Celebrating WHM with the Women of Dash
As we wrap up Women’s History Month, we held a special Q&A session with the ladies of dash studio.
Q&A with Erin Bradley, Madison Caprara, Megan DeMarco, Meryn Hayes, Meg Snyder, and Eryn Hsu.
Read time: 20min
The Women of Dash, created by Meg Snyder.
Madison Caprara:
Hey guys!
All right, so I'll start off with the first question and everyone can chime in. How did you all end up at dash? What attracted you to the creative field in general?
Erin Bradley:
I'll go first. I was freelancing for a few years before I started and I was thinking about getting a staff position. I wanted a smaller studio that I felt cared about doing good work and about their employees. dash seemed just that.
Meg Snyder:
For me, I guess it's similar to a lot of other people in the field. I was always super into creative stuff; drawing, painting, and all that. Learning that you could actually make a career out of a passion and finding out all the different avenues and options there are to be in a creative field was really nice.
For me personally, it just felt more like a place where I could actually be myself compared to something like, I guess, a more corporate job. It felt the best fit and the most natural progression.
Madison Caprara:
Were you ever overwhelmed with the number of different routes you could delve into?
Meg Snyder:
I think maybe more so when I first started college because, in high school, I didn't really have a wide understanding of all the options. So I think getting into a space where there were so many all at once, was a bit overwhelming. But in the same way, it was also really fun to dive into each of those and get to explore things to find the right fit. So initially yes, but after getting into it, not really.
Madison Caprara:
Sweet. Yeah, and I don't know if anyone else wants to answer this question or if you'd like me to move on, but the next one pivots off of that. Was there any fear in making the decision to pursue a full-time career within the creative industry?
Meryn Hayes:
I think a little bit. My background is actually in photography. That's what I went to school for. And towards my, I don't know, junior, senior year, when everyone was trying to figure out their lives, I realized that everyone was going to pick up and move to New York City and become a freelance photographer. I was like, “I don't know about that.”
So, I ended up in this middle ground of, I love to be involved with creative, but I also have more of a type-A personality of scheduling, organization, operations. So I found my way into the advertising and marketing agency world. It's the perfect balance for me because I feel I'm involved in the creative, but I'm not actually producing anything myself. I can put my type-A tendencies to good use.
Madison Caprara:
What about the rest of you guys? Was there ever any fear of backlash from family or friends when it came to deciding to pursue being a creative as a full-time career?
Meg Snyder:
It's funny, yeah, initially. My dad is an architect and for some reason, my parents thought that me going into a creative field would not work out for me, even though it was pretty clear that that's what I wanted to do since the time I was a kid. I think it was also just a matter of not knowing if there was anything in the area.
So going back to dash, when I first got out of school, I had no idea that there was a motion graphics community in the Triangle and I didn't really even know what motion graphics was. Just finding dash by accident through my boss was the way I got into it. But I assumed like Meryn, I was going to have to move across the country, probably to California or New York when I graduated. Luckily I didn't have to do that.
Madison Caprara:
Interesting. Because dash is pretty out there. Right? In terms of location, when it comes to the industry. I'm assuming, just from my research and speaking with you guys, most of the agencies or studios are on one of the coasts.
Created by Megan DeMarco.
Meryn Hayes:
It definitely is when you think of advertising or agencies and studios. You're either thinking of New York City or LA. What I feel has happened in the last ten years, the next level cities like Chicago and some of the smaller hubs, Raleigh and Atlanta, they’re putting out the same quality of work as in LA and New York City. And obviously, we're all here at dash because we believe that too. You don't need to be in one of the two to do good work.
I think that's also shifting the client's mindset. Sometimes clients are really particular about only working with people that are close to them, maybe that's something that will continue to change given the whole remote situation. But clients are realizing that they can work with really quality people and studios in smaller markets, which can sometimes save them on the budget too. It's going to shift and continue to shift in the next few years for sure.
Madison Caprara:
Hopefully, yeah!
So I'm assuming that all of you went to a university to get a more formal, higher-level education. Looking back and seeing how it might have influenced and affected the work that you're getting into now, would you say that you're for or against pursuing that formal education route?
Erin Bradley:
I don't think it's totally necessary. Now, there are more schools that are offering motion graphics. SCAD's a big one that I feel was one of the only schools that really had a motion design program in the beginning.
I didn't go to art school. I studied television, so I didn't learn any of this until after. Everything I learned was online and self-taught. There's definitely a big community to learn. Several people do free tutorials and stuff like that, so I don't think it's necessary, but it also wouldn’t hurt. I still think it's a great option if you're able to and you can afford it, but there are other options.
Madison Caprara:
Do you think that a degree might be a stickler for some people or companies that are hiring?
“one of the great things about what we do is, you're bringing your own personal perspective into the work that you're doing.”
Erin Bradley:
I've met very few people when I freelance that even bothered to ask where I went to school. I don't even know if I sent a resume into dash. People just want to see your reel, they want to know if you can do the work. It's nice if you can say, “Oh yeah. I went to SCAD.”
Around here, I feel a lot of people went to SCAD and I know a ton of people came from LA. There's a great community there. CalArts in LA was the same, but I don't think people for the most part really care. If you can do the work that they're hiring for, you’re good.
Meryn Hayes:
Yes! And I was going to say, I don't know that I would have ended up where I am without going to school and having those experiences. But on the other hand, I could have very well found my way here eventually. What I think is really important - whether it's in school, your first few years out of school, or your first few years in the industry if you're not going to school - is just about applying yourself and working really hard.
With school, or at least my art school, it was pretty rigorous. You learn a lot in terms of how to create, but also some of the interpersonal skills; communication and critiquing. I think that's something that isn't very thought of if you're not going to school. How do you give feedback to someone? How do you take feedback? How do you communicate to a client when it's a delicate situation or you're not sure what they want?
Meryn Hayes:
Those are really important skills. If you don't have an education, they’re really important to learn and not let get lost. If you end up in an online school or watching tutorials, you'll learn how to do things and the applications, but not the interpersonal skills. I think that's just really important. So, if you can't get that through school, really focusing on that in your first few years as you're getting started.
Madison Caprara:
I 100% agree. Conversational skills are everything.
Getting away from the topic of education. How much do you think of your own individual personalities, beliefs, ideologies, interests do you put into your work? Does this differ when it comes to studio work and your personal projects?
Meg Snyder:
I can answer that. From my background, having pretty liberal or leftist political views, sometimes working on corporate projects can be a little bristly. We've had some big banking clients that make you put your guard up if you have certain ideologies that clash with those companies. In the end, you end up just putting that aside to do the work. Because you can make really good projects out of it.
In your personal work, you can definitely go off and do your own thing, but that's been an adjustment for me. I know one client, in particular, a few years ago, when we started with them, it was a little bit, “Oh okay, I'm putting ego and politics aside.”
Madison Caprara:
And have there been any projects or clients in the history of dash that it was just a flat-out ‘no,’ because it clashed too much with the ideologies that we have here.
“you can have an all-white team trying to create a story about characters of color and you're not going to get half of it right…you need creators of color and you need more female and trans-queer producers.”
Meg Snyder:
I remember one.
Meryn Hayes:
Yeah. Yeah. I can think of a few.
Madison Caprara:
How do you usually handle those types of situations?
Meryn Hayes:
Well, I don't know that we would say, ‘we don't want to work with you cause you're a fascist,’ it's about taking each situation as it comes and delicately walking that line. In terms of the projects that maybe you can't feel passionate about working on - a bank or another tech video - I think there has to be some kind of separation from it. So, you don't believe in the subject matter, but what can you do to further a style that you've wanted to work on? So that you can still feel something towards it, some passion because otherwise, that's just a really easy way to get down and burnt out.
Created by Eryn Hsu.
Madison Caprara:
Going from the projects that you're not so excited about, what projects stick with you that were some of the best? Some of the ones that you were most proud of?
Erin Bradley:
Well, I know I haven't obviously been here as long but one that sticks out to me was around when I started last year. It was a piece we did for Pride. I liked it a lot because we all contributed to that in some way. It was a big collaborative effort. I know I did some designing and that's not my background and I got a lot of input from Megan for stuff.
By collaborating like that, we're able to learn from each other while working on things together. And it was more of a personal project for us if I remember correctly. Stuff like that's really cool when we have time to work on them.
Meryn Hayes Portrait by Meg Snyder
Meg Snyder:
Yeah. A lot of local projects feel better. So the one early on was for a design festival and all of the scenes involved downtown Raleigh. So you definitely feel a stronger connection to it versus something that's corporate and across the country.
Meryn Hayes:
I would say some of my favorite projects have come from the collaboration Erin was saying. Getting everybody in the studio on one project is a rarity and so really leaning into those opportunities when we have them. But then secondly, some of my favorites have been when we've been able to try a new style or something we've wanted to do for a long time. A few years ago we did this fully illustrated piece and that was one of the first times that we'd done something like that.
Also, we recently just completed a 3D character animation and that was the first time that we've been able to do something like that. It's pushing ourselves to try something we have never done before, but it's also getting wins with clients when we're able to push them outside of their own comfort zones into a style that they didn't realize they wanted or liked. I think those are some of my favorites.
Madison Caprara:
So you would say that the projects you work on are a constant kind of learning experience?
Meryn Hayes:
Well, I think it’s easy for studios, agencies, and freelancers to get into the groove of doing what they make best. That's great and really solid, but you can start to feel backed into a corner. When dash started, we were really good at making those vector, icon, MoGraph-y looking pieces. Especially in the tech field. That's a really easy go-to, and we realized that's all clients were coming to us for because that's what was on our website. How do we grow?
We had to take opportunities with pro bono pieces where the budget wasn't where we wanted it to be in order to put something out there that we were really, really proud of. Stuff that pushed us and our style. That'll help us get more work later down the line. So, it's a win-win because it pushed us outside of our creative confines, but it also helped us land more work in the long run.
Madison Caprara:
For sure.
I've been hearing a lot - not only on the MoGraph Lunch chats that Mack and Jay are starting but also just in general - the debate on generalism versus specialism; the pros and cons of each. Do you guys have any thoughts on that?
“if you hire the people you know and the people you know are only white men, then that's what you do…I’d rather take the time and look through ten extra reels to find someone who would be a good fit that also takes a little tap at that glass ceiling.”
Erin Bradley:
Like everything, there are pros and cons to anything. I think being a generalist these days is more attractive to clients because they want someone who can design AND animate. If you know a little bit of a lot of stuff, that's good, but at the same time, I'm thinking about Jess Herrera.
We needed someone who was, specifically, really good at texturing. So if you’re good at one specific thing, you'll usually get on some cool projects. I don't know if that really answered your question.
Madison Caprara:
No, that was great. I just like to get people's insight. Do you think it can be limiting to be a specialist?
Erin Bradley:
Yeah, totally. Especially if there's something you're good at that's going out of style, or people decide they really want to do 2D hand-drawn stuff and you're very motion graphics specter heavy or something. Then you are going to have to adjust as the industry changes.
Meryn Hayes:
In the past few years, I mean 3D has always been cool, but I just think in the past few years everything's turned to 3D. And so a lot of people are pivoting to that. It was kind of a rarity before, but if you pivot to working on 3D and something else comes along the lines, because it eventually will, and you're stuck in what you've gone all-in on, how do you survive that? It's always going to be about looking ahead and pivoting as things change because inevitably they will.
Also, I do think it depends on where you want to be. We talked about this a little bit on the MoGraph chat; if you want to be at a studio or a big production company, feature films, you're probably going to be brought in for one specific thing. But for us at dash, it's a lot more valuable to have someone who can do a lot because we're so small. We can have different projects come in every day that would pivot what people are working on or what could be good for them to work on, so having a team that can react to that is really important for us.
Meg Snyder:
Yes. Also, if you're someone who is more focused on the concept and preliminary art within a project, you can find yourself completely losing - not control over it - but your hand in it is has ended before you’ve really even started animating.
So if you're someone like me in my position, being more illustration-heavy or character concept-heavy, you don't end up working on things at the finished product. It's nice to become more generalized so you can actually do a little bit of animating, and maybe that involves becoming a Cel animator versus someone more motion graphics-heavy. It’s about being consistently involved in the process.
Madison Caprara:
That’s an interesting take. At some point, it’s almost like you lose ownership of your creations.
Let's see. I want to go into some of the Women's History Month-focused topics. So I'm steadily learning that women are a minority in this industry - much like almost every other industry. Was there a specific experience or point in time when you realized that cis- and trans- women were a minority within the field?
Created by Megan DeMarco.
Erin Bradley:
As I said, I sort of self-taught online. I didn't actually know anybody in the field. One of the first resources I discovered was called Brograph. I think it was a YouTube channel or a blog or something. And I was like, “Oh, so that's what this is.” Besides that, the majority of the freelance work I did, I was the only woman motion designer. Sometimes even the only woman in the building or in the studio. So yeah. It became clear pretty quickly.
Meg Snyder:
I was the only woman at dash for about a year. I was the first hire, but also working with three other guys. So yeah.
Madison Caprara:
Wow.
Do you believe that the lack of women in the field has affected how female characters are portrayed? Anywhere from smaller productions à la dash, to larger productions on the Pixar and Disney front?
Created by Meg Snyder.
Meryn Hayes:
Oh yeah, for sure. I think one of the great things about what we do is, you're bringing your own personal perspective into the work that you're doing. So if you get a bunch of people that have the same perspective and the same point of view, you're going to get relatively the same output.
I definitely think that that's shifting and changing though. Not as quickly as we would all like, but there's been a larger push to make sure that there is diversity within large-scale productions and then smaller works too. So I think clients are more aware of that than they used to be. It's good for them to push that and for us to push it. So that everyone's thinking of it top of mind.
Madison Caprara:
How do you believe the industry can change for the better? Whether that be diversifying on the gender front, the racial front, or any other flaw that you perceive?
Megan DeMarco:
I think like all of those things that we had talked about previously, but something else would be more diversity in the storytelling. The kinds of stories that are being told. Specifically looking at movies, I feel there have been a lot of remakes. A lot of the same stories being told over and over. When you allow different stories and different perspectives, it's just a lot more interesting and easier to connect to.
A specific example of that would be City of Ghosts, which is a Netflix show that just came out. It's all about exploring the history of Los Angeles, but it's through the perspective of a group of kids. A totally different viewpoint. They go over a lot of topics that I don't really think would, not that they wouldn't be addressed, but I just haven't seen them presented that way before. So it was just really refreshing and interesting to see a different perspective like that.
Madison Caprara:
Yeah. I mean, I never really thought about it, but remakes are pretty en vogue right now. Think of all of the new live-action Disney movies that have come out recently.
Meg Snyder:
Piggybacking off of that, the types of creators too, and storytellers, because you can have an all-white team trying to create a story about characters of color and you're not going to get half of it right. So if you have a show like Craig of the Creek, which has a predominantly black main creative team telling this story of a middle-class black family, you're going to get very specific perspectives because the creators are represented in the work.
And I think that going forward, that's going to be a lot more important than an all-white team trying to populate as many people of color in a project as possible. That's not enough. You need creators of color and you need more female and trans-queer producers.
Erin Bradley:
Yeah. I totally agree with that. Go ahead Meryn.
Meryn Hayes:
I was just going to say another thing that I think is going to shift the industry is getting more women in leadership roles and minorities in leadership roles. We can push all we want and say we want equal pay, but that's not going to shift if those different representations aren’t in leadership and decision-making roles throughout the industry. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I ended up at dash. I wanted to be on the ground floor of a small studio. To be able to start making those decisions and pushing for change. So I think it's just getting those people into those positions, and that takes time.
There's the phrase, “you can't see yourself in a role if you don't see someone else there.” So if you don't have people in those roles to bring people up and mentor them, that becomes stagnant. That'll take time, but I hope that people are conscious of it. It's not just about hiring women, it's getting them embedded in the community so that they can start becoming decision-makers and leaders.
Created by Erin Bradley.
Erin Bradley:
I totally agree. That's what I was going to bring up as well. Especially in the early phases, I know Meg for example does a lot of the conceptual stuff and she's very good at being aware of diversifying things. So I think just making sure that's a key in the beginning and that happens more from producers or creative directors in the fields.
I know from my experience, the majority of the time someone like a producer would reach out to me, it was a woman producer and it was because they were specifically going on a woman directory of animation, just to make sure that more women were involved in their projects. And I feel that's just something that men, even though they might not know they're doing it, they're not actively looking for women. They're just going to hire some dude that they already know.
Meryn Hayes:
Yeah. There's definitely a ton of, whether it's purposeful or unbiased, conscious decision-making if you hire the people you know and the people you know are only white men, then that's what you do. It's the status quo. So maybe it would take longer to find a female artist but it’s important to do so. I'd rather take the time and look through ten extra reels to find someone who would be a good fit that also takes a little tap at that glass ceiling too.
Madison Caprara:
It's so crazy to me how these issues transcend every type of industry. I remember at one of my previous workplaces, most of the decision-makers were white, straight men. The few women were also straight and white. It could take an entire year to get a full-scale project together, and most of them revolved around topics discussing the LGBTQ+ and/or BIPOC communities.
Despite all of that time, nobody within the early conceptual stages would be a member of the community being spoken on. And then, a month before the project was supposed to go live, they’d come to us and be like, “Hey, take a quick, look over this.” I’m assuming to ensure nothing was going to insult anyone or be perceived in a negative light. But the point is, we should have been involved within the early and mid-stages. Not just as a checkmark of approval once you're done.
Meryn Hayes:
No, it's not just a checkbox, it's more than that. Just because you have someone involved in the community or in a project, that's not going to cut it. So getting people embedded into teams where they have decision-making power is just, I think, so huge. It's not just for show, it will change the way that we work if it's done correctly.
Madison Caprara:
I 100% agree.
Let's see. Going into more a positive sphere of conversation, what would you - whether in your personal or professional lives - what do you want to accomplish in the next five years?
Megan DeMarco:
For me personally, I feel I'm at the beginning of my whole career because I've only been with dash for a year, almost two years now I guess. But I feel like a little baby. So ultimately, just trying to learn more, become more well-rounded, and becoming a little less afraid to try different things and take risks. For me, that's a little bit of a barrier right now. So I guess ultimately just trying to learn as much as I can while being open to things.
Meryn Hayes:
I just think that it's the stars aligning, what we were talking about earlier with the smaller regions getting more attention, it really sets Dash up to be successful. I just think that we've pushed ourselves, especially with trying new stuff the past few years, and seeing all of that come together. I would hope in the next five years that we have become one in the Southeast, if you think of motion in the Southeast, you would think of dash. Just becoming more predominant in the industry and having things like the Dash Bash. Just centering the conversation of community and thinking of dash when you think of the motion community.
Created by Eryn Hsu.
Meg Snyder:
Yeah. I think also, in terms of dash's work itself, I'd like to see us be able to do more purely creative projects that aren't really client specific. I know Cory's mentioned the possibility of doing animated shorts, reoccurring segments.
And personally, I think I would really to become a creative director. Not just scrapping responsibilities as an illustrator, continuing to do that, and getting better with cel animation. But also getting into creative direction. I think it's fun.
Madison Caprara:
Nice! I can see it.
What's a piece of advice that you have received that you've maybe labeled as the most helpful, or even the most heinous if you can think of anything in particular? And then pivoting off of that, is there any advice you would give to women just starting out in the industry?
Meg Snyder:
Right off-hand, as far as bad advice goes, I think anyone who encourages unpaid internships, they're definitely not looking out for your best interests. I know that advice usually comes from people who've been in the industry since the eighties. Maybe they came up in the seventies when things were very affordable on unemployment. That doesn't work now, so I think staying away from any sort of exposure-based rewards is just kind of nonsense.
Madison Caprara:
I had six internships throughout my college career and not one of them was paid. I was told that I was fussy because I made a big deal that I wasn't getting compensated for the work that I was doing. That it’s the sacrifice you have to make when you’re starting at the bottom. So yeah, that's great to hear.
Meryn Hayes:
Good for you. You be fussy!
I would say a piece of advice I have, and it sort of goes back to some of the conversations we were talking about earlier, but I don't feel we find mentors anymore. Something that was really helpful early on in my career, when I was at a previous agency, was finding a more senior account manager. She took me under her wing and I've learned a lot from her. I think that's something that, whether or not it's explicitly a mentor-mentee relationship or just someone that you look up to, having an outlet and being able to look up to somebody who's in a position that you want to be in and can help you work through how you want to get there. That's something that's really valuable that we lose these days.
Madison Caprara:
Yeah. We're at the end. Do you guys have any parting comments, statements, any shoutouts you want to end on? Anything that you want to get out there before we close this out?
Erin Bradley:
Something that really helped me was finding communities, whether it's in your area or online. Panamation is a big one. Just groups where you can find people, especially when you're first starting out. You're at a studio and there's not another woman there and you need people to talk to about that. It's really great for that and just networking in general.
Madison Caprara:
Cool. Good advice, Erin!
Anything else guys? All right. I think we're done. Thanks so much for the conversation!
Created by Megan DeMarco.