Meet PandaPanther

PUBLISHED by Justin Cone

pandapanther.jpg

PandaPanther is a new studio launched by Jonathin Garin and Naomi Nishimura with Executive Producer Lydia Holness and they are NOT messin’ around.

About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.
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28 Comments

illroot

Fuckin’ awesome!

Keep the good work flowin’ brother!

Dave

PSYOP is great isnt it?

Yussef

this is some great work. i love the junge disco piece. fresh!

Despairow

Awesome guys, site looks great!

tools

another company using another company’s work to start. wonder how psyop feels about that.

tools

another startup using another company’s work to start. wonder how psyop feels about that.

Yussef

a company is only the sum of its parts. portfolios are there to show potential clients what you are capable of. i see nothing being done wrong here. stop hatin’

oeuf

Some of you are aware that Psyop uses alot of freelancers and eventually the pieces they’ve worked on goes on their reels, right?

gimmie that tool

You do realize a lot of people that comment on motionographer are students and don’t have experience, right?

cbr

It is true that when you work freelance at a company you are allowed to put that on your reel – if they allow you. The difference is how you sell yourself. If you are selling your talents to other studios then that is one thing. If you are selling your work direct to client like this place is doing – that is wrong. If you want to start a business then do it. Create your own work, develop your own style, and put in years of your life. This place is trying to take the easy road into the business. I can imagine that Psyop invested a lot of time and resources into the “Hapiness Factory” job. Now they have to see this place confuse the public when they put it on their reel. Unfortunate.

ChicO

I must agree with cbr. While i like these guys work i find it not so appropriate to showcase their freelance work in their new startup’s reel & folio. It’s a different thing as an individual but not if you form a company.

ummm

yes, I agree with cbr. Also it does not accurately represent the capabilities of the artist to the client. Whether the client is another studio or an agency. A startup 3-6 person company would have much trouble doing the happiness factory spot. It downgrades the efforts of the 19 other SUPER talented people that may have been responsible for the magic that was created in the Coke spot. Show boards, or state your role on the project, or only show things that you produced on your own or directed the team on. Dont just slap on a 20-30 person effort on your reel when you werent the director, UNLESS you designed or completed that scene all on your own.

Its murky territory for sure, but its always easy to just show anything you helped composite or roto as your own and wait for the letter to come in the mail making you take it down. Integrity.

Anthony

True ummm. I noticed many times the same case with animators who worked on such big productions. They might have textured a thumbnail but put the entire thing in their reel and don’t state their role in the process.

I understand this is a startup 2 person studio with one producer and they need to attract clients. But it should be done with their own work and not mislead people with things they’ve done as partial cg-freelancers.

To be honest. The coke thing isn’t very appropriate in there anyway. Most of their other stuff looks rather like their personal stuff and is more psychodelic anyway. They shouldn’t use other studios directions for their business.

Despairow

I know these guys personally and let me say this, these two kicked their asses on Happiness Factory. Also, if you guys read anything on their site you would have noticed this beneath the reel.

“PandaPanther is Brand New! We’ve written this disclaimer to ensure that there is no false credit being taken for the works featured on our reel. Our roles in the projects shown range from animating, designing, & overall direction. We have worked with many great creatives and are proud to show all these works as they reflect in many cases the efforts of large teams.”

Also in the projects section they clearly state when the direction was done by someone else. They are being fair about the credit, you all should learn to read and not jump to conclusions. They are two of the coolest people out there and I wish them well.

ummm

Despairow, I think we all saw that, but there is decorum and ethics to how a studio presents work. A studio should not show work that a founder at another studio if they were just the animator on the project, unless it is on an “animation reel” distinct from their design or direction reel. As a studio, founders need to take the hard road to building their business… we all wish them well as fellow artists, but we can have an opinion about the effect some colleagues have on our industry.

...

By what some of you are saying, no one out there would have a reel at all.

So much goes into a making of a spot, especially one as high profile as the “Happiness Factory”, that never starts and stops with the post house.

Think of all the people that worked on the logos you’re animating, the agency that might have come up with the concepts you’re executing and paid for the work you do.

And posting in parts doesn’t make sense either. Instead of whole spots, perhaps directors should post recordings of their verbal communication and emails to the creatives they directed, cause certainly those are only parts that they contributed to the spot.
Sounds good? I didn’t think so.

Thats why there should be no problem with a studio publishing a reel that contains spots that the founders worked on. Until they get some spots made under their new name, this will be evidence of the spots that they were involved in. Its up to whoever employs them to find out specifically what parts they worked on and determine if they have the abilities to execute they need. Same goes for reels of individuals.

Ultimately, the only entity that has complete entitlement to show a spot is the one that paid for it, which is, in the case of the Psyop spot, is Coca-Cola.

Yussef

no one was complaining when Lambo started out, or the dozen other new studios that opened up their doors this past year. yet they all did the same thing. what is it you would prefer, ‘ummm’?

should a new studio build a minute long reel entirely out of personal projects and at the same time hire producers, accountants, take out loans, find work space AND find clients? no one is lying here, no one is taking undue credit for someone else’s work. this is how ALL new studios build their initial reels.

kev

you people really show your age here sometimes. once you’re in the real world you dont get one more semester at otis to create new work and finish up your reel. you think these guys are going to spend a year of their lives creating new work for free for a demo reel when they can showcase their abilities with production material that for all we know they were the art director/designer/lead animator on.

the shire

there are flipsides to both sides of the coin… starting up a studio from the ground up with original content gets you out of trouble with legal matters of ownership. Showcasing work you have done as a freelancer and starting up a studio with that work is conflicting no matter how much work you did on it. say if some of you on here know anything about this business.. when a REP showcases your work to agencies or other future clients, it’s conflicting to who actually did this work. Plus when you do freelance for studios, you sign a waiver, giving all rights to the studio you are working for. Concept/Design/Animation they own all of your ideas even though it’s yours. It sucks but it’s true. So some of you defending this matter are either cheaters in trying to start a business without really having to start it from the ground up. Granted they have included notes to who owns these pieces… it is very conflicting. I see at least 3 studios of work on this reel. Stiletto, Psyop, and Plus Et Plus. What happened if you had the same REP who was screening your reel among these 3 companies. Wouldn’t you think the client would ask, So who did these spots?

Despairow

I have to say, I’m not proud of being in this argument, seems a bit childish. However, I do need to say that “…” has so many valid points in what he/she’s said. Even if you sign a waiver, that doesn’t mean they own your talent. So what if someone else owns a piece of work I concieved or created. I concieved it and thats all that matters, ownership is just the legalities. When someone buys a piece of artwork, they can’t say they painted it can they? The thing is with a startup, is that they’re usually like Panda Panther, small 2 or 3 person teams, maybe with some freelance help. They need to show that they can do everything in the process. Animation, Design, Direction the whole 9. Any one of you out there, if you can say you’ve done EVERYTHING on a production that made it to air, then you can judge these two as you wish, but I’m certain, absolutely certain, that none of you have.

Anthony

Ah look smartiepants despairow.

So if that’s what you mean then they should be able to reproduce the hapiness factory, right? I bet they couldn’t do it with 10 more. And as said before it doesn’t even fit with their other styles that seem more of their own.

The reason why some of us are saying this is because the coke thing is much more complex. So they should state what particularly they’ve done. The impression i got from their folio is they didn’t do any character design, td, rigging, modeling or character animation stuff on it. Makes me wonder what exactly they did tho. A question i’d ask as a client.

Tony

So ask them.

Andrew

y’all are crazy.

Despairow

I’ll tell you exactly what they did, they did shot layouts, rendering and lighting, some texturing, the paintFX grass…probably a lot more that I’m not mentioning, and how do I know this???? I was the Technical Director on the job. Anthony, you’re obviously out just to piss people off, thats why you emailed me to tell me my name was stupid. So go back to kindergarten.

Anthony

You must have confused me with anthony.

It’s not really my business anyway. We’re just having a discussion.
Nice work & good luck to the two guys.

DEMO

It pains me to listen to this argument, but I have to believe that the people who are complaining about Pandapanther have no idea how much work and sweat Jon and Naomi put into their work at Psyop. If anyone has a right to include that work in their portfolio, they do. And of course they added the disclaimker that they didn’t create THE WHOLE THING, who in their right mind would take that for granted? Not a professional in the business. So the whole complaint is really silly.

These two do such amazing work, I can’t wait to see where they go from here! Yay Pandapantherrrrrr!

oeuf

Well said DEMO. I agree and those 3 are really good at what they do.

Dave

I agree 100% with Despairow. I am a professional that has worked more then 10 years in the biz. No one doubts that Jon and Naomi are not creative or hard workers. You just have to understand that PSYOP and other creative shops that they worked at hired them and paid them handsomely for their hard labor. The work that they ve done belongs to such Companies and they cannot and shall not for logistical and moral reasons showcase and rep. their own Studio with the work that they ve done as freelancers. Again. Its ok to rep. your self as a individual but not as a Company. Yes it’s harder the right way. But you wouldn’t want same happening to you in few years if you become a successful Co. Start Fresh start with stuff that solemnly belongs to both of you. Period. World is small and bad rep. Sticks.

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