The Power of Storytelling: Creating Worlds of the Future

David Sheldon-Hicks, co-founder of Territory Studio, discusses the importance of environment in creative work and building worlds in gaming and film. Talking about what future stories are and keeping ideas fresh.

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(00:00) - Introduction and Background of Territory Studio

(03:01) - The Importance of Environment in Creative Work

(07:30) - Balancing In-Person and Remote Work

(09:18) - Expanding into the Automotive Industry

(12:22) - The Impact of Prometheus on Territory Studio

(17:35) - Developing Future Stories and Keeping Ideas Fresh

(21:28) - The Feeling of Landing a Big Gig

(25:50) - Pricing and Managing Projects

(30:22) - Adapting and Building the Right Team

(34:29) - Creating Original Ideas and Asking the Right Questions

(39:09) - Inspiration from Other Films and Collaborating with Different Industries

(42:22) - The Role of AI in the Creative Industry

(43:05) - Opportunities for Creatives

(44:20) - Designing Characters and Nonlinear Stories

(45:06) - Differentiation through Creativity

(46:19) - Convergence of Worlds

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Where To Find David:

https://territorystudio.com/

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Where To Find Sean:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-r-collins/
https://www.instagram.com/jukebooth/
https://www.jukebooth.com/

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Where To Find Sean:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-r-collins/
https://www.instagram.com/jukebooth/
https://www.jukebooth.com/

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

I remember walking over to the animatronic department when they were doing the engineers head that was all kind of like controlled through little motors and servos. Honestly, it's like being a kid again.

Sean Collins: 0:14

David, if you want to jump right in and and let us know a little bit about territory and what you guys do. Yeah,

Unknown: 0:20

absolutely. So, yeah, so I co founded territory studio 14 years ago, we are my background in motion graphics. I was a motion designer many, many years ago, much to the surprise of my team, because I don't think any of them have seen me using cinema 4d or After Effects in quite some time. About About eight years ago, I think I kind of turned myself into a creative director. And probably six years ago, I even stepped away from doing that. But I still feel creative. And I'm creative by through my history of doing what I do. And the studio is really quite well known for doing interfaces, screen graphics, holograms, heads up displays that feature in feature films. And we've we, you know, we've worked on multiple films, we've worked on jun and Blade Runner, and the Martian and various different Alien films. So we've been very lucky with the budgets that we've worked on in the feature film and TV world. And then we've also broadened it out into a lot of other industries and types of work. So we do a lot of work with live experiences. So like big shows, and we'll be doing projection graphics or LED. We do led volumes for feature films. So virtual production, all that sort of thing. And, and we work on computer games. So we do trailers, and cutscenes, and cinematics and motion graphics for them. And we also have a digital team. So the digital team are doing a lot of work with the automotive industry. So the future of the future of interfaces and digital experiences in car. So, you know, as cars get electrified, what what is the kind of the screen experience looking like? And how does it How does it change? As you move towards self driving cars? So we're across? I almost hate the question, what do you do? It's really, really hard to, to nail that one down. I prefer to show lots of pretty pictures. But But yeah, we're we're working in lots of different interesting areas. We really pride ourselves on making the things that we do in house, we're we're designers, and animators and developers. And, yeah, yeah, we make stuff. We make stuff move, we make stuff work. And hopefully we make stuff look beautiful as well. That's

Sean Collins: 2:41

awesome. And how do you think that coming up with these ideas across games and films? How do you think your environment is so important? Is that does that play a really important role in coming up with new ideas? The environment of the team? Do you change the environment per project?

Unknown: 3:01

So we don't change the environment per project? I guess so environment is, is it's just a it's, it's a constant thing on our minds. Because coming out of the pandemic, we're all questioning that work environment, status, and what it means to us personally, versus what it means to a design team or creative team coming together a technical team coming together, versus what it means for a company is it's all shifting, isn't it? It's all really, really shifting. Yeah. But I would say that creative people in particular, like to get into a state of flow, and a real state of focus. And sometimes they need that isolation. So today, I'm in my office, but there's very few people where I've got the room to myself, which is really nice, doing an interview like this. Or I might want to spend time with a film script, or I might be spending time with some concept art from a computer game. You just need that you need deep dive time. But the richness of creativity and the types of projects that we work on, are based on me learning from other people, I'm learning from my team around me. And I can't really construct that around a video call. If I'm completely honest, I don't know when that moment needs to hit me. And so and so I know that there's as much value and being in amongst teams. And hopefully my visibility to teams is also useful. They might not want me around so much. But I'd like to think that I'm helpful sometimes. And I was I was talking to somebody else more recently. I think that if we believe in the power of design and creativity, then we probably believe in the power of a designed environment. Right? We probably believe that. what architects do, what interior design do designers do? Even when we're building live expense It says we believe in the power of design to change the impact of a mindset, we promote that idea to our clients. And therefore we kind of have to believe in that for ourselves. And so we believe that design environments around us and our working environment does change the act of creation. I know that if I was trying to direct a video shoot remotely, that would be very different to if I was directing a video shoot in person, with talent with my team. And I think the same is true. I think the same is true of all creative activities I love. I'm a big fan of jazz. And I love jazz bands, and how they kind of look to each other for inspiration and find their next moment. And I feel like creative teams are a lot like that. They're listening out for the other things that are going on around them. And I think if a jazz band had to do their thing on a video call, it would be a little bit weird, it'd be a little bit weird. So I see the benefits of both. I was just funny, I was talking to Tom, my MD earlier today, and we were chatting about this. And I said, I still feel like I'm sitting on the fence a little bit, I don't feel like I've given the team a full steer on, where we kind of see the value in the studio environment, and what we're doing and working on and, you know, the curated tool sets that we have, like we invest heavily in the hardware and software and all that kind of stuff. Right? versus, you know, the remote aspect and, and the benefits of that. So I'm not sat here saying that I've got the answers to that. But it's been a really good time to learn and listen around how much environment has has an impact on what we're doing? Hopefully, I haven't taken it too far off on a tangent in terms of answering your question, because I know, you were probably asking more broadly about the creative environment. But to just kind of answer that, I think in terms of taking it away for the pandemic has made us realize how much we also miss it. And so we're finding the balance between both.

Sean Collins: 7:10

Yeah, I think when you take something away like that, you notice how much maybe you need it. And I think it's hard for some businesses to get back into it, because people like working from home. But it feels like as creatives being together, like you said, the jazz band, it's like, when you're together, things just flow better. And you can like work off of each other. So I think as a creative, you have to have that like in person experience. Yeah.

Unknown: 7:36

And it's just knowing it's knowing when to dial it up and dial it down. The problem is, because you're dealing with a whole series of individuals. And what works well, for one person might not work well for another, there's moments where you have to step in as a studio and kind of encourage everyone to do it at the same time. Otherwise, it will just never happen. And it will, it will never be quite right for any one person in the team. And that just puts that puts, you know, kind of creative leadership in a more an awkward position, but just just just at a moment where you have to kind of call it and you have to kind of say, look, on a Wednesday and a Thursday, this is where we're going to have to do it. Because otherwise, you're all going to miss each other. Some of you turning up on Mondays, some of you are turning up on Thursdays and you're just you know, you're just kind of crossing each other and not seeing each other. So we try we we try and encourage it. Creatives don't like being instructed what to do and rules too much. But, you know, we try and create the chemistry that allows that to happen. Yeah, I

Dan Modern: 8:36

have a quick question about when you jumped into you were saying you were doing you're doing video VFX and all that. How did you kind of jump into the car industry and start doing you know, things that pop up on the screen? Do you have to hire a completely different team for that? And like, learn that industry? Or because it's kind of it's similar, but it's different at the same time? Yeah,

Unknown: 8:58

so I'd love to say that I'm some kind of Oracle. And I've always seen this coming. But in all honesty, we've had interest in different industries and different skill sets for some time. So our first ever project was a computer game, we worked on a game cinematic for Electronic Arts. And so we've always been working close to game engine, either either working with people that use it or using it ourselves. We'd always use game engine in games. And then we'd always use motion graphics and visual effects in films. And then we'd always used UI UX in digital products. And they were kind of they were kind of teams within the territory studio that were just kind of fulfilling my interests in the creative fields to work in. And the world's just kind of headed in this direction where all of those things are converging. And I would you know, I would say that we are now clear on our vision, we see where the world is headed, and we know that we need to have this multi scale team to deliver on where we're all going. So if you think about what might be coming through with the Apple vision, or where where the future of automotive is headed is, it's really layering digital and real world together, it's kind of it's kind of bringing those two things. And so there's an argument for a team like ours in the future, maybe a product designer, as like a physical product designer or an architect, working with a digital engineer, or an AI engineer, and then a motion graphics artist, there's, there's no reason why those three skill sets wouldn't, wouldn't come together. And that's really exciting for me, like, I love the non binary mindset. You know, I think I think non binary is kind of coming into our language more and more at the moment. And that kind of that overlapping that kind of interesting mix of skill sets and ideas and concepts is, is where this world is headed. And that kind of excite as a creative and technologist that really excites me, because it's that it's it's kind of that loop straw, whoever, you know, it's kind of like combining those things in ways that you just don't know what the end result is going to be. We're just going to try it to see what happens that that happened. accident is kind of what we've always dialed into as a creative industry. And I think we can apply that to our business models, you know, the ways in which we work? I think we can, I think we can mix groups, really interesting ways to create interesting work on questions that haven't been asked yet. You know, I often find that the interesting work comes from asking questions that haven't been raised, because it would always promote a really interesting answer. So that that's where we try to come from in terms of why we build our teams in that way. I'm not taking full credit for being clever in building a company in that way. It's just kind of happened.

Sean Collins: 12:03

Developing the new ideas and asking questions that nobody's thinking of to bring up new ideas, I think, does that happen a lot within you making like future user interfaces, you have to think about something that doesn't exist. So how do you come up with things that don't exist?

Unknown: 12:22

It's funny. So things that don't exist come up a lot in feature films, because people want to, you know, they, they want to have a unique point of view of the world that normally a film director is committing two to three years of their life to something they don't really ideally want to rehash old ground. So when they're looking at technologies or ways of interacting with something, and they're depicting that in a film, they, they want to find a unique point of view. And we want to help them with that, you know, so, more recently, we depicted AI in the latest Mission Impossible film. And there's similarities to the depiction of AI before but Chris McQuarrie was really, really wanting something that felt uniquely beloved, malevolent, malevolent, evil, and calculating that would kind of be a unique counterpoint to Ethan hunts character, so So we often get these really weird breeds that wouldn't come up in the real world. Let's be honest, you know, a tech giant is not going to come to us and say, how do we make our our interface and our AI look really evil and scare the crap out of people? Just you know that that that is not that is not going to come through. So the briefs that come from films are very fantastical based and very story based. However, they they provoke ideas in an audience that are really interesting. And so when automotive companies come to us, or when tech companies come to us, they're saying, well, obviously not that, but there was some really interesting things in there. Can we talk about that a little bit, it creates a really interesting conversation that then turns into Well, it's obviously not this. But actually some of these things would be really worth exploring in a real world context. And we've actually got this technology now that can do some of these things. Can we explore how that how that looks, how that behaves? What kind of utility that's going to bring to the world. So I think it's about I think through our film work, we show that we're passionate interested people that know how to apply design and technology to some quite unique problems. And that just kind of gets mapped across to other industries that are coming at a similar idea which is we want to look at world building. So we're building in a film is For Denuvo nerve, electronic technology had a had a had a moment. And there was a global event that wiped out electric technology. And we're going through a more analog type system. That was a that was a world building idea that Tony had for Blade Runner 2049. In the same way, we might talk to an automotive brand. And they might say, in five to 10 years time, self driving cars is going to be everywhere. How does that take change the digital interaction that's going to happen, or there's the storytelling moments that are going to happen in car? So we start with world building. And then we look at stories like human stories, how's the family going to behave in that vehicle? What are they going to be looking for? How do you keep the kids entertained? For two hour drive and the cars driving itself? Suddenly, as a parent, I've got to look at my kids for two hours. Yeah, exactly. So so the dynamics change, the world changes, then the stories change. And therefore the designs that sit within that the experiences that sit within that, both in a film context, a fantastical context, but also in a real world context need to change. And that's what I mean, I think by create by looking at, normally, in a feature film, we're looking at dystopian, because it's interesting, right? And hopefully, in the real world, we're looking at utopian, and like, how do we change things for the better, we've yet to have a brand conversation where they're trying to make things worse, you know, they, they generally want to solve something because that becomes desirable. There's a commercial reality to that. But ultimately, they they want to move things forward in a positive way. So once we have those questions, those world building questions, we set the stories within it, and it gives us it gives us a brief in a context to then set out our design work. So in in both cases, the overall, the overall framework for solving a creative problem is exactly the same. It's just we're coming at it with different motivations.

Dan Modern: 16:58

Yeah, when you're working on, like a feature, or someone comes to you with a feature film, like you said, you were in Batman Doom, working on those do, are you involved from the beginning of that process before they even film anything before they even, you know, really accept the film that they're going to make it you're in from the beginning? In

Unknown: 17:18

some cases, yes. And in some cases, absolutely not. So we've been we've been involved before a script has been delivered. And we've done research documents to kind of inform our project. Other times, when more often than not, we're involved with art departments. So art department are involved in pre production. So there is a script, there is a notion of a story. But we are working with the production designer, and often the film director to figure out how those interactions and technology is going to play out. And in the case of some film directors, Chris McQuarrie is actually really good at this sort of name, check him too many times. But he will, he will update things as he's going along. And he'll shape things a little bit listening to other people to like, find the really interesting moments. And yeah, he'll he'll shape it. So different directors, different producers, they all work in different ways. Production designer may not want us working directly into a director and producer, they might want to curate how they present that work to to the higher up team. So sometimes we're part of this conversation, sometimes we're not. And then sometimes we're brought purely on interposer, everything's been shot, you've got like a working at it, you're seeing the shots that you're working into, and you're purely delivering design and graphic work against that. And that can also work really, really well. When when the directors had a really kind of clear vision, when they know exactly how it's going to work. They've already directed the actors in a way that delivers you exactly the performance you need for that design technology to play out. And the edits not shifting around too much outside of their original vision. So a good example of a movie that we started really early on would be something like swan song that's on Apple TV at the moment. They're actually the visual effects supervisor. Like and Ben, clearly the director just had like these really clear ideas around how the interactions were going to work, how the technology was going to be, we concepted it up. And then they actually had I think they have both 3d printed models on set for the actors to kind of get a sense of how it was all going to see it, how it was going to be embedded into the environment, which is really, really clever. And then so when we were working on the shots in post, it was all like, as we required for for our design work. So sometimes that happens, and you know, in other cases, it might be that they were running at things so quickly that they just didn't have time to involve us early on. And then we're working into post, but quite often, you know, directors like Spielberg or or Ridley Scott have such a clear vision, from start to finish of what that film is going to be that you're just kind of stepping into these perfectly structured shots to kind of know work into. So it totally depends project to project, how that might work. Yeah,

Sean Collins: 20:18

I think it would be cool to do like a little jump backwards for some of the people in the audience where they're not at the level that your team is at yet. And they're trying to get to this like, big level of working with the big directors and doing the visual effects on the big, big films. I think if we jumped backwards to the moment, I believe Prometheus was like the big defining moment. Like, what is that feeling like to get that gig? And if you could run us through, like, where it went from there? Yeah. So

Unknown: 20:52

Prometheus, I think we were probably about nine months, maybe 12 months into territory, starting art. And I'd freelanced on films beforehand. So I think my credentials had been passed to the kind of the supervising graphic designer, on Prometheus tack, jaql, Joe Simon's, and he approached me to kind of work on some of the film I explained that was no longer freelance and that I set up a studio. And so we got to we got to take on a good portion of the screen graphics work and, and, and a lot of the concepts and visuals that went on into post for that film. And yes, it was a call out of the blue. And I just kind of freaked out when somebody said, was a prequel to alien love. And that was it. That I mean, yeah, that you couldn't, you couldn't have said like, I'm more dreamlike project for me. And George and his team, we were working into set designer Sonya Klaus and we had Arthur Max who's Ridley's long standing production designer, we were kind of reporting into them. And really, the wonderful thing about film, and actually, the wonderful film thing about that project, in particular, other than working with Ridley Scott, was that you've got all of these different creative disciplines working into the film production. So you've got costume design, in the case of Prometheus, you got animatronics got visual effects, got the graphics team, set department, art department, you're all running at this creative problem at the same time. So you're, you're looking at the words and the scripts, and you're trying to decipher it, what that means for your own creative aspects. And we're all trying to figure out at the same time, so you end up collaborating with everyone. I remember walking over to the animatronic department, when they were doing the engineers head that was all kind of like controlled through little motors and servos. Honestly, it's like being a kid again, seeing stuff. And you give them so much respect. And then they give you a 3d model of the head, and then you pull that into the screen graphics. And then I remember, we did a lot of illustrated iconography design, to go into the screen graphics, and then that shit got shared with the graphics team. And they ended up doing like big, like vinyl prints to go into the actual set pieces as well. So there's a lot of this sharing of creativity in the environment the whole time, and jazz band again, you know, you're all kind of riffing off each other and helping each other out. And it's, it's great. It's great. So that's always a wonderful experience. I think Prometheus in particular, because it was my first time working with that director. And he has such a unique way of approaching projects, briefing in projects is obvious that he was trained as a graphic designer, he knows how to speak that language and inspire people through creative ideas. He has a great vernacular and way of motivating people and helping them see the potential in the project. So rather than telling people exactly what to do, he'll, he'll set you off on a tangent, which is, which is quite special. And I learned a lot from that, you know, creative direction is not about telling people how to move things around. It's about giving them the environment around them as we were kind of talking before, to do great work, and giving them a great brief. And if you've given them a great brief, and they're genuinely talented, and they've got all the tools that they need, they will do great work, they will just do great work. And you kind of just need them to get out of their way and just enable them as best as you can. So that was a great learning in terms of working with that director. And I would say that the lesson that I learned from Prometheus was just if you get opportunities like that, just throw everything at it give all the time in the world to it, you know. It will pay off it will pay off I know I know that working out This can be hard in some of the industries that we work in. Alright, we've found that the hours that I put in the effort that I put in, it always comes back, you know, especially Unity's like that, especially, I

Dan Modern: 25:13

was gonna ask, because a lot of a lot of people when they do, especially something they love, like, Did you price accordingly, when you got that job, because a lot of people, you'll work 10 times more hours, and you're like, damn, like, I'm really I'm really busting my ass here. Did I charge correctly, but again, this was that was essentially your first like, really big, big job. So did you know how to price or did you price accordingly? Right? Yeah,

Unknown: 25:39

no, no, that that was a lesson in many ways. And, and it's, it's always a lesson, it's always a lesson. I think. As creatives, we always have a tendency to let our passion run away with this. And what we don't realize is it's it's, it's it does undervalue the great work that you can do. So for me, it was slightly different. It was me and you know, a couple of friends working on a project, it was it was, it was, it was fine. But I think as you kind of grow as a company, and you're, you're kind of looking after other talent that needs to be looked after, and nurtured. You need to be really careful with how you structure projects, not just for you, as a creative studio, but also for your client, like if you're not, if you're not building it in a right way and allocating time in the right way, it is fundamentally going to affect the quality of the work. So you have to, you have to be clever with that. And it's a push in a pool, because with more junior people, especially when I was working on Prometheus, there was a lot of inefficiencies in there, because I just wasn't as experienced. Right. And so I think it would have been, in some ways, it would have not been right for me to expect to charge the same financial amount to the client, because I didn't have that level of experience and expertise. I wasn't doing it as efficient, efficiently as maybe I would have done five years later. So yeah, so in some ways, I feel like we probably did price it right. Or I probably did price it right, based on, you know, the way that we were operating as a studio then. And and yeah, I think it's funny looking, looking back now, if it were about 14 years in now, I think that as you mature, and as you kind of get better at bringing on people that know how to do project management properly, and you bring in technicians that know how to do it and render farms and all that kind of stuff properly. All that expertise added in, it does cost more money. But there's so much efficiency and quality raised there that it's worth it. I think all I'm saying is I think those economics kind of figured themselves out for them, you know, it kind of it kind of it all shakes out in the end, or it should do. I think if you're if you're behaving ethically, you should, you should kind of get there. It's harder when you're going through a recession and stuff, and everyone's just trying to survive. That's a slightly different ballgame. But in a good time, you should be able to manage the project, manage the client relationship, manage your own team manage your own time. In the right ways, it's never easy. It's never easy. Because I mean, especially for us, we're never really working on the same project twice. You know, we're not really repeating ourselves, right. So there's always an amount of educated guesswork going on when scoping a project. And you talk about it as a group as much as you possibly can to be as accurate as you can. But until you enter onto a project and you find out oh, wow, this client needs to spend a bit more time kind of playing with things before they totally lock in and edit or Wow, this clients just like signing stuff off immediately. And we're like we're running through it really, really quickly. And just getting it immediately might be the client might be us, you know, think I think we like to blame external factors. But sometimes, is with us. And it's us finding our way and us maybe us not quite listening to things or dialing into the latest technology to solve a problem when we're still working the same way, you know, that we have done for the last five years. So there's always a bit of give and take on that side of things. It's very easy for me to be Zen about this because I got really close to the projects right now. Yeah. And everyone that listens to this afterwards on my team will be wagging their fingers at me. But I think that's fair. I think that's a fair representation of how we do things. Yeah, and

Sean Collins: 29:58

it's it's interesting too. like as a creative or running a studio, you have to learn to adapt, you have to build the right team who also is willing to adapt, because that's a key factor. If you want to keep your studio running, like everybody has to know, the same goal and like, also just be able to like bend a little bit when things change, because each client, and each project is like completely different.

Unknown: 30:22

And let's be honest, as creatives, if I give my creatives a better render farm, you'll think that they're never, like, within three weeks, they're using all of it. Yeah, you can you if if something becomes standard creatives will find a new way of making it more complicated and interesting. And, and that's what I love about them. But there's always this tension between Is it exciting? Or is it really stressful? You know, and, and more often than not, it can be exactly the same project. And on one project, it's really stressful on another project, it's really exciting, funnily enough, it's normally more stressful on the things that you're less excited about. But that

Sean Collins: 31:02

makes sense. I see that in some of the stuff we do, too. It's like, I mean, when you get the new thing, the exciting new shiny thing, it's more exciting to work on, and you're excited to do it. And then if you've done it like a few times like this, we know this, this is what it's going to be like, okay, cool, let's do that one, let's go after the new and exciting thing. And like,

Unknown: 31:24

find that level of craft as well. So something over and over just, man, it makes you kind of get really good at getting every little detail just right. Right now, it's always that kind of tension between originality and perfection of craft that I think we all struggle with as creatives. You know, I don't think we ever resolve that. I think it's my notion. And I think it applies to my role as a business person. Now, I know that sounds incredibly dull versus creating it. Like if you're a little bit uncomfortable, you're probably doing something right. Probably, it's probably going well, I know it's discomfort, but actually, you know, with exercise, it's the same thing. If you're pushing yourself to just beyond the limit. That's probably doing some really good work. And and I think it's the same with creativity and ideas. If you're going slightly outside of your comfort zone, there's probably going to be some good work coming out of this.

Sean Collins: 32:20

Yeah, I think you have to stress yourself enough to get to the next point, like climb to the next level of whatever,

Unknown: 32:29

normalized, right? And then you don't think anything of it.

Sean Collins: 32:32

And then you're searching for the next thing that you're pushing limits. Yeah, it's a, we've learned that through filming, Dan, and I went on a little excursion not too long ago, and we did a six day hike backpack trip. And we documented these hunters in the wild. And we had never done that. We're doing like 10 miles a day. And it was uncomfortable. But we produced some great things out of it. So and we learned a lot.

Unknown: 32:58

And I think that's what I want to see that I want to see that film. Yeah, it's

Sean Collins: 33:01

uh, we're hoping it comes out this year, the client might hold it till next hunting season. But

Dan Modern: 33:07

when you see visual graphics with it, though, yeah, sending ALCS flying to the air.

Sean Collins: 33:14

Yeah. Cool. I think the other thing that really comes to mind that I would like to touch upon too, is just the future storytelling that you're doing. So it's like, you're doing storytelling, but now you're like, you talked about the vehicles and the family using the vehicle a different way than the business person. It's like, how do you develop future stories? And keep the the thing like I guess, keep the ideas fresh? And like, as futuristic as possible, when it's only as good as your team can be?

Unknown: 33:51

Yeah, well, I think I mean, the thing that the thing about the team, there's a couple of 100 of us. So there's like 1000s of different permutations of a couple 100 people at your studio. Yeah, across the different offices together. And so, you know, there's like, however many billions of combinations of those people to kind of so. And I also think it's lazy to let yourself off the hook and just say there's no original ideas. I think that's just like, That's just you giving up at the first hurdle. So, so you do have to get past the rubbish ideas and the rubbish ideas, your first one's nine times out of 10. So don't be precious, I think is the is the first thing is like, just let go. Get some stuff down, share it with everyone, except it's going to be crap, move on, and then move on and move on and move on and move on. So I do think being fast is useful. Because if you're fast at doing stuff, if you've just learned the tools and you breathe in, it's done. That means you can get through 20 really rubbish ideas quite quickly through and you can then get to the good stuff. So I think speed Eat, and proficiency with tools is an under sung aspect of doing creative work. And, yeah, I really believe in that speed. And I know that when we've worked with directors who work fast, it's because they know that you'll get to the better ideas quicker. And it's not about being rushed. But actually flow or a state of creative flow, in part is accessing instincts. And, you know, so. So I think that is part of the creative process is kind of letting go and get in the back of your brain take over. So I find I find that useful. And I just find that a wandering mind is really useful to that. So you don't always have to actively think on something. So what I often do, if I'm, if I'm thinking about a creative concept is I'll read the brief or take it in, and I'll put it aside and I'll do something else. I'll move on to the next project, because I know that my brain will solve it. Right won't give it to me right now. But I'll solve it. And and I think that's one way of approaching it. It's the way that I approach it. And, and conversations the other one, yeah, so teams coming together. And, you know, going back to going full circle back, the amount of times I've sold something by just the random conversation with somebody I've completely unrelated to my project. But they're coming at it from a different perspective on another project. And they're talking about something though, wait, say that, again. Totally spike a thought that goes through into the thing that I'm working on. So So I think you can't control creativity. And therefore you again, need to set up your environment for success. So have you got lots of really smart people around you? Yeah, you're surrounding yourself with the right sort of people, they might not fix your problem. I think environment, being around people throwing things out, and just talking things through. It just helps you blue sky. Yeah, find original solutions to things. But like I said, at the very beginning, if you've got an original question, you'll find an original answer. So it's about not having the same questions more than anything. And that's what I mean about the brief. As a creative director, or as a partner, client, or whoever you are. If you're setting an original question, you will get original answers. If you ask a question that's been asked before, based on an insight that's been seen before, don't be surprised if you get similar answers.

Dan Modern: 37:47

Yeah, I would think that I'm watching watching movies, too, that you haven't, you know, had a part of, you know, I look back at one of my favorite movies, Iron Man, and the visual effects and that, and the creativity is, I could watch it every day, I could watch that movie every day. But does that kind of like hype you up? And when you see a movie that you had nothing to do with? And then you're like, Oh, like this could be better? Or, you know, this could work in the project we're doing or I could do something, you know, a little bit better than that. Do you ever does that ever happen with you guys? does.

Unknown: 38:18

I mean, the funny thing about Ironman is it was done by cantina who are now part of territory group. Oh, my

Dan Modern: 38:23

god, stop.

Sean Collins: 38:26

He just Oh, my God.

Unknown: 38:30

And those guys are amazing. Absolutely amazing. And, and like you fan of Ironman fan of a lot of their work? Like, okay, well, I could set up a studio in LA, or we could join forces. You know, and a lot of people joked online, it's like the Avengers coming together in the UI worlds. No, they're amazing, that, say the film. I'm not going to keep talking about asking them. The the film that inspired me was her. I thought her was amazing. And yeah, I totally look at that and go see somebody else come up with something that we'd never we've never gone down that route. Yeah. And that film was definitely asking her original question. Yeah, that that film asked the right sort of questions, so that really unique answers could come through in the work. And I love that. Jorge, that works with us in the London office, he worked on Minority Report, you know, and just just the just that's kind of a seminal piece of work, really, in terms of almost inspiring things like the Xbox Kinect, and things like that. So yeah, I am. Yeah, I'm always inspired by other people's work, I think. I think there's, there's loads of great creative, creative people coming at this. And I think that's why we have to. That's why we have to work in other spaces. We can't just work in film, because I think that working in the real world or working on computer games, or working with the car company, influence A lot of our film work for the better. And I think a lot of our film work influences a lot of our real work for the real world work for the better. So I think that's a really positive cycle that we've tapped into. And I, and I just want that to, you know, that that is like the magic sauce for territory, working on the real world and working on the fictional worlds. And letting those ideas and those teams kind of like, melt in the pot together is is kind of really, really important. Yeah, your question?

Sean Collins: 40:30

I feel like we see a lot of those two worlds, like coming together now. You know, like, we're, in a time where there's like, so much tech, and we're using it so much that like, now, this futuristic world is something we're like living in. So like fusing those ideas through your work is kind of like, maybe becoming more of a thing now.

Unknown: 40:50

I mean, it's kind of getting that up, be honest with you. It's easier to it's easier to come up with ideas in the real world that haven't been done than it is in the film world. You know, it's it's like the real world. Almost ahead. Now. Sci Fi. Yeah, you can do what with AI now. I literally lost for what we can't do now, what it actually feels like, like, it's 20 years away, is probably two months away.

Sean Collins: 41:17

Right? And does ai do you think that's like something? I'm sure you get asked about it all the time. But is it something that's helping your industry? Or is it something that you worry about in your industry at all?

Unknown: 41:30

I mean, selfishly at the moment is a source of a lot of work for us, because somebody needs to design that AI, and we're getting, we're getting a lot of inquiries around Okay, so how does, how is it a talk earlier this week, and the panel host was like, really into KITT from Knight Rider. We have Kip, please. You know, I think that the the interface, you know, so I think as creators, we will think of when we think about AI, we think about chat, GBT mid Gen and all that kind of stuff. And that's just the tip of the iceberg and honestly, is created, I think we'll be fine. I think if, if that's what we're running, running up against, then it's a democratized tool set, and we'll find our way forward. I'm not too worried about that. But the real power is, like all the services and big data stuff that it can get behind. And, you know, it's, it's gonna build out so many opportunities. It's, it's insane, like, some of the I can't talk about it all under NDA. But some of the big tech conversations that we're seeing, it's like, this is not going to take away jobs for creatives. So this is going to create 1000s of jobs for creatives. And because suddenly, we're not building locked in interface experiences or narrative experiences, that kind of character, you got to design characters, you've got to design possibilities and frameworks and adaptable systems, because they're all powered by AI. So you know, and content can become nonlinear now, using AI to power a real time engine, like the potential there for story credit, it's like multi threaded stories, like, that's not that's that's that is, that's huge. That's huge. So I'm really excited by we're starting to see some really amazing projects come through because of because of this potential for tech companies and automotive brands and all the rest of it. And you still need to curate and design that you still need to curate and design that experience. So I think there's massive potential for us as creatives to just step in. Because really, if the technology is to democratize and available to everyone, it still comes back to will, how do you create that point of difference then? And it's only going to be creative minds that can see that originality for the different brands? So that differentiated? Because otherwise everyone's got the same, the same algorithm.

Sean Collins: 44:14

Exactly. Yeah. I think we are up on time with you. So I don't want to take up too much more of your time. Is there anything else you'd like to leave us with or anything that is coming out soon from territory that you'd like us to tell our audience about?

Unknown: 44:31

I can talk about anything that come out from the territory. I'll say that I think this is public domain. I think I can say this. I'm massively excited by June part two. I'd love to visually see how that all turns out. Well, we're going to be releasing our showcase for the Creator soon so that will be fun to share with the world and we are working on some very, very special computer To game projects and automotive projects that I think will be coming out in the coming months. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's really fun to see like all of these worlds converging, that a car could become an entertainment bubble. And a computer game can become what already is a nonlinear storytelling piece. Yeah, all of this stuff's converging in really interesting ways. And it's been fun to be a part of that kind of like, future gazing through films. But now it's really exciting to see how that lands in reality. So I think that's, that's, that's a great, you know, that's a great part of the puzzle for us. Awesome.

Sean Collins: 45:42

Well, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

Unknown: 45:45

Cool. Thanks for having me.

Dan Modern: 45:47

Awesome. Thank you.