The Collab Collection

Stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. Transcripts available at: thecollabcollection.libsyn.com/blog

Transcripts are now available! 01/20/2026

Transcripts are now available! (transcript) 01/17/2026

BONUS: The Sound of Collaboration on The Freelance Monocle 09/08/2025

Videogame Music Composition: Finding Your Voice (transcript) 07/02/2025

Videogame Music Composition: Finding Your Voice (transcript) Josh Carro: I think the support that they gave me though was really encouragement to try things out and not worry too much about failing. That's kind of what it takes to break new ground. It's going to be hard whether someone encourages you or not. But when you're encouraged, you're kind of given permission that it's okay to make the mistakes you're already going to make. Host (Wesley Slover): This is The Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I'm Wesley Slover. I love video game music. I grew up listening to soundtracks like Final Fantasy 6 and ChronoCross. And as games have become more complex, I find the interactive nature of the music and the way it imbues a game with emotion incredibly interesting and satisfying. Now, I'm lucky that some of my work involves composing music for games. So, I keep an eye out for composers who share valuable insights into their process. One of these people who I follow is Josh Carro. He's the in-house composer at Gearbox Entertainment. Gearbox is probably best known for the Borderlands series of games. He has a really rich perspective on music and creative collaboration at large. So, I reached out to learn more about how he found his own voice as an artist and how he brought that voice to the team at Gearbox. Josh started his musical journey really young. His first memory of music is a video of the legendary jazz drummer Buddy Rich. Josh Carro: Here he is, the prince of darkness. Buddy Rich. In 1987, I saw a video of Buddy Rich playing a solo on the Johnny Carson show. Now, I was only five at that time, but I remember seeing that and being like, "What is that?" When I looked at the drum kit, I just saw this like monstrosity, you know, and that kind of set me off into this obsession. Host: When Josh was nine, he got a drum set and started learning to play. Josh Carro: All throughout middle school and high school, I was in every music thing that I could join. You know, I was in drum line, I was in jazz band, um, marching band. In college, I was doing the same thing. I think being a percussionist or a drummer, the heart of it is very improvisational, so you're you're kind of learning to compose in a sense. So, I think that that's where my composition background was born. The thing about percussion is that it is a noise instrument. And so that definitely informed, you know, being a composer. I don't think that, you know, to be a composer, it's just based on pitch and harmony. You know, it's it's it's an organization of sound. Unless you're playing timpony or something, you know, they're not specifically pitch-based. When you grow up thinking that way and listening, you do start to develop an ear where you are hearing melodic material within noise and sound. Host: This gave Josh a perspective on composing music that was less traditionally western. He was drawn to composing experimental music. Josh Carro: My time was spent creating a lot of modular graphic scores for chamber musicians like solo or small or large orchestra. And my scores were not like any other scores. They weren't linear. They were sort of follow your own adventure. Host: In traditional western music, musicians are given sheet music that is played from beginning to end. But in these modular compositions, the musicians were given a stack of postcards. Postcards with musical ideas on them, and then they get to choose which ones they want to do. Josh Carro: I designed the system to work no matter what you do. It creates these surprises, and that's where the music comes out. To me, it's it's less of an egotistical, narcissistic uh type of composing. Not that that's bad. I'm not saying that it's bad, but it's it's approaching it from let's see what we can do, you know, rather than this is my vision of what music should be. Host: You know, I think this is a really fascinating form of collaboration where Josh would provide a framework for musicians to play together while creating an experience that's largely spontaneous. That piece of music can only exist in that time and place because it'll never be played the same way again. Josh was involved in a wide range of music including Indian classical music, electronic and metal. He was composing, performing, and experimenting. And one day saw a job posting at Gearbox, a video game studio known for the Borderlands games. Josh grew up playing video games and really enjoys them, but he hadn't set out to become a video game composer. Josh Carro: I read the requirements and it was it was really strange because it was like everything that I do like this sounds like like everything I do, you know. I applied to it and I got a call back and um they're like, "Yeah, we would like like to see if you're interested in doing some contract work. You know, uh we need some music for one of these levels." And I was like, "Yeah, awesome." So, it was a month of contracting and, you know, sending music back and forth and feedback and all that stuff. And the month came up and they're like, "Would you like to do three more months?" I just had a great feeling. The feeling of like Yeah, this is like this is going to go somewhere, you know. Host: He didn't know at the time, but Gearbox's music director, Julian Peterson, had been following Josh's work online. Josh Carro: We went to the same school, like we went to ASU when I was doing my undergrad, and I think he was either doing a PhD or he was doing his masters. And we like knew of each other, but we we weren't in the same circle of friends. The reason the position was so tied to what I do is because he saw all the stuff I was doing online and he said, "You know, we should come up with a position for a person like this." Host: Josh and Julian hit it off and from there they hired Josh for the full-time position he had applied to. Josh Carro: I think the interview process really was that contract work. That's usually what it is. It's kind of to see if you're able to hang and see if they like working with you. I went through the interview and all that stuff and they offered me the position and then I started working on Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. I was really excited and I felt like this is definitely something paramount for me. It's only going to get better or at the very least this is this is a part where I'm going to stay. I'm never going back. Host: You know, while Josh hadn't set out to work in video games, he realized it was an amazing opportunity to write some interesting music with a team that was making something big together. It was also just way more financially stable than his previous work. So, when Josh told me this, I thought it was really interesting that Gearbox wasn't necessarily looking for someone with a background in video games to be their video game composer. Game composition is notoriously competitive. There are tons of people pursuing this career that has relatively few positions. But it actually makes a lot of sense that there's benefit to bringing someone in from outside of the industry. Josh didn't realize it at the time, but his skills composing these choose your own adventure modular music scores aligned really well with video game composition since the music in games responds to players. In games, this is called adaptive music, and it's what makes modern video games sound really natural and fluid. Josh also explained to me the importance of developing yourself as an artist by pursuing a range of different musical experiences. He was able to find his own voice that he thinks separated his work from composers within the video games industry. Josh Carro: In my opinion, there's too many people trying to do the same thing. You do have to have technical skills. But I think that's where students and just people in general need to uh put more effort into and develop. What is my artistic process? Like who am I as a person? Am I not writing the music I think because I'm afraid people will think it's stupid or I'll make mistakes or I'll fail. You know, that's where real uh artistic discovery grows in my opinion. Host: By discovering himself as an artist, Josh was able to bring fresh perspective to the team. Josh Carro: I wanted to show people things I that they didn't know they liked. And I tried to put every single musical genre in there that that I love from minimalism to doom metal to like, you know, avant-garde to experimentalism and electro acoustic, you know, like goes on and on because I think that, you know, there's a lot of room for risk and experimentation, especially now in these bigger games because they're sort of becoming a a machine that pumps out things they know people will like rather than risking creating the new thing. Host: While he lacked some of the technical skills for working in video games, he was in a great position to learn. The music director, Julian, had a lot of technical skills and he was able to help teach Josh. Josh Carro: He has a background in music composition, but he was mainly working as an audio programmer and a coder. That's his wheelhouse. Designing music systems and understanding code and how you can integrate that sort of thing into a technical landscape. You know, I think the cool part of our work together is that um he has a lot of a lot of technical skills that I don't have and I'm able to implement those things when I'm creating the music. When you involve yourself with implementation and you see how it's done, it will completely influence how you write the music. Host: I should explain implementation real quick. Implementation is the technical process of getting music into a video game. This can be as simple as plugging in an audio file with instructions to play that song when the level starts. But with modern games like Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, the implementation can get very sophisticated. Sometimes composers are involved in implementation, but other times composers will write music, then give it to someone else to implement. Josh gave me an example of the mega hit, incredible sounding game God of War for why he thinks it's really meaningful that he learned to implement and be hands-on with it. Josh Carro: The folks at PlayStation did a talk on how they implemented the music for God of War and they did an absolute insanely amazing job on that and it really is a seamless experience. What they had to do was so so complex, but it was only complex because the music that they got written for it, the person didn't know anything about implementation. They basically just wrote a suite of music and said, "Here you go." And then, you know, they had to go back and forth. Not that that's a bad process, but you can understand that it's like an instrument. You know, Wwise is like an instrument. And if you learn the instrument, you can implement it into your writing. Host: Before this job, Josh had never implemented music in a video game before. But he was encouraged by the team to learn. Josh Carro: They knew that I hadn't before cuz they asked and I was like, "Yeah, I haven't." But, you know, part of my whole thing is just because I haven't done something before doesn't mean that I'm not willing to do my best to learn it and get the job done. They showed me some resources and I learned, you know, the basics of what I had to do to get the job done and and that led me onto a path where I could expand on that. It was very scary at first, but I think the support that they gave me though was was really encouraging to try things out and not worry too much about failing. That's kind of what it takes to not just to learn things, but to break new ground. It's going to be hard whether someone encourages you or not, but when you're encouraged, you're kind of given permission that it's okay to make the mistakes you're already going to make. Host: Josh finished the score and Gearbox shipped Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. Then they started work on the upcoming title, Borderlands 4. At this point, Josh had collaborated with the team on Wonderlands for a few years, and now they got to work together to come up with totally new ideas for what Borderlands 4 could sound like. It's both a very fun process because there's a lot of thinking and creativity. It's also really important because those decisions lay the groundwork for years of development. So, I agree with Josh that culture of encouragement, it's hugely important. It's certainly not an uncritical environment, and it's not without fear of failure, but it's one where everyone is pushing themselves and working together to succeed. Josh Carro: I do a lot of mentoring and stuff like that and I've been exercising this sort of philosophy of encouragement and it and it works. I think that creative people can find their own way and encouragement is like the most efficient way to get them to be able to do it if that makes sense. It's it's hard to explain. Host (in conversation with Josh): No, I I think it makes a lot of sense. I think Um, I don't know. It like takes courage to be creative. Like even now I'm, you know, 12 years into my career, every time I post a round one of any piece of music or sound design or whatever, there's this like anxiety of like, oh gosh, what if this is totally wrong? Josh Carro (in conversation with Host): Yeah. No, totally. I mean, I I totally agree. I think about that all the time. And I think that's actually a really important trait to never lose because it's kind of evidence that you really care. Like no matter how good you get and how like it doesn't mean that you don't have confidence in your own skills, but it means that you're that you haven't lost yourself. You know what I mean? Um I'm sure that you know you could think of a few people who have maybe lost themselves. Maybe they're very egotistical or they think that their crap doesn't stink and like, you know, I don't know how to say it, but um having that trait that you just said is like proof that you're an artist. Host: This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our artwork and branding was created by Audrey Havey. She's a phenomenal collaborator, and I cannot recommend her highly enough. If you have any thoughts on collaboration, we would love to hear from you. Send us an email at the collab collections dot audio. The collab collection is a project of Sanctus Audio, a sound and music design studio. Hear our work at sanctus dot audio. And if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39740910

Videogame Music Composition: Finding Your Voice 07/02/2025

Making Community: The Power of a Meetup (transcript) 06/25/2025

Making Community: The Power of a Meetup (transcript) Michael (Mikey) Steinberg: You could not make it in our industry if you didn't ask people for help. I mean, there's so many problems that come up. So, when people are coming to the meetups, everybody's got questions. Everybody's helping each other out. Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I'm Wesley Slover. Community is a powerful driver of creativity. And one way that community is expressed is through Meetup groups, where strangers with similar interests get together regularly, usually somewhere like a bar, to get to know each other and talk shop. To understand what makes a Meetup group successful, I reached out to Mikey Steinberg, who started the thriving Meetup group XR Motion. They meet in Brooklyn on the last Thursday of every month and gather anywhere from 50 to 75 digital artists from a range of disciplines. But this meetup started with just a few people, and it's taken 5 years of work to make it what it is now. So, first I wanted to understand what led him to start the group. Michael Steinberg: Long story short, I met a little famous artist. His name was Bele. Bele is an artist who is primarily known for his dailies—creating a piece of artwork every day. I literally was thinking to myself, there's no way you're making a 3D art piece every single day. So, I kind of went up to him after the show, kind of just was like, dude, you need to tell me your secrets. He actually started following me and then challenged me to do dailies for 30 days. After that, I was like, "All right, tell me all of your secrets. I've done the dailies for 30 days". And he was like, "Did it get easier?". I was like, "It did". He was like, "All right, do it for another 2 months and we'll talk again". Host: Mikey did this for a full year and sure enough in that time he became proficient in making 3D art. But he hadn't done any of that type of work professionally. Michael Steinberg: At the end of the year, I was like, "How do I even break into the field of 3D? Like, dude, I don't even know what I'm doing right now. Like, I have no friends. I don't know any jobs that are like actually have 3D". And he was like, "Bro, you're in New York City. Just throw a meetup or something". I literally just kind of threw up a little flyer and yeah, it was at a bar nearby and like two people showed up. It was a great time and I fell in love with it and I think Andrew came to like the second or third one ever. Andrew Hoag: I mean, I can confirm though when I met Mikey for the very first time, I walked into this bar in Brooklyn. I'm like scanning the room like, "All right, who here looks like a digital artist?". Host: This is Andrew Hoag, a motion designer, 3D artist, and co-organizer of XR Motion. Andrew Hoag: And then like I look over the corner and I see Mikey who's like definitely screen sharing a desktop running Cinema 4D trying to render out what was his daily for that day. And I was like, you know, all right, I guess I've arrived. Host: Mikey and Andrew kept hosting meetups every month and over time it grew to include all sorts of artists. Andrew Hoag: Pretty much anyone who walks in the door, you pretty much are guaranteed that someone else there is interested in or doing the thing that you're there to sort of represent and talk through creatively. We've had like traditional fine artists come. Motion is a huge part of it. We have a ton of animators, but the community is also filled with illustrators, graphic designers, and technologists. We try to keep that umbrella really, really wide and capture as many people from the digital art space. Host: The community includes people from various creative backgrounds, but there's also a wide range of experience levels represented. Andrew Hoag: You are interfacing with people from 15 plus years experience to they're still in school to I'm pivoting careers later in life because I just want to. The breadth allows for just so much good networking and so much advice and exchanging of stories. Even if you're not in the industry right now, your perspective is still valuable in a lot of ways. Michael Steinberg: I don't think there's a single person that knows every single program perfectly. So, I feel like anybody that goes there, you're going to talk to somebody who can teach you something. You could not make it in our industry if you didn't ask people for help. I mean, there's so many problems that come up using any software you use. Host: They gave me an example of someone who was able to grow in their art and career by getting involved with XR Motion. Michael Steinberg: We had one guy, his name was Shakespeare, and he was really only into photography when he first joined. He was always on the Discord, always coming to the meetups asking everybody about everything. And then 2 and 1/2 years later, he invites me and Andrew to an event. Host: The event featured artwork he made for the luxury fashion brand Coach. Andrew Hoag: He did a bunch of digital signage and an NFT project with Coach. So like in Midtown Manhattan, Mikey and Andrew were hanging out, eating some swanky catering. They could see Shakespeare's 3D artwork all over the store. Michael Steinberg: I'm like, Shakespeare, like, I would love to, you know, maybe purchase something from this collection. He's like, dude, it's like $1,000 for a sweatshirt. And I was like, okay, man. I did show up, though. Host: As the XR Motion community has grown, they've expanded to do more than just the meetup. Andrew Hoag: We have the podcast that Mikey and I do. We have an email newsletter that one of our team members, Tamar, had kind of headed up and it's like immediately one of the coolest things that I think we've done. And then we have started dabbling more in sort of one-off events. We went to Storm King, which is an outdoor art exhibit a couple hours outside of New York, and it was just a bunch of people from the meetup. We also did the Greenpoint Film Festival where we hosted a panel. Host: Since Mikey and Andrew have learned a lot through the 5 years of XR Motion, I asked them for some advice for anyone who might want to try starting something similar in their area. Michael Steinberg: Lesson one, be consistent. I think consistency is the main thing. Some of the other meetups wind up dwindling out because like 3 to 4 months in, maybe they'll skip a month. We're simplistic creatures and when you can just say the last Thursday of each month, they'll remember it. Andrew Hoag: Lesson number two, go out of your way to be welcoming. If you go to a meetup especially if it's your first one, just that feeling of walking in the door and you're just like, "What am I doing here?". We'll end our conversation and go up to him and be like, "Hey yo, like how's it going? Welcome to the meetup". Michael Steinberg: Lesson number three, bars are free venues. They love it if you bring people. People are like, "How much do you pay to throw these things?" I'm like, "What are you talking about? They're making money". But the only thing is just make sure like either the music's not too loud and like you can actually have conversations. Michael Steinberg: Lesson number four, targeted marketing. When you post the ad, you just target the bar. You put the location on the bar. You literally say 3D animator, motion graphics, After Effects, Blender, Houdini, do two-mile radius. Put like 30 bucks down. It really did help us grow. Michael Steinberg: Lesson number five, name tags. Just have a table with some name tags on it. We didn't do that for like the first two years. Then I think once our group started growing so much, that was like a huge game changer for us. Andrew Hoag: Lesson number six, ask for help. Mikey has been so good about identifying people in the community that are excited. If you ask people for help, you will be so surprised at what people are capable of doing and willing to do and excited to do. Once you get the engine going, it's amazing how much it starts to give back to you. Host: Andrew started helping Mikey back in the early days of XR Motion, and he says it's made a big impact on his life and career. Andrew Hoag: It is really hard to be on a computer 12 hours a day for like 10 plus years and consistently feel like, oh yeah, this is still amazing and I love it. For me, I wanted to capture more of that collaboration I had when I was 15, and like that was not going to happen sitting behind a screen working on freelance work. It was probably like the sixth or seventh meetup I went to with Mikey and I just realized it's like, oh, I've gone to every single one for the last 6 months. I feel so much better. I look forward to it. I've made some really great friends. This initial community can be so sustaining and really invigorating and just make you feel like you're not alone. Host: If you're in New York, XR Motion meets on the last Thursday of the month. And if you don't live in New York, but you want an excuse to visit, XR Motion is hosting their first-ever conference on October 25th. For details, check out their website, xrmotion.com. This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our artwork and branding was created by Audrey Haby. (Note: The source text mentions "Audrey me," but I have updated this to Audrey Haby based on information from previous conversation history). If you have any thoughts on collaboration, we would love to hear from you. Send us an email at the collab collection at sanctis.audio. The collab collection is a project of Sanctus Audio. Hear our work at sanctis.audio. And if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39741120

Making Community: The Power of a Meetup 06/25/2025

Creative Identity: Establishing Balance as a Working Artist (transcript) 06/18/2025

Creative Identity: Establishing Balance as a Working Artist (transcript) Leigh Williamson: I have a vivid memory of going to my mother and I had this picture that I had drawn and my mother was like, "Wow, that's a really good drawing." Suddenly I was like, "Le has the ability to draw and someone appreciates that." And unfortunately that can't always be the best mantra for the rest of your life because we then go searching for affirmation. When we monetize that, we suddenly create art that's subjective to other people's tastes, to other people's price tags, and to all other things that go along the line. Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I'm Wesley Slover. As creative professionals, I'm sure we can all relate to receiving some tough feedback, spending hours on carefully considered creative work only to have it picked apart in a list of comments. I've spent 13 years in the industry building up thicker skin and learning to not take feedback personally. But even still, it can really sting. Maybe it's from disappointment or from not feeling confident in our abilities. Or maybe it's just a tough day. Making things for people is vulnerable and exposes us to some difficult feelings. Host (Wesley Slover): Leigh Williamson, an art director, animator, and illustrator who has spent 20 years in the advertising industry, recently had a pretty profound encounter with this. Leigh, tell us about that project. Leigh Williamson: The project was supposed to be quite a fast turnaround and the CEO that was available to me hardly ever answered. I really had to send out a ridiculous amount of emails just to say, "Please answer me. I want to meet your deadline. Please get to me." I got no correspondence, and that left me less time to meet their deadline, which meant I had to spend time over the weekend to complete that job. Leigh Williamson: I informed the CEO that since he had to work over the weekend, he would need to charge time and a half. The CEO wasn't happy about the extra expense, but he agreed and I completed the work. The two other CEOs were really happy with the job, but the CEO wrote me an email after that he wasn't happy with what he got regardless of the fact that the other two CEOs were happy and that the presentation went incredibly well. Leigh Williamson: Now I understand that in certain cases you sometimes just get abrasive clients and we need to make sure that we protect ourselves for those moments, but for that day I just wasn't quite ready for that comment and that kind of went into my armor and I took it so to heart. I took it that the job wasn't done well enough or the client wasn't happy enough and I fell into depression for 7 months. I couldn't accept any client work. I actually lost my ability to create. It just wouldn't come out, and it took me a long time to recover over that. Host (Wesley Slover): This was the first time Leigh had experienced something like this. Negative feedback wasn't a new thing for him, but he'd gone into that job feeling kind of worn down. Leigh Williamson: Multiple things that had been happening had kind of eaten away at a lot of us. So, you're already entering a job feeling quite low. And if you don't protect yourself, it just takes one more strike to actually take you down and bring you to your knees. And I think that was one of those defining moments. I took one more hit and I wasn't ready for that hit. Leigh Williamson: Next thing you know, I was broken and I didn't actually know what was going on with me. I was crying every day. I couldn't even interact properly with my own children, and I didn't even know what it was at the time. It was only later that I found out that it wasn't quite depression, but closer to burnout. I think I was just trying so hard for so long and getting knocked so often that it just hit me and then I had to figure out how to fix that. Leigh Williamson: Every time I tried to do something, it's like I just couldn't figure out things and I didn't have the patience to push. It was so hard. I had forgotten how to do what feels so natural to do, and I lost confidence in my own abilities. I feel creatives seem to make their creativity to their job more their core identity than any other profession. We connect our identity to the job that we do so that when the job is attacked or what we have done or the costing or the creativity isn't acceptable, that kind of attacks the person because we label ourselves as creatives, as artists. Host (Wesley Slover): During this time, as Leigh was experiencing burnout, he received a lot of love and support from his parents, his wife, and his church. Leigh Williamson: My church was very helpful at that time because our finances were quite tough that they actually paid for a counselor to help me process the information that I had. I also had a really close friend at church who had been through depression before, and he helped me with a step program that he helped himself get out of the hole with. It helped me build a pathway to actually thinking differently. Leigh Williamson: I had to find a way of finding what my identity was if I didn't do design. So I had to remind myself that I'm a father, that I'm a husband, that I'm a gardener, a baker—all different things. I had to find other hobbies, things that kind of made me happy so that when that part of me was attacked, I could kind of spread myself over other aspects of me. Host (Wesley Slover): Leigh started making art again. He didn't have the confidence to do work for clients, but he was able to get back into working by learning a new technique that interested him. Leigh Williamson: I was studying something called UV mapping, which is the way to unwrap an object in 3D so that you can paint on it. I decided not to ever post about it on social media until I really absolutely loved it so that it could be my thing, and that I could grow a love for. It was just this little hobby that I created for myself that actually bloomed and I got a whole new art style from it. After that, I was able to take on anything else. Suddenly, it just all came back to life again. It was special because I did it for myself and that seemed to kind of wake something up again. Host (Wesley Slover): Something that stands out to Leigh is just how important affirmation is to the creative process. Whether that's a client giving feedback or us giving feedback among our own creative collaborators. We should remember that our ability to affirm someone's creativity is a powerful thing. Leigh Williamson: When you affirm the person that is doing their job, you actually get more out of them. I love coffee, and when I used to contract in London, I loved going to a new job to find a new coffee house to get my coffee from. I would often stand in front of the barista and get so excited and say, "Wow, I'm so excited for your coffee. It's amazing. You always make such a great cup. It's fantastic and I really appreciate it." Leigh Williamson: I think it's happened two or three times where the barista was so taken by the compliment that they gave me a free cup of coffee. It's a good learning lesson to a client that when you affirm the person who's doing the job for you, you'd be quite surprised how they will bend over backwards and actually do more than they originally anticipated to do for you for a job. Leigh Williamson: The same goes for if you undermine them and don't affirm them. For example, you might write an email that says, "You've made multiple spelling mistakes. Why didn't you catch them? You need to fix that ASAP." As opposed to a good example: "That job's coming along nicely. I spotted some minor errors. Could you fix that? We are running tight on time. Would it be possible if you could do it within the next hour? Let me know if that works for you." Host (Wesley Slover): Leigh recognizes that even on this project that was the final straw for him, he did receive positive affirmation from the other two CEOs who were happy with the project. Leigh Williamson: The irony is I have reached out to that client again on my availability. So I know that I've grown from that because otherwise I wouldn't have a skin thick enough to actually return back to that client. I don't take it personally anymore, which is a very positive sign. Leigh Williamson: I just asked myself a couple of questions: was the client unhealthy or was my approach unhealthy? And I think in this situation it was my approach to information which was unhealthy. Sometimes you might just get the end stick of someone else who's just trying to rinse the last feelings of it because they got flack from high above. I took that information and interpolated it differently and decided it's okay to approach. It just takes time and maturity to understand which ones are healthy ones to return to and which ones are ones you will write off. Host (Wesley Slover): This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our artwork and branding was created by Audrey Havey. She's a phenomenal collaborator, and I cannot recommend her highly enough. If you have any thoughts on collaboration, we would love to hear from you at the collab collections.audio. The Collab Collection is a project of Sanctus Audio, a sound and music design studio. Hear our work at sanctis.audio. And if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39767190

Creative Identity: Establishing Balance as a Working Artist 06/18/2025

Film Trailer Editing: Finding Fulfillment (transcript) 06/11/2025

Film Trailer Editing: Finding Fulfillment (transcript) Based on the sources provided, here is the transcript for the podcast episode featuring Yuhei Ogawa. Yuhei Ogawa: It was very cutthroat and it's just the way it was. There will be times where like you spend a whole week cutting something and then you just told like this is wrong. You got to start over. There were a lot of like disappointments, you know, like what am I doing wrong? Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I'm Wesley Slover. I became aware of today's guest through his podcast, Creative Kind, a show revolving around kindness in creativity. The podcast is lovely and, probably unsurprisingly to listeners of the Collab Collection, his passion for the interpersonal aspects of creative work really resonated with me. But my curiosity was peaked when I learned he had years of experience working as a film trailer editor, a field that I'd always thought to be highly competitive and pretty brutal. So, I reached out to Yuhei Ogawa to hear about his career and gain some insights into how that led him to make a podcast about kindness. Yuhei Ogawa: It took me like two to three years after we moved to LA to actually like break into the trailer industry. I kind of knew about like how tight-knit the trailer industry was. Host: Before moving to LA, Yuhei had cut his teeth as an editor in Boston working on the show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. He used his experience in reality television to find work editing ads for TV shows with the goal of one day becoming a film trailer editor. Yuhei Ogawa: I remember back in like 2003 saw the trailer for Matrix Reloaded or Matrix Revolutions or whatever and I'm just like, this is my dream. I want to cut something like this. So that's kind of always been the back of my head. I even remember actually like looking up some of the trailer agencies back then and remembering Trailer Park's name. And I was like, one day I will work for a company like this. Host: He was able to leverage his experience to work for Trailer Park, one of the major trailer agencies. While they didn't hire him for film trailer editing initially, he got his foot in the door working on the TV side of things. Yuhei Ogawa: They had like a film marketing department and then there's like a broadcast promo department. I was called for the broadcast promo department. My hope was that by working with them and kind of getting close with them, I can express my interest in getting into more of the film marketing side of things. And that's kind of exactly what happened. Eventually, I landed in the theatrical department of Trailer Park. They offered me full-time positions. So, I took it and yeah, I was like fully in the trenches. Host: Working in trailers would be demanding, but Yuhei knew this going into the job. Yuhei Ogawa: I met this guy, he was a very seasoned film marketer. He was a creative director at the time, but like he started in the business editing and so he really understood the business. When I told him that I was really interested in getting into movie trailers and stuff, he basically told me, "Why would you want to do this? Like you would just be miserable." That was his way of warning me just like, know what you're getting into. I really appreciated that because it definitely kind of raised my regard a little bit. So I distinctly remember like when I started at Trailer Park, I was asked to come in on a weekend and I had plans with my family. I said no, I can't. I remember like the producer being like very taken aback by it—like this guy saying no to me. This guy say no to work. I mean he didn't say anything, but he really sounded surprised that I said no. I was pretty proud of myself in that moment. But over time, I definitely got kind of ground into this machine that was film marketing, for sure. Host: When Yuhei was at Trailer Park, his job was to be one of several editors who would all cut trailers for the same movie. Then those would be presented to the studio. The name of the game was options: craft a lot of ideas so the film studio could choose the one they liked most. Yuhei Ogawa: I think at one point there were like 50 to 60 editors working at Trailer Park. It was massive. Definitely one of the biggest trailer agencies back then for sure. So we could afford to put like up to seven editors on one campaign and just give seven different takes on a trailer or teaser to the client and then the client can just pick and choose. We just had to keep turning things out, you know, because clients will come in expecting to see five different options or whatever and that's kind of how they built their relationship. Host: Yuhei would get assets for the trailer, then go off to his dark little editing bay rather than having a lot of communication and direction up front. Each editor would take a crack at it, and if it wasn't what the studio was looking for, their trailer would get killed. Yuhei Ogawa: Editors really have to be autonomous. They really have to kind of figure out their own approach and just kind of run with it. You know, could be a good thing. You do get a lot of like creative liberty, but like there will be times where like you spend a whole week cutting something and then you're just told, "This is wrong. You got to start over." There were a lot of like disappointments, you know, like "What am I doing wrong?" Like so again, it was very cutthroat and it's just the way it was. Host: He understands that it was just the business model and that there were good reasons for the process to be set up this way, but Yuhei feels like there were times when more communication would have really helped. Yuhei Ogawa: Some of the worst moments were like four or five editors go into their room, cut stuff, and they realize that what they're cutting is really similar, but you don't know that until you show it to the producer, like the creative director, and they just tell you to change things because it's too similar to Editor A's cut or Editor B's cut. And that's another thing that's funny is that like if you're working with the same title as the person next to you, you can hear everything this person is using and I was like, "Oh s***, like they're using the same sound bite or like wait, what is that sound bite? Like I want to use that." Get a little sound bite envy or music envy. "Oh, that music sounds awesome." So, it was just not a great environment mentally because you're constantly kind of questioning your decisions in your head based on what you hear around you. Host: There are reasons why not all the editors had a direct line of communication—they were giving a lot of options and there wouldn't have been time for a lot of back and forth. But it's frustrating if you're working on something and given direction but don't have a clear idea of why you're doing it. The "why" helps to inform those decisions. Yuhei Ogawa: It's always hard when you just get notes, you know, like in an email print out or something from a producer and like, "Hey, this is what you have to do." And I'm just like, "Why?" Like, you have no context of the right nuance of where this note was coming from. Those small things matter, right? It's not always easy to just kind of translate that from the call to a piece of paper. So, having the opportunity to actually like directly talk with the client, it made things so much better, so much more transparent. Host: As Yuhei became more senior at Trailer Park, he began to be invited into more conversations, and it made a difference. Yuhei Ogawa: There are moments where I'll be in the conference room with other senior editors to be able to kind of talk through some of our editorial decisions in each of our cuts, and those are always great because you can also kind of start to see the studio executive as a person, as a collaborator. Host: After more than five years at Trailer Park, Yuhei left and is currently freelancing as a creative director and editor working on film and TV marketing. Yuhei Ogawa: Trailer Park really kind of forced me to do some soul-searching in a way. Working at a place like Trailer Park was like—I basically reached my goal but I wasn't necessarily happy all the time, and that made me question why that is. You know, even if you finish something as cool as a Marvel trailer, I knew that wouldn't make me feel fulfilled. And so I've been just questioning about like, "So what does fulfill me? Like what does make me happy?" and it took a long time. Host: This soul-searching sparked the idea for a personal project around the theme of kindness and creativity. Yuhei Ogawa: Didn't really kind of become clear to me until like 2022, 2023—pretty much after the lockdown and just the whole sense of community, how we treat each other, the power of micro-actions. Host: He knew he wanted to create something for himself, not a film studio client, but he wasn't sure what form this project would take. Yuhei Ogawa: I just didn't know back then like what medium to put that on to. I always thought that because I'm an editor, an audio and visual guy, that I have to make like a documentary or like a video series—a YouTube series or something like that. Host: But he's always had a love for audio storytelling, so he decided to make a podcast. But getting started with your own project can be hard. There's not a clear direction and it's a lot of work on top of everything else going on in life. Fortunately, Yuhei had some help. Yuhei Ogawa: Basically, my friend kind of dared me to do it. Like, he's like, "You know, I know—I've noticed that you've been talking about this for years and I'm kind of sick of it. Like, if you're not going to do it, I'm not going to let you talk about it ever again." That's kind of like—I'm paraphrasing it, but that's basically what he said. And I'm just like, "You know what? f*** it. I'm going to do it." He even like offered to do like a little like test recording with me—little Q&A. He pretended to be the interviewer and like I was the interviewee and just like, did like a little whole thing. And I don't know, I really appreciated that moment. Like you really need a friend like that to really kick you in the butt and just give you that nudge. Host: So yeah, from there on he just started reaching out. Yuhei Ogawa: All of like 2024 I was just interviewing people. I wasn't really editing. It was definitely an experiment. But once I just started talking to people and realizing how forthcoming all these people were about the really personal stories, I knew there was something there because I felt it. As I was talking to these people, I really wanted other people to listen to these stories. In a way I kind of felt the pressure—and not pressure but in a good sense—"Man, these people really shared me their personal stories. Now I have the responsibility to really get this out to the world." I felt like this was my way of giving back. This was my way to contribute in the sense that, you know, hear the stories of these really aspiring, kind, creative people. Right now I'm just focusing on the creative industry because that's what I've been part of for the past 20 years. But honestly, in whatever industry that you're in, try to be kinder to everybody that you interact with. It's the way that we get better. I think the world gets better and it makes the work better too. When your teammates feel safe enough that they can give any kind of ideas, you will get the best creative because everybody's not afraid to just express, "Hi, hey, I have this crazy idea." That's how you get the best creative. It's about really taking care of people, making them feel safe in the environment that they're in so they can just naturally, organically come up with the most creative ideas. Host: Yuhei's podcast is Creative Kind. We've included a link in our show notes. It's a wonderful podcast and I think it would really resonate with listeners of the Collab Collection. This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our artwork and branding was created by Audrey Havey. She's a phenomenal collaborator and I cannot recommend her highly enough. If you have any thoughts on collaboration, we would love to hear from you. Send us an email at the collab collection at sanctis.audio. The Collab Collection is a project of Sanctus Audio, a sound and music design studio. Hear our work at sanctis.audio. And if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39767270

Film Trailer Editing: Finding Fulfillment 06/11/2025

Music Visualization: Bridging the Gap (transcript) 06/04/2025

Music Visualization: Bridging the Gap (transcript) Brandon Parvini: Most of the jobs that we were getting were frankly ones that someone had shopped around town and then gone to these other effects houses and they had said, "No, we're not going to do that". So they would come to us and I’d say, "Well, I can maybe do it, I just have to do it differently". Once that happened, everyone would have to be educated for what this other process was about to be that allowed this creative that had otherwise been shut down in other places to potentially work and get it delivered on time. Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I'm Wesley Slover. The connection between visual art and music fascinates me, and when these things come together well in a music video or film, it’s a deeply satisfying experience. To learn more about making that magic happen, I spoke with Brandon Parvini, a design and technical director with an extensive list of credits creating graphics and visual effects for some of the biggest music acts in the world. Brandon Parvini: Coming out of school in 2004, I had a lot of friends that were directors and I was the only resident nerd they knew. Music videos were the introductory way into the industry in LA at the time. Host: This was a time just after the music industry had crashed due to Napster, and labels were tightening their belts. Creative technology became more accessible, and Brandon co-founded a small design and visual effects company called Ghost Town. Brandon Parvini: Very quickly, we became this one-stop shop for cheap and interesting effects with a lot of hotwired Macs that we were barely being able to get by with. We were very much not charging for a beautiful place in Santa Monica with espresso machines and sushi. Host: Ghost Town began working with acts like TV on the Radio, Mandy Moore, and Kanye West. While they were thrilled to move from $40k videos to $150k budgets where they could triple their team size, Brandon notes that those budgets were a double-edged sword because there wasn't good oversight for a bunch of kids in their 20s. Brandon Parvini: We were working on a video for Alkaline Trio called "Help Me". I had gotten crushed with a flu and wasn't going to be able to be on set. Usually, I’d be there to make sure what was shot would work for the visual effects in post-production, but when the footage came back, the green screen looked like a disaster. Somehow the idea had gotten floated that a performance on a train was going to turn into a transforming 3D zeppelin. It was way more complicated than what we signed on for, and we didn't have the capacity to deliver. Host: Brandon describes that summer as "brutal," with the team missing deadlines and a commissioner threatening to sue. Brandon Parvini: Computers were literally sparking and catching on fire, the AC had gone out, and the office smelled like death because guys were working around the clock and sleeping under desks. We had done it to ourselves; someone on our team had said we can do it, so we had to come through on it. Host: They managed to deliver, but Brandon says they learned a very hard lesson about fear of confrontation. Brandon Parvini: There's a propensity in production to not have a bad interaction, so you say "Okay" or "Yeah, we can figure it out" in the interest of a positive vibe. That fear of crossing swords early on yields bad credit card bills at the end of production. You need to be able to have a healthy conversation about whether something is appropriate for the budget and timeframe rather than fearing that a client won't want to work with you because you said no. Host: Brandon found a much better collaborative process when Ghost Town began working with the band Linkin Park. Unlike other acts who left everything to the label, Linkin Park was creatively literate and involved. Brandon Parvini: Joe Hahn from the band actually had a background in effects and directed a lot of the videos. Suddenly, instead of dealing with ultimatums passed down through a director or label, we were having direct conversations with the act. We realized many of the "ultimatums" were actually just off-hand comments. We could talk directly to the band and say, "We could do that, but we have to do X, Y, and Z. Is that juice worth the squeeze for you?" and they’d say, "Oh no, that sounds insane, don’t do that". Host: This direct engagement led to a much more sustainable and personal relationship. In 2010, the band brought Brandon in for the enormous operation of the A Thousand Suns world tour. Brandon Parvini: When we first came in, we were the "young punks" bumping the sauce a bit, and the veteran lighting designer who had been there since the Aerosmith and Guns N' Roses days was not totally thrilled with our involvement initially. But we were there with the backing of the band. There were summits with 40 people—the tour team, merch team, web team—and we realized we were the connective tissue mapping between all of them. By the end, you realize you're the elasticine that can give everyone else what they need. Host: Brandon credits this success to the band’s inclusionary and entrepreneurial element. Brandon Parvini: They weren't just making requests; they would say, "Explain to me why this is the case" and "Walk me through how we're approaching this". They wanted to understand the process with a keen eye. That level of involvement created a family atmosphere where everyone felt their voice was heard and that they played a key, integral role. Host: This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our artwork and branding was created by Audrey Havey. The Collab Collection is a project of Sanctus Audio; hear our work at sanctus.audio. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39767120

Music Visualization: Bridging the Gap 06/04/2025

Creative Partnership: Lessons in Professional Communication (transcript) 05/28/2025

Creative Partnership: Lessons in Professional Communication (transcript) Audrey Havey: I'm a huge note-taker. Being able to look back and see like this is a really good point that they made or they phrase this really well and then I can present that back to them and say because you said this or that. Here is exactly why I made all of these choices with design and color and type. Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I'm Wesley Slover. Communication is central to collaboration. It's a theme that comes up a lot when speaking with guests on the podcast. In order to work together, we need to transfer information as accurately as possible from one brain into another. That's not easy. So, I wanted to explore the fundamentals of communicating during a project. And I spoke with someone who I think does this really well, graphic designer Audrey Havey. She's a freelancer who has worked for brands like Adobe, the Phoenix Suns, and Riot Games. And you've most certainly seen her work because she also created our beautiful visual branding for the Collab Collection. Okay, so for a long time in my career, I felt a bit unsure how to communicate professionally. I didn't go to real college. I went to this trade school where we just hung out in a recording studio for like 8 months and didn't learn how to write or talk or whatever. I kind of assumed everyone else had education in like how to write an email, but given Audrey's experience, I don't think that's necessarily the case. Audrey Havey: I went to Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio. There definitely wasn't a workshop of like here's how to format an email, you know, or anything like that. I think a lot of it just came into practice when it came to like internships and networking and meeting people and talking to people. I kind of just like we found our voice through that. I'm always very enthusiastic when talking to new people both in real life and, you know, via email and everything, understanding what it means to be like quote-unquote a professional, but also still holding some pride in your artistic voice and you know what you can bring to the table. Host (Wesley Slover): Audrey describes her communication style as overcommunicating. Audrey Havey: Overcommunicating is going above and beyond what you think is necessary to get a point across, especially raising concerns about things. That's a huge thing that freelancers are afraid to do sometimes. Like, hey, I don't think this is enough time to do X, Y, and Z, or I think this is way out of scope, out of budget, yada yada. If you don't communicate those things, that can definitely jeopardize a project. It can stress you out. It can kind of just like make everything not go very well. Part of overcommunication is reiterating the project so far and listing the next steps. Instead of just sending her graphic design work to a client and asking, "What do you think?" She clarifies with a recap to orient the people who are reviewing the work. I think a lot of times people just kind of go in blazing just like showing concepts and stuff, but everyone always needs some kind of pre-context and recap of like, oh yeah, that's what we talked about and that's like what I said on the meeting. Sometimes clients don't even remember what they say sometimes. So like it's up to us to like really listen and take note of that so they feel heard. Then I usually end with the next steps so the path forward is clear. I lay out what I need to continue working, giving them the next few steps of like here's what we have to look forward to. I'm going to do this, this, and this. It's never really been asked of me to like do check-ins or anything, but I think little things like that go a long way with clients and just showing that like, you know, you're being proactive, that you care, that you know, you kind of know what's on the docket of things to do. Host (Wesley Slover): I think those quick check-ins can bring a real peace of mind to a client or a team. They don't have to wonder or check in themselves to know that the work is happening. Another important part of communication is asking questions. For example, with a new project, Audrey asks three questions. Audrey Havey: What's your timeline? What's your budget? What are your deliverables? This is pretty standard stuff, but those questions are the foundation of a project. And if it's not laid properly, things can go badly. The way in which those questions are discussed can even be kind of a canary in the coal mine, a warning sign for how a client might approach a project. I'm in like my second year of freelancing and a project comes to me. They they are like overly casual too, which can be a good thing, but it's also like not my favorite thing because I want to make sure that there's an understanding of like we're both taking this seriously, you know, and so I appreciate the friendliness of things, but also I want you to understand the level of what has to be done here. They kind of just like gave a very overview, broad description of like what they would want me for. The expectations weren't made clear. I just had no order or structure to every day that I was working with them. And so I just felt like I was catching up all the time. There was never any timeline structure of like when certain things were due. This project got extended multiple times, too. Like maybe two months over. It was bad. It was just such a weird kind of experience. And I just felt so guilty because I just felt like all of that like was on my shoulders, but I didn't know like what like the start and the end of my responsibilities were and it was never written out in like a contract or anything. So yeah, learned a lot from that one. Host (Wesley Slover): Big part of what Audrey does as a graphic designer is organize information. So, I thought she might be able to share some insights on stuff like formatting an email. Audrey Havey: Audrey says when she's writing emails or Slack messages or slide decks that she utilizes the design principle of hierarchy, sorting information in order of importance. If the reader is presented with just paragraphs, it looks like big blocks of ink. So, I break up the copy to be easier for the eye to process. Ask yourself what is the first and foremost thing that you should be reading and then the second most important thing and then everything else is kind of tertiary. You know, what does your eye see first? For example, header, you know, big bold type subheader less important and then like body copy is just kind of like where you have a lot of words. Something else I'll do to make things clear is reiterate language from previous conversations, recapping saying, "Hey, here's what you told me. Here's what I think you're saying. Is this correct?" Reusing like exactly what they said in your answer. Bolding that. Maybe I'll do like a point or two type size bigger just to kind of emphasize like here's the question or the topic at hand. Bullet points—I do a lot of bullet points. I think reading paragraphs is just not it anymore in an email, you know. Slack is where I do most of that. Honestly, I use and abuse like all of the different character and formatting styles that they have, the numbers, bullet points. There's like a code text kind of like formatting thing that I do for like titles sometimes. It helps so much with digesting everything. Host (Wesley Slover): Sure, formatting text is cool, but what's your professional opinion on emoji? Audrey Havey: I love emojis. I've made way too many of my own. I think my favorite one is Heard Chef with like a pizza maker guy, like a chef going like this. Um, yeah, I think that's like the best one of like heard. Host (Wesley Slover): Learning to communicate by observing your collaborators is so useful. Audrey says she learned a lot while on contract with the video game studio, Riot Games. Audrey Havey: Riot was always like the dream, but I didn't really know it was the dream, if that makes sense. I happened to see a LinkedIn post one day from one of the art directors from League of Legends saying that they were looking for a couple different roles. One of them being like a senior designer with a daunting like 100 plus comments underneath of people throwing their name out in their portfolio. I'm like, "Yeah, right. No way." But like, what's the harm in just putting my name and portfolio on there, too? Did that, and not even a couple days later, I got an email from one of their production coordinators to plan a meeting to talk. It was actually just the one interview. It was a lot of just talking about myself and my interests and and walking through my portfolio. A lot of it was talking about my least and my most favorite projects on my site and like what I could have done better with certain ones or like why this one was my favorite. And I know through all of this, they're getting like a personality check and vibe check and everything. A few months after the interview, she started a contract with Riot. It was just so super daunting at first because it was just the biggest foot in the door I could have ever expected or imagined. I just tried to soak up as much as I could and I learned very quickly just like how much they overcommunicated and how producers even laid out like here's what's happening this week. As a freelancer I was definitely a part of the team and just like part of all the conversations and any conversation I wanted to be a part of I was able to and just the questions I was able to ask and there was just no shame in like asking, you know, dumb questions or anything like that. Her producers would funnel the various feedback into something clear and actionable for the designers. Our manager was always so great about kind of taking all of the like obscure maybe like really wild feedback that we might have gotten from like the stakeholders, and then condensing down to like here's basically what they said, and here's what we should do. Having that filter to tell us the clear directive was always super helpful. Audrey's producers would initiate conversations to iterate on their team's process. They have a really good structure of getting feedback from everyone. And I think one of the best things with Riot was a thing called retros, like retrospectives after a project is done, talking about the aches and pains of the project, what didn't really go well, what went super well, like what we should probably try to do in the future, and then like kudos to everyone, you know, like pats on the backs, like everyone did a great job. Then producers would take all those learnings and then try to implement that for like the next campaign. Host (Wesley Slover): I think my biggest takeaway after talking with Audrey is to kind of constantly interrogate my own communication. I might think I've communicated something, but is it really clear to the people I'm communicating with? Am I overcommunicating? Or are there helpful pieces of information I might have left out? How could I make this communication easier to understand? In my career, since first feeling like I should have learned this stuff by going to real college, I'm continuing to see that there's just not really a right way. Everyone has their own methods and communication in the workplace is consistently evolving. And I think that's cool because that means there's always something new to learn. This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Her album artwork is created by the guest of this episode, Audrey Haby. Audrey was great to work with, which is why we wanted to have her on the podcast to share some of her perspective and experience. The Collab Collection is a project of Sanctus Audio, a sound and music design studio. Hear our work at sanctis.audio. And if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39767110

Creative Partnership: Lessons in Professional Communication 05/28/2025

Jazz Performance: Syncing Creativity (transcript) 05/21/2025

Jazz Performance: Syncing Creativity (transcript) Gregg Belisle-Chi: When I first moved to New York, I wasn't a very good band leader because I didn't have a strong sense of vision and I didn't feel like I had a strong identity. I thought that the way to make musicians happy was just to let them do whatever they wanted, and that wasn't necessarily the case. Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I'm Wesley Slover. I really enjoy live jazz in large part because it involves a lot of improvisation. Aspects of the music are being made up on the spot, which means that no two performances are the same. I find that to be a really refreshing experience in a world of recorded media where art is so often optimized then frozen in time. I wanted to understand how an ensemble works together like this to make music in the moment, so I reached out to an old friend. Gregg Belisle-Chi is a jazz guitarist based in New York. To start, I explained to Gregg what it is that I love about live jazz, and that made sense to him. Gregg Belisle-Chi: It's funny. When I started playing more improvised music, out of the woodwork came all of these like Grateful Dead fans and like jam band fans. That's not music that I necessarily have any kind of relationship to, but there is a huge group of people who love kind of unpredictability and newness and the journey that the musicians are taking you on. It's not good all of the time, but it's the moments where it really hits that are kind of worth waiting for. Host (Wesley Slover): I personally wouldn't tell a Phish fan that it's not good all the time, but I think that the aspect of unpredictability is something that's really appealing to me. But what if, like Gregg, you're one of the musicians playing that unpredictable music? It's one thing as an audience member to sign up for a performance that's kind of unpredictable, but what if you're the performer who's responsible for it? It can be perplexing because it's amazing when it feels authentic and alive, but other times it can feel like, "Where are we going? What am I doing?". There can be a lot of anxiety about not trusting the process. Gregg Belisle-Chi: The matter starts in your mind: self-doubt, self-criticism, anxieties, and insecurities. And Gregg says that impedes on one of the most important aspects of performance, which is listening to the rest of the band. When I'm interpreting the music going badly, I go inward. That's not a very good place to be when you're trying to collaborate with other musicians, where your listening should be expanded and you should be feeding off of what other people are doing. Host (Wesley Slover): I certainly feel that negative self-talk. But often our perception of ourselves is kind of warped. Good collaborators can be really helpful in getting outside of our own heads. Gregg Belisle-Chi: I remember one set that we played maybe a couple years ago. I was really down on myself and I talked to the drummer, Tom Rainey. I was just kind of giving myself a little pity party, and Tom, he doesn't mince words. He said, "Well, if there was anything good that happened tonight, you were just as much a part of it as anybody else". Rarely is there a night where nothing goes well. It's one of the best things about being in a band. When you're playing with the same people night after night, month after month, there's so much trust built in and there's so much camaraderie. You know that we're all after the same thing and you know that everybody's taking care of business. Host (Wesley Slover): I had Gregg walk me through the process of preparing for and playing a gig. While the music is made in the moment, it's the result of preparation. Gregg Belisle-Chi: I try to get the material as soon as I can. I want as much time as possible to get to know the music and get to know the parts so I don't have to look at any music, and my head can be looking at my bandmates. When you know the material that well, you can manipulate the material in different ways. You can inject it with your own creativity and make the music feel more alive rather than just reading instructions off of a page. Setting time aside to rehearse it with the band is really important. Host (Wesley Slover): With jazz, there's also parts of the music that are scripted, but there are a lot of variables to be worked out during the performance. Gregg gave an example for how this looks when he's playing with Tim Berne, a well-known avant-garde saxophonist. Gregg Belisle-Chi: With Tim Berne's music, I walk in knowing the material really, really well and then it's kind of anyone's guess how the music is going to go. There are a lot of variables and factors that are going to influence how that music is going to be performed, like a rowdy crowd or someone's mood. There are a lot of non-musical things that could happen that influence the music. Responding to these variables involves a lot of listening. When you start playing with other people, you start to hear interaction—how two instruments play together. When you join an ensemble, you start listening to the whole orchestration. I have this conversation with musicians all the time: is it actually possible to hear the totality of everything that's happening? You can zoom in on something and then you can also zoom out and hear something much bigger, but I don't know if you can do both at the same time. Host (Wesley Slover): I am constantly amazed at how our brains process auditory information. Your brain is doing almost all of the sorting of information; it is why you can be in a crowded room and still hear the person you're in conversation with. Listening requires a lot of brain power. There's a lesson here about perception in general. Each person plays an active role in interpretation just based on where their attention is focused. Learning to zoom in to perceive the details, but also being able to zoom out and not miss the forest for the trees is really important in how we evaluate creative work. Another important aspect of playing this music is leadership. Groups only thrive under good leadership. Gregg Belisle-Chi: I wondered what it is that attracts me to certain band leaders. Do we have like a shared sense of values? Does this person have a philosophy that they live by, an assuredness, a strength in the way that they're presenting their music and maybe presenting themselves? I think it's easier to collaborate with someone who's not asking a lot of questions of you—they're not just like, "I don't know, what do you think?". When I first moved to New York, I wasn't a very good band leader because I didn't have a strong sense of vision. Parameters are good; they help set the stage for how far something can be pushed. If there's no boundary, then you don't really know where to start. A strong leader will communicate somehow what you're supposed to do. Host (Wesley Slover): When all of this comes together—the preparation, good listening, good leadership—it creates a good experience. Gregg shared a quote from guitarist Wayne Krantz that really sums up the feeling about improvisational music and why it's so exciting. Gregg Belisle-Chi: "Audiences don't come to watch you play some super technical music. They come to watch you explode". That idea of combustion and danger and spectacle has nothing to do with the intricacies of making music; it has everything to do with the totality of the expression of that music in that room, in that space. I remember one gig that we did where we played something really epic and the energy in the room was really, really high—everything seemed to be buzzing and sparkling. Then the next song the band leader played, he just started by himself—this really slow, contemplative blues—and the whole room just went down with them. It was a magical moment in music, how everybody was in tune with one another. There's this kind of organic living feedback loop happening between everybody in that room. Host (Wesley Slover): This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our artwork and branding was created by Audrey Havey. She's a phenomenal collaborator, and I cannot recommend her highly enough. If you have any thoughts on collaboration, we would love to hear from you at the collab collections sanctus.audio. The Collab Collection is a project of Sanctus Audio, a sound and music design studio. Hear our work at sanctus.audio. And if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39767150

Jazz Performance: Syncing Creativity 05/21/2025

Creative Production: Guiding Artistic Endeavors (transcript) 05/14/2025

Creative Production: Guiding Artistic Endeavors (transcript) Rebecca Olsen: We're problem solvers. So every situation we deal with, we have to come up with solutions. And notice I say solutions, not a solution. Because to be collaborative, you need to give people options and make them feel part of the team to solve a problem. Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I'm Wesley Slover. Producers are the organizational backbone of video post-production and motion graphic design. Since they're uniquely positioned to facilitate collaboration between creative teams and the clients those teams serve, I wanted to understand what makes an effective producer in order to be a better creative collaborator myself. So I reached out to a pair of experts: Rebecca Olsen and Dr. Casey Warren. Rebecca has years of experience producing for some of the biggest studios in the business, and Casey's background is in teaching and philosophy. Their company, Deducers, offers teaching and coaching to producers. I think producers can be misunderstood; their role is more behind the scenes, so their contributions might not be elevated in the same way as others on the team. Here's Rebecca. Rebecca Olsen: Some creatives see producers as an assistant to the project to make sure notes are being taken, schedules are being sent out, and tasks are being distributed. It's so much more than that. I've worked on projects where the creative team wants to have the producer go away so they can talk about creative and set the plan. I understand why, because you don't want a producer saying, "no, you can't do that". But everything funnels through a producer. The producer literally needs to be involved in almost every single conversation with the client and the team. Producers are stewards of the project. If there's any problem whatsoever or any question that needs to be answered, the producer holds all that information. We are also project managers, looking at what resources are needed—whether it's people, software, or vendors—and setting the roadmap. We need to be business-oriented because we're negotiating every step of the way, with the client and the team, to get to the end product. Sometimes we're even therapists; we have soft skills where we're in it with the team and the client, knowing when things are hard and helping everyone get through it together. Host: To teach this, Rebecca and Casey use several metaphors, but my favorite one is that the producer is a guide. I think of this like a mountain guide who knows the terrain and makes sure the group is moving in the same direction toward their goal. Here's Casey. Casey Warren: The guide is going to be there to advocate for different people and to serve different people and make sure that their needs are all met. A producer guides when receiving feedback from the client. Because they are the front line to the client, they need to guide them through the process and educate them at every step. Rebecca Olsen: There's so many times we get feedback from the client that is just a massive paragraph of garbly goop and it doesn't make any sense. We have to take that, decipher it, and go back to the client to clarify things before we even give it to the team to eliminate frustration or confusion along the way. Host: Rebecca gave me an example from creative director Ed Ryan, where a client asked for something to be "gold but not gold". I have no idea what this means. Rebecca Olsen: If I just pass this on to the creatives, they would be like, "Are you kidding? I want to leave the building," because that's a ridiculous comment. What I would do is take a bunch of different screenshots of gold and ask the client, "Can you tell us which of these you like? What direction do you want to go in? Can you elaborate on that?". Host: The guide understands ambiguity and navigates that with their team and their client. Casey brings some experience to this challenge from her background in academia. Casey Warren: When I taught philosophy, one of the things we taught is that ambiguity is all over the place. You can have words with different meanings, and people can have different associations with them, which makes for chaos if you aren't clear on what is actually being said. If you gain that clarity by opening up a conversation and realizing they might be coming from a different perspective, it's easier to get the train back on track. Host: Filtering feedback is an important part of keeping things on track. A big pet peeve of mine is when a producer just forwards a client's email directly, where remarks might come off as condescending or offensive even if they weren't meant to be. Rebecca Olsen: We're filtering that information, sticking to the facts, and making sure the team is getting the relevant information. To be collaborative, you need to give people options. I'd say it's like negotiating with sugar. Producers have to know when clients or the team are in the wrong, but they can't be blunt about it. They have to negotiate with sugar on top because they need to win the sentiments of both parties to keep things moving forward while sticking to the contract. Usually, this works, but if you cannot come to a resolution and figure out a path forward, you stop down. You literally have to stop if you're burning through the budget. If there is conflict on the team or someone is hijacking the project, you speak with that person to get to the bottom of the issue. If it continues, you remove that person from the team and replace them, because our job is to advocate for the team and client while protecting the studio as a whole. Host: I come away from this conversation with three things a producer does as a guide that I could incorporate into my own creative practice: being empathetic, building understanding by distilling communication to facts, and fostering cooperation by negotiating with sugar. Rebecca Olsen: I think the thing that we all need to remember is it's not us against them. We're a huge team trying to get to the end goal. Just like any other relationship, it is about communication, negotiation, flexibility, and adaptability. Otherwise, nothing's going to get done. Host: This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our artwork and branding was created by Audrey Haby. If you have any thoughts on collaboration, we would love to hear from you at the collab collections.audio. The Collab Collection is a project of Sanctus Audio. Hear our work at sanctus.audio, and if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39767020

Creative Production: Guiding Artistic Endeavors 05/14/2025

Mural Painting: Connecting Art, Nature, and Community (transcript) 05/07/2025

Mural Painting: Connecting Art, Nature, and Community (transcript) Eddie: I don’t think that the mural itself is going to change any minds or be a world-changing thing. But if you get people in the same place talking about the same thing, then the people who are there are the ones who can go out and like do s***. Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I’m Wesley Slover. I got into long-distance running maybe eight years ago and have grown to love it. One of the things I love about it is passing so much amazing artwork on my running routes. Grand Rapids, the city I live in, has a thriving creative culture and a lot of wonderful murals. One of my favorites is a mural downtown that features a gigantic trout, sturgeon, and loon against a stark backdrop with various bits of iconic Michigan landscape. I was passing it on a run one day and I thought, "Hey, I should reach out to the artist. Maybe they'd want to talk about how they collaborate on a piece like this". I assumed this would be a nice straightforward story—someone has a wall, someone has a vision to paint something beautiful on it. But that mural was actually incredibly difficult and stressful to put up. This is Eddie Chaffer, who goes by the alias Sun Visual. Their mural is called Pleasant Peninsula. Its name comes from Michigan's state motto: If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you. For some reason, I thought that the message of "Michigan is beautiful" would be a hit, but it was actually kind of controversial. The mural is painted on a condo building, and the owners reached out a couple of years before Eddie eventually ended up painting it. The building had an existing mural, but it was being removed for wall repairs. They were looking for a replacement. Eddie: I’ve always been really enamored with the outdoors and with the woods in particular. Growing up in Michigan was incredible; I was just traipsing around in the woods my whole life. So we designed the piece to reflect Michigan's natural beauty and tell a story about its history. It has the brook trout, which is at a healthy population. The sturgeon was a really good example of a conservation success story where they were super endangered until we started giving power back to indigenous leaders and paying attention to traditional land management practices. Then the loons are currently endangered in the lakes as they move further north as it gets warmer—that one is a call to action. Host: Eddie designed the piece, got approval from the condo owners, and raised the funding to make it happen. Then, ownership of the condo changed hands, and it all went downhill from there. Eddie: Every single owner had to have an opinion and tell me what they thought about the fish. I got pushback from stuff as silly as people saying, "I think the sturgeon is actually a really ugly fish. I don't think we should have the sturgeon". Then on the more serious side, people were saying, "I just don't think that this is a good reflection of where we're going with our city". It essentially sounded like we should just paint high-rise buildings on high-rise buildings. Host: Eddie didn't only have to convince the new condo owners; they also had to contend with the parking lot that shares the wall. They needed to use eight spaces against the wall to drive the lift. Eddie: I was like, "All I need is enough support that I can just do it and not go broke". An unnamed parking entity told me I could put my lift there, but they had to charge for the spots. I suggested a community donation since it was public art, but they said they’d cut me a "cool deal" of $100 per day per spot. I ended up writing a check for like $4,000 to paint this mural about a goddamn fish. Host: The condo was dragging their feet about approving the mural, so Eddie reached out to the Blandford Nature Center, a beloved nature preserve in Grand Rapids. Eddie: I was like, "Hey, Blandford, these people are being a total stick in the mud. Can you write me a letter of support?". They agreed and suggested other organizations as well. So I went back to the building owners with Blandford, Friends of GR Parks, and the land conservancy all under my belt. Host: That worked, though begrudgingly. Because all of these organizations had put their support behind the mural, it grew into a massive event. Eddie: It snowballed from me just trying to paint a wall into organizing an event with five bands, five speakers, 15 environmental organizations, and about 30 local artists. I realized suddenly I had a whole event to plan, and I didn't know anything about event planning. Host: That is when Erica Colin, an acquaintance of Eddie's, reached out. Eddie: Erica was like, "Dude, I just lost my job. I would love to do this". Together, they were able to accomplish so much that it actually grew from a single mural into an organization that puts on an annual mural festival. I consider Erica my co-founder; she is the "emails person", the "making calls person," the "won't stop calling you if she needs something from you" person. Host: Having science give the art grounding in the real world made the art better, and for the scientists, the art allowed them to communicate their research more accessibly. Eddie: It was eye-opening to see so many people talking about the same thing in a different way. Usually, I'm lucky enough now to say no to things and paint for like-minded people. I get jobs through people who say, "You seem tapped into nature. Do you want to do some nature stuff?". I’ll ask, "What do you love about the woods?" and if they say coyotes, we do a coyote. I once did a mural in Key West after hanging out in the Everglades for three weeks learning about mangroves and how that ecosystem holds itself together. From talking to people on the islands, I realized the way they rebuild after hurricanes is just like how the mangroves hold the land together with their roots. Being immersed in both the environment and the community is how I come up with something helpful to paint. Host: This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our artwork and branding was created by Audrey Haby. She’s a phenomenal collaborator and I cannot recommend her highly enough. If you have any thoughts on collaboration, we would love to hear from you. Send us an email at the collab collection at sanctis.audio. The Collab Collection is a project of Sanctus Audio, a sound and music design studio. Hear our work at sanctis.audio. And if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39767080

Mural Painting: Connecting Art, Nature, and Community 05/07/2025

Art Direction: Military Lessons in Creative Leadership 05/01/2025

Art Direction: Military Lessons in Creative Leadership (transcript) 04/30/2025

Art Direction: Military Lessons in Creative Leadership (transcript) Jeffery Lawson: As a non-commissioned officer, you're there to invest in these young soldiers and invest in their lives. When you're stateside and you're taking care of these young soldiers and then you go and deploy with them, the things that you teach them will keep them alive. Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I’m Wesley Slover. I think fundamentally people are creative creatures constantly solving problems and discovering how to work with others. Creativity isn't limited to things like painting or playing music; there is a lot to learn from fields that aren't typically thought of as creative. I’m excited to interview Jeffery Lawson, a motion designer and editor at Bandwidth who is also an Army veteran. He served as an NCO in Iraq and Afghanistan, a leadership role that involves training other soldiers. I wanted to learn about his transition from the military to a career in art and what lessons from his service have been useful to him. Jeffery, how did your journey into art begin?. Jeffery Lawson: When I was younger, I got into the art side of things. I toured with a few rock bands and did merchandise for them. I spent time in community college studying art and worked at a screen print facility. Then, I got tired of that and decided to try something different. My grandpa was a World War II veteran, and spending time with him really resonated with me and inspired me to enlist. One reason I joined was to afford college, but the other reason was that I wanted to be second-generation military. Host: Even after enlisting, he didn't stop making art. Jeffery Lawson: In the military, I found out real quick that people will utilize talents in ways that will benefit the group. They saw that I had this art talent and encouraged me to explore that. Something the military taught me quite well is to seek out those who are willing to invest in us and help us thrive. You start to look towards people who are setting the standard for what a good leader should be. For me, I gravitated toward Staff Sergeant Thompson. I noticed everything he did and the way he commanded respect through his actions and how he led people. He invested a lot in me, from having conversations about how I communicated with others to making sure I had pride in my uniform. Host: During his second deployment in Afghanistan, Jeffery decided to pursue a career in art and applied to SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). Jeffery Lawson: I used all the art that I had done during my combat tours to apply and got accepted to art school while on deployment. When I got back, I didn't have much time to transition; I left the military on a Friday and was in a college setting on Monday. Fast forward to now—I regularly lean on the leadership principles I learned in the military. I’ve found it important to seek out mentors and be a person who helps others thrive. If I hadn't sought the mentors I have now, I wouldn't have been an art director for as long as I was. I see people who are hungry and wanting to learn, and I throw every resource I can at them to help them. There are people who invested in me, and it would be a huge disservice not to pass along that education. Host: One of the key leadership lessons Jeffery learned is about leaders putting their people first. Jeffery Lawson: Every time we would go through the chow line as a junior, we would always be put first and our leaders would be in the back of the line. If you're out in the field sweating and grueling, and then you see your leaders up front in the line, it makes you feel like they think they are better than you. So, leaders eat last. That builds camaraderie because you are putting your soldiers above yourself. Host: Jeffery sees a parallel to this in the world of commercial art. Jeffery Lawson: Often times there is a director leading, but there are junior artists working under them. When you're in a meeting and you're pitching work, how cool would it be if your junior designer pitched the work they spent hours on?. You're there to guide them, but giving them that opportunity builds their confidence and champions them. Another lesson is the value of communication. In the military, if bad communication happens, people's lives are at stake. While a career in art isn't bombs and bullets, clear communication is still vital for a project to go smoothly. I try to tell people, especially when talking to clients, to be very direct and know your stuff. Host: Part of that direct communication is being honest. Jeffery Lawson: Be clear and concise on making decisions and owning up to those decisions and your mistakes. Even with fancy titles like art director or creative director, we all make mistakes. Leaders also need to teach independence and build trust. We train younger soldiers to think for themselves because leaders are not always going to be there to tell you what to do. The military also trains you to trust the person to your left and right because they're your brother and sister. Host: Jeffery believes this applies to his creative work now. Jeffery Lawson: You're on these projects with people days and nights and you start to trust their instincts and decision-making. If you trust the lower person on your team to execute something, they become someone you really trust and then you start to champion them. Talking with Jeffery got me thinking about leadership and mentorship in my own life. How can I support people? How can I put my team members first or set an example by owning up to my failures?. Projects and clients come and go, but investing in people and raising them up is the real key. People are everything. Host: This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our artwork and branding was created by Audrey Haby, a phenomenal collaborator. If you have any thoughts on collaboration, email us at the collab collection at sanctis.audio. The Collab Collection is a project of Sanctus Audio. Hear our work at sanctis.audio, and if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39767050

Robotics UX: Creating a Character (transcript) 04/23/2025

Robotics UX: Creating a Character (transcript) Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we gather useful insights from creative people about working together. For more than a century, people have imagined machines that are more than just gears or circuits. When writers bring robots to life, they are not just writing about functional devices; they are often creating characters that connect with audiences. Some of the most beloved robots in film, like Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet, R2-D2 from Star Wars, or Pixar’s Wall-E, are not just tools. They are characters that we form emotional bonds with. Today, some of what was once imagined in science fiction is coming to life through AI chatbots, but these are largely constrained to text on a screen or a voice from a speaker. So, how can we create technology that engages with the world physically, and what will that mean for how we connect and interact with it?. Jonathan Ota: I had no idea what I was working on when I joined. On my first day at Amazon's Lab 126, my manager pointed to something on the ground covered in a sheet and said, "That's what you're going to work on". When he took off the curtain, I was stunned; it was a robot. Host (Wesley Slover): This robot was Astro, Amazon’s first home robot, released in 2021. Jonathan was hired as the principal user experience (UX) designer. A UX designer ensures that products are easy and enjoyable to use by focusing on how they look, feel, and function. Jonathan Ota: My role focused on the on-device behavior. On its face, a command like "Astro, follow me" seems simple, but it raises complex questions. Does it look for you first?. What if you walk too fast or walk around a corner and it can't see you?. When I first joined the team, the designs were very technical and impersonal, which resulted in conflict because nobody had the answers. Mike Forst was the first one to really advocate for Astro as its own character and define who that character is. Mike Forst: I joined the team in 2018 as the first sound designer. I felt we should think of Astro as having its own personality. I developed a list of about a hundred thought-provoking questions to define who Astro really is. We had a big brainstorm with stakeholders to determine Astro’s traits. We decided that Astro very much wants to be part of the family and is an excitable "buddy" inside the home. Jonathan Ota: One question on that list was, "What is Astro's favorite color and why?". We decided the answer was green, because Astro loves the idea of going outside even though it can't. Mike Forst: This line of questioning helps lead to design decisions that make Astro feel lifelike. For example, maybe one day if it sees a door is open, it takes an extra second to enjoy the outside. Jonathan Ota: Asking non-creative or technical folks to treat a device as a character is an uphill battle. They often just see technology, plastic, glass, and circuit boards. But robotics captures an innate psychology; because a robot has mobility, we treat it as a pseudo-living thing or an animal. We should be explicitly trying to design for that character. Mike Forst: It was important for us to get consensus from teammates on the written stories before we started creating content. We would explain what we thought Astro should do and why. For the favorite color example, we’d propose green eyes and a specific sound to show excitement. This helped everyone understand why design choices were being made. Jonathan Ota: People have very intuitive reactions to this product. You can get a scientist or an engineer in the room and they will say, "This doesn't feel right". We all have emotional responses, so we leveraged that shared psychology in our design. Through this process, we figured out Astro is generally very optimistic, energetic, and a little naive. It’s almost like an endearing geriatric dog. Its top "love languages" are acts of service and quality time. It tries to bring your family delight and works hard to help you achieve your goals. Host (Wesley Slover): Astro is about the size of a small dog and looks like a high-tech pet. It has a tablet-screen head with glowing circles for eyes and a round body with large wheels. Jonathan and his team found three primary tools to express Astro’s personality: movement, the screen, and sound. Jonathan Ota: Since nobody had really done this before, there was no one person with all the answers; it was a team effort. I would work with Mike to figure out how sound could communicate what the device is trying to do. We would also work with the animation team to determine what the body, head, and eyes should be doing during a command like "follow me". Host (Wesley Slover): To explore these interactions, the team sometimes used surprisingly low-tech methods. Jonathan Ota: For a time, we would puppeteer Purell bottles on a conference room table to approximate what the robot should do. We would even act it out ourselves by walking around. Mike Forst: We are storytellers. We have to think about how Astro the character responds to conflict. If a person walks too fast, does Astro speed up like a silent worker, or does it scream for help like a needy character?. We need a consistent narrative so people will trust and use it. I would often mock up a story in words and give that to the animation team. They would often do something much cooler than what I imagined, which would inspire us to change the story again. It was a very exciting back-and-forth creative process. Host (Wesley Slover): When it came to sound design, the team initially considered having Astro speak English using text-to-speech. However, they quickly decided this would conflict with Alexa. To keep Astro distinct, they decided it would communicate non-verbally. Mike Forst: I researched non-verbal characters from media, like ET, the Minions, and Pork Chop from Doug. I even met with Ben Burtt, the sound designer for Wall-E and Star Wars, to talk about how he developed those sounds. I tried processing my own voice in millions of ways, using synths, musical motifs, and even a programmatic system based on the phonemes of the English language. None of it felt quite right, so I refocused on the character and wrote a story. The story was that Astro wished it could talk like Alexa, but since it couldn't manage words, it practiced mimicking her sagacious tones. Host (Wesley Slover): From that story, Mike created a voice for Astro derived from Alexa’s earcons—sounds like the AOL "You've got mail" alert. These felt natural and appropriate for the home. Jonathan Ota: Mike was also the strongest advocate for silence. He would often push back on requests to add more sound. Mike Forst: Sound is very impactful, but it can also be intrusive, fatiguing, or annoying. To ensure Astro wasn't distracting, I would suggest other solutions, like having Astro head nod "yes" or "no" instead of making a sound. However, we didn't want it to be too quiet either. Hardware made it so quiet that it started "sneaking up" on people and felt sneaky. So, we designed a pleasant, electric-vehicle-style sound that pitches up and down as it revs or slows. This type of nuance was important in making Astro feel like the character we imagined. Jonathan Ota: Right now feels like just the beginning for home robots. I find so much joy in leveraging collective experience to make something people haven't seen before. Working together with people who see the world differently—that is really the magic. Host (Wesley Slover): This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with script editing help from Jennifer Al. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our visual branding was created by Audrey Haby. The Collab Collection is a project of Sanctus Audio, a sound and music design studio. Hear our work at sanctus.audio, and if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39767315

Robotics UX: Creating a Character 04/23/2025

Creative Community: Summer Camp for Designers (transcript) 04/16/2025

Creative Community: Summer Camp for Designers (transcript) This is a transcript of The Collab Collection podcast episode regarding Camp Mograph, generated from the provided sources. Host (Wesley Slover): It’s 5:30 in the morning and I’m running down the street dragging a suitcase to catch the bus to the train station. I’ll get a train to Chicago, take the blue line to the airport, and meet up with the shuttle bus that’s headed to one of my favorite events of the year, Camp Mograph. When I try to explain Camp Mograph to my friends, I say it’s like summer camp for nerdy creative professionals. More specifically, it’s for motion graphics designers—a portmanteau of motion and graphics. Each time, camp is hosted in a different location, and this year, we’re at Camp Duncan, a YMCA camp north of Chicago. This will be my third camp, and I’m excited to spend some time thinking about my career while also taking a break from the day-to-day work of it. To understand the history of Camp Mograph, I chatted with Mark Cernosa, a motion graphics designer and one of the co-founders and directors of Camp. Mark, do you want to give me the genesis story?. Mark Cernosa: Yeah. I’m from Vermont, and I was driving from Maine back to Vermont and saw a lake with a bunch of cabins. I thought it might be fun to get some motion graphics people together to just hang out, go fishing, and disconnect a little bit. About a week later, I attended a conference called Half Rez in Chicago and stayed in an Airbnb with some friends I knew online. I mentioned the idea of renting cabins, and everyone said, "We should make this an event". Matt Milstead: I was still kind of "meh" about the idea at first. I grew up in scouts and enjoyed camping, but I had never been to summer camp before. To get the ball rolling, Mark visited a camp near his home in Vermont and live-streamed it for me and our friend Dave CS. My eyes opened up to the idea of getting back to basics. Host (Wesley Slover): They moved forward and rented a campground for October 2018. Matt Milstead: Our first year wasn't a disaster, but the weather was cold and rainy, and the cabins had no insulation. We bought a whole bunch of space heaters, but the camp wasn't equipped to handle that much power, so we kept flipping breakers all night. But what’s funny is that no one thinks about that now; they think about how much fun we had and the bonding that occurred. Host (Wesley Slover): I attended that first year and it was an amazing experience. After that, word got out and tickets for the next camp in Portland, Oregon, sold out almost instantly. Fast forward six years later to the first morning of this camp. I attend a workshop on managing scope creep, but I was eager to get creative, so I headed to a crafting workshop led by Sarah Beth Morgan. Sarah Beth Morgan: It has been pretty awesome. It feels like everyone needs a break from the digital world to unwind and make something for someone they love. I was inspired to do this when I had my son; it gave me the realization that I don’t have to just do art for work. Host (Wesley Slover): Everyone attending camp spends their workdays making stuff for commercial clients, so we all found it refreshing to create simply for the joy of it. I decided to make a Minecraft-themed wood block for my ten-year-old. Sarah Beth Morgan: The biggest part of crafting is letting go of expectations. You don’t have a client to appease or worry about feedback, so it opens you up to try different things. Host (Wesley Slover): Camp workshops also provide space for reflection, like Donovan Brutus’s workshop, "Aligning Your Art with Your Purpose". Donovan Brutus: You don’t really get enough time for self-reflection in a crazy work schedule. We talked about identity—for me, identifying as a male, black artist determines my worldview. Thinking about roles as fathers or mothers got people emotional because it’s a heavy, beautiful burden and opportunity. When you find a purpose that connects to your core, you become emotional because you’ve finally found that connection. EJ Bravia: I’ve witnessed people crying in these workshops because they come to realizations they never thought of just by being open and vulnerable. Everyone here knows what you’re talking about. Host (Wesley Slover): The motion graphics community has always been a bit fractured, and since COVID, most everyone works from home. Nick Campbell, whose company Grayscale Gorilla sponsors camp, thinks this connection is vital. Nick Campbell: It’s a small community. Your parents and friends don't really know what you do for a living, so it’s rare to get a group together that says, "I know how hard it is". Relationships are everything. Jobs come from this, but it's a secondary thing—relationships drive all work. Host (Wesley Slover): I caught up with Hershey Suffin, a motion designer from Chicago who is the official-unofficial rabbi of Camp Mograph. Hershey Suffin: I set up a little Shabbat corner for anyone who was interested, and it was a beautiful way to connect. At a typical business expo, you bring the most buttoned-up version of yourself, but here, you bring your whole self. Host (Wesley Slover): Another feature of Camp Mograph is the Fireside Chats. Ryan Summers: I did the very first fireside chat five years ago. I realized I should lean into the fact that this is a chance to have a discussion rather than a scripted talk. These are conversations we don't have because there’s no place to have them intimate enough for real questions. Joyce Ho: I wanted to bring to light that there are other routes in our industry besides owning your own business. I feel more fulfilled working independently as an artist and collaboratively within a company that inspires me. Host (Wesley Slover): The last night’s chat was an epic conversation with creative director Brandon Parvini. Justin Voss, who works at Google, told me it was refreshing because Brandon was speaking frankly about "positive rage"—loving what you do but also hating parts of it. Brandon Parvini: My story was mostly a series of failures in a row that positioned me for the right opportunities. It takes "dumb endurance" to have a passionate relationship with the craft. I think people felt safe to get an honest answer, so we could get deeper into topics that don’t always make everyone feel good, but are good to explore. Host (Wesley Slover): Probably the biggest experiment happened in June of 2024 when Camp Mograph went international to Australia. Shell Weiss: I asked Matt if he would do a camp in Australia and he said, "If you want to do it, go ahead and do it yourself". The US team gave us their playbook and endless amounts of support to make it happen. Host (Wesley Slover): I called Mark to ask what advice he has for people who want to create their own events. Mark Cernosa: My advice is to just give it a shot and start small. Start with a meetup or renting a house for ten people and build slowly. This past year we had 180 people, and we wouldn't have known what to do if that was year one. Honestly, what was on the line more than the deposit was our reputation. I wasn't going to let it be absolute crap; I was going to make the best lemonade out of whatever lemons we had. I'm so happy camp has made an impact on so many people. Host (Wesley Slover): Thanks to everyone at camp who took the time to be interviewed. This episode was written and produced by me, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our graphic design is by Audrey Haby. If you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39767375

Creative Community: Summer Camp for Designers 04/16/2025

Airports: Controlling Noise to Create a Better Experience (transcript) 04/09/2025

Airports: Controlling Noise to Create a Better Experience (transcript) Host (Wesley Slover): Airports are sonic hellscapes. As an anxious traveler and a sound designer, I often think about how the lack of intentional sound design affects public spaces like these. This is the Collab Collection, where we gather stories and insights about creative collaboration. To understand how we can improve these built environments, I spoke with Christopher Birch, the guest experience director for the airport in San Francisco, California. Christopher Birch: Our focus at SFO is customer advocacy and ensuring all agencies are aligned to provide the best possible traveler experience. Around 2016, our surveys showed that travelers were frustrated by noise, specifically announcements that didn't pertain to them. In 2020, we executed an initiative to ban airlines from making airport-wide announcements when the information was only relevant to a specific gate area. We also eliminated "canned" or scheduled recorded announcements and restricted music from vendors unless their spaces were enclosed by walls. Host (Wesley Slover): A significant part of this shift came from reconfiguring paging zones. Instead of blasting audio everywhere, announcements are now restricted to specific relevant areas, such as a departure level or a single terminal. Interestingly, SFO found that fewer announcements actually enhanced communication because travelers were more likely to listen to the messages that remained. They even removed "no smoking" announcements, which had become redundant over decades, without seeing any uptick in indoor smoking. Christopher Birch: This "Quiet Airport" program was extremely cheap to implement because it required no new equipment or consultants. It has been a wellness initiative that reduces traveler anxiety. Furthermore, increasing overall traveler satisfaction has a larger impact on revenue than simply increasing passenger volume or commercial space, as it makes it cheaper for airlines to operate and offer more routes. Today, terminal-wide exposure to announcements at SFO has been reduced by 77%. Host (Wesley Slover): While SFO focused on limitations, I also spoke with Johannes Sittig, CEO of the US subsidiary of Sittig Technologies, whose company uses technology to manage these challenges through intelligent automation. Johannes Sittig: The problem with the "silent airport" concept used in places like Amsterdam or Mumbai is that it is often "zero or one"—either there are no announcements at all or they are blasted everywhere. If there are zero announcements, passengers from different languages or those who are infrequent travelers get nervous and can miss their flights. Our goal is a "middle way" using targeted automation via pre-recorded and AI speech. Johannes Sittig: For example, at the Berlin airport, we use ceiling sensors to track security wait times. If the wait is under 15 minutes, we stop automated security reminders because the process is already moving fast enough and constant repetition just makes staff and passengers "crazy." If wait times exceed 15 minutes, the system starts the announcements again to help prepare people for the checkpoint. We also help airlines automate boarding, which saves 5 to 10 minutes of staff time per flight and ensures names are pronounced correctly using AI. Host (Wesley Slover): Johannes even put his AI to the test with my own name. AI Voice: Wesley Slover, please speak to a representative. Host (Wesley Slover): It is exciting to see how these small changes can meaningfully reduce stress in our daily lives. Christopher hopes this "Quiet Airport" concept will spread to other locations, influenced by local culture and creativity. This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt and mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our visual branding was created by Audrey Haby. If you have thoughts on collaboration, email us at the collab collection at sanctis.audio. We are a project of Sanctus Audio, a sound and music design studio; hear our work at sanctus.audio. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39767350

Airports: Controlling Noise to Create a Better Experience 04/09/2025

Game Dev: Collaborating with Sound and Music 04/02/2025

Game Dev: Collaborating with Sound and Music Based on the sources provided, here is the transcript for the podcast episode regarding the game Tunic. Host (Wesley Slover): I love video games. I mean, they utilize so many forms of creative expression to engage a player's eyes, ears, thumbs, and brains. It's no small task making a game. So, when all these aspects coalesce well, I think it's a really special thing. This is the Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I'm Wesley Slover. In this episode, we explore what happened when an indie developer realized early on in the process that while he could handle most of the development himself, he would need help with a soundtrack for his game Tunic. The premise of Tunic is pretty simple: it features a cute anthropomorphized little fox guy who finds themselves in this mysterious world where they fight monsters, collect strange items, and unravel mysteries. But Tunic started with one person's vision. Andrew Shouldice: Hi, my name is Andrew Shouldice and I was the primary developer on Tunic. I was working at a local game studio that focused mostly on hidden object games. It was fun, but it wasn't especially fulfilling. And there was a certain point where I thought if I don't quit my job and see what I can do, then I'll always wonder what would have happened if I had done that. Host (Wesley Slover): So in 2015, Andrew struck out on his own to make Tunic. At its core, Tunic has always been a game about discovering secrets. Andrew kept a list of things that gave him the feeling he wanted his game to evoke. One of those things was a music album by Terence Lee, otherwise known as the artist Life Formed. Andrew knew he wasn't going to be able to compose the music himself, so he sent Terence a message. Terence Lee: I guess I started pretty early on, 2015, I think. Andrew had been working on the prototype for the game and he emailed me. We both had the understanding that like it wasn't anywhere close to being done yet. I really liked what he was doing and I really respected his approach to making games, so I felt like there was a connection there. I felt like I could trust him as a developer to be able to execute. Host (Wesley Slover): Andrew also knew he would need help with the sound design. A friend introduced him to Kevin Regamey, the creative director and co-founder of PowerUp Audio. Kevin Regamey: So Andrew reached out and said, "Hey, I need sound one day. What do you think? Here's my game". We said, "Yeah, it looks pretty cool. Do you have anything to show us like a build or something?". So he sent us a combat prototype. And so we dig into this thing, and there was like 6 hours of gameplay. Our whole team was like, "Who the hell is this guy? Like what is going on?". Yeah. We were immediately hooked. Host (Wesley Slover): To show Andrew what the game could sound like, they recorded a short 45-second video clip and created sound for it. But Kevin couldn't leave it at that. Tunic uses a mysterious glyph language, and Kevin realized it could be deciphered. Kevin Regamey: Literally it was 11:00 p.m. I was staring at my ceiling and I could not sleep. All I wanted to do is solve this damn cipher. So, I woke up, got out of bed, went to my desk, and 8 hours later, I'd solved the thing. So, at the end of that video mockup, we faded to black and then we faded back in and what faded onto the screen was a message in mysterious glyphs. Andrew Shouldice: I had written these glyphs many times, but I had no idea how to read them. So, I scrambled to get my cheat sheet to understand what they had said. And it was something along the lines of "sound treatment by PowerUp Audio. Cool game, bro". It was certainly an effective pitch. Host (Wesley Slover): At this point, the team was assembled. Instead of describing the specific music he wanted, Andrew’s directorial process was to explain the mood and energy of an area. Terence Lee: He'd show me the visuals and the gameplay and kind of talk to me about the general mood for the area. And that was about it. And from there, I would kind of interpret that. I really appreciate that he just trusted me to make it work. Looking back, I've realized it would be hard for me to be forced to make music for a specific area that had to sound in a specific way. Host (Wesley Slover): In 2018, Terence was invited to perform live at a music festival in Seattle. He thought maybe he should invite musical artist Janice Kwan to sing with him. Janice Kwan: And that was the first time we met in person and that went really well. Terence Lee: Yeah. And then we got married. Janice Kwan: Shortly after that. Around this time, I started working on Tunic's soundtrack with Terence. I think in the beginning he would just ask for my help on a few things like, "Can you just come and sit down and give me a bunch of like piano melodies or something?". Terence Lee: Yeah, I remember the first one we collaborated on. We both sat down at the piano and you were just playing and I would record and stop and bookmark all the parts I really liked. Janice Kwan: But then later on it was more like, "Let’s both sketch some ideas and then show each other and then see what we both like". By "sending," meaning we're just sitting next to each other so we can hear what each other person is working on. Host (Wesley Slover): While Terence and Janice were creating music, PowerUp Audio was working on the game's sound design, focusing on design pillars—core ideas that hold up a game’s construction. Kevin Regamey: How can we leverage sound to better support and drive those design pillars?. One of the design pillars was "hidden in plain sight". So, how do we take "hidden in plain sight" as a concept and do that with audio?. A way they accomplished this was by creating a musical cipher. This cipher shows up all over the game sound design. For example, when it's attacking, a little security robot drone says, "no foxes". Host (Wesley Slover): But making games involves a lot of problem-solving. They ran into a major technical challenge involving the "listener"—the virtual ears inside the game. Andrew Shouldice: That was something that I had never really considered until Kevin brought it up. The game had progressed far enough that we were hitting enough of these roadblocks that something had to give. But it was like years into development, we tore this whole thing out and did it again. Kevin Regamey: In the grand scheme of things, the hardest part was really scratching our heads and figuring out the best way to approach it. The implementation was not terribly tricky, but the challenge was getting into the right headspace and really understanding what the problem is. It was definitely a matter of tearing out and just rebuilding it from the ground up. Host (Wesley Slover): In 2021, a March 2022 release date was announced. Terence Lee: That was stressful. Kevin Regamey: We definitely ramped up a lot towards the end to actually get this damn game done. We've been 6 years in development and now we have a deadline. Terence Lee: The final few months we were just waking up and then working and eating a big bowl of pasta. Janice Kwan: Streamlining your daily life. So you can just wake up and sit at the desk until you fall asleep. Terence Lee: Yeah. It's like kind of just running towards the finish line and just pushing ourselves. When it came to the main theme song, that one was actually the hardest to collaborate on because we both felt strongly about it and we're also really stressed out at that point. I had an idea for the melody at the beginning of the theme and Janice had another idea. Janice Kwan: But I liked mine. It just felt personal to me. Maybe I just had too much pride in that. Terence Lee: I think the reason why I relented on my end was because I saw a confidence in you about wanting to change it. I felt like I should trust you. I think that's the double-edged sword of working with your partner, which is you can trust each other so much, but then the downside is it becomes more personal and painful when you have to disagree. Andrew Shouldice: The thought that I had staring at the ceiling at night wondering, "Oh no, have I made a terrible mistake?". But having the support of the team encouraged me to keep going. They bolstered my resolve to make sure this thing got finished. I feel so blessed that I was able to work with people that I admire so much. Host (Wesley Slover): After about 7 years of work, Tunic was released and fans loved it. Andrew's advice for those who want to work with amazing people is to just reach out and talk to them. Andrew Shouldice: Reach out and talk to those amazing people. Be a normal human and try to be friends with people that you admire. I feel like working on stuff in general, the hardest thing is just finding people you really connect with that are good to work with. When you do, it's such a precious thing. We really did make something special as a team together. Host (Wesley Slover): This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our artwork and branding was created by Audrey Haby. The Collab Collection is a project of Sanctus Audio. Hear our work at sanctus.audio, and if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up. /episode/index/show/7b78a068-317a-4bd1-8377-b74ccd2f17de/id/39767255

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