so important to you?
Murat Sayginer:
I had to be practical in terms of length and quality. The traditional rules and narratives weren’t as sharp. The theme wasn’t especially important for me, I just had the right amount of experience to talk about it.
Madison Caprara:
What initially surprised you when entering the filmmaking industry that you had been previously unaware of as a motion designer?
Murat Sayginer:
My life has turned into a cartoon. What else can surprise an animator?
Madison Caprara:
You compose the music in your films, correct? What importance does music hold in your life as an artist?
Murat Sayginer:
I like how undeniable can music be. Harmony and beauty lift every piece higher.
Madison Caprara:
And finally, is there anything particularly exciting we should be looking forward to from you in the near future?
Murat Sayginer:
Cryptofish.io will be my main focus for now!
The Flying Fish, 2019. Murat Sayginer.