On Growth, Bi-Coastal Challenges, and Adding Value

Stardust, the production company headed up by founder and executive creative director Jake Banks, recently moved its West Coast operations into a new 8,000-square-foot studio in Santa Monica, CA. The studio, which recently got a Paris presence with the signing of French directorial collective UFO, has two render farms, multiple edit suites and one Autodesk Flame. Current deliverables include jobs for Citgo, BET, The Art Institute, and Children’s Hospital. Watch the a recent Adidas spot directed by Banks, below, then read our Q&A.

StudioDaily: You just moved into a bigger space. What’s been key to your growth in Santa Monica?

Jake Banks: Honestly, we grew out of the old space two years ago and it has just taken us this long to move. The growth has mainly been due to the size increase of our animation and design staff and because we have boosted our live action work significantly.

How extensive are your live-action production facilities?

We have a designated area for live-action jobs but most of our shoots take place on location, and on larger stages.

Do you keep your own production equipment on hand or do you rent gear as jobs come in?

As a DGA affiliated production company we hire the production crews as jobs come in: grips, gaffers, DPs, lights and stages. For design, animation, VFX and editing we are fully equipped with Flames, many CG workstations, and 3 editing systems.

You also have offices in New York City.

Yes.

How do you keep Santa Monica and Soho connected?

We use the designers from both offices on projects so the visual style of Stardust is consistent. We sometimes work on different parts of the same job depending on workflow and pipeline.

What’s the biggest challenge that comes with being bi-coastal?

The overhead of running two facilities.

What attracted you to the Paris-based collective UFO?

UFO works very similarly to Stardust but they have a different take and visual style. I really like the rawness to their work, and the fact that they can adapt to very high-end styles as well. They have a large resource of French talent that is refreshing and unique. It has been an awesome collaboration so far.

What are the biggest business or technology issues you face?

The biggest business issue right now is that we are often asked to do three times the work for half the price, so we have to be very creative about the way we produce jobs. In the case of live action we aren’t necessarily using all the high-end toys anymore and are finding new and resourceful ways of producing the same level of high quality work. Projects will continue to swing our way more times than not because of the value attached to working with Stardust. We do everything under one roof. Shoot, edit, animate design, VFX and final Flame. Instead of having to go source multiple vendors for a commercial spot or campaign, it’s more cost-effective and more seamless to do it all with our talent.

Please recommend a book, movie, TV show, album, or other piece of media that you recently found inspiring, challenging, and/or enlightening. And why?

Love the documentary Waste Land. It is a touching story about one of the most prolific artists of our day. Vik Muniz.

For more information: www.stardust.tv.