Ryan Maloney pitched an animated music video for Asher Roth to Universal Music in 2009. He got stuck trying to please corporate marketers until Asher told him to just have fun, which unlocked the whole project. A 4 AM call from Scooter Braun confirmed it worked.
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In 2009, I found myself on a phone call with Scooter Braun and Asher Roth. I was a graphic designer and an animator for a startup in New York City, and I had a friend that went on to be a marketing director at Universal Music. I hadn't talked to that friend for a few years, but I saw his name in that little Gchat box all the time, and I'm like, "Yeah, maybe I'll just message him today to say hello." He was super excited about an artist that was signed to Universal that just had a hit song and needed a follow-up to that video. I'd been out of college for about 4 years then, But I listened to 5 seconds of his song and I understood him immediately. That night I drew some sketches up, shared them with my friend, and I was connected with Universal and I was pitching this video, this idea that I had for a cartoon version of Asher. Scooter and Asher were cool enough to take a chance on an unknown animator, even though I only had the bones of an idea ready for the video. This was the first big project or opportunity I had to create something that was totally my vision. Up until then, I was just creating for companies and it was design and animation by committee. When Scooter and Asher agreed to give me a shot to make the video, I still had to go back and finish out the treatment of the video— storyboards, characters, what's going to happen in each scene, how the video is going to start, how it's going to end. And there were many back and forth with the Universal marketing people where they were just saying, yeah, we don't get it. There was a point that I hit, and just like I do in almost all my projects, where you just feel stuck and you cannot move forward, and you're like, I don't think I'm going to be able to do this. But I was still fueled by the sense of not wanting to let these people down that gave me a shot. So I worked the treatment to the bone, 3 AM nights for weeks. I was taking it so seriously, and I think that's the problem. That's why I was so stuck. And I remember Asher said something to me so simple that sort of lightened the entire experience for me: just have fun with it. I was so worried about pleasing these clients that I, I thought being serious and working to this to the bone was the way to go about and solve the problem. But the answer was to just have more fun with it. As soon as I lightened up and I just started bringing some personality and funny scenes to the, to the video, the whole thing started to flow. There were still many late, late nights, and I worked with a great animator named Chad, and we went to his office at Ogilvy. I just remember the burgundy carpet in this old Ogilvy building, but we had the entire office to ourselves and we just sat in those cubicles and animated all night. I remember getting a call from Scooter at 4 AM after I turned in the video, and I'm like, oh no, 4 AM calls, 4 AM calls cannot be good. But really, you couldn't talk to Scooter at any other time other than 4 AM. You did a great 'job,' he said. And that was the beginning of me understanding that this is the entire creative process for every single project, pretty much. Push it, you think that you know where you're going, what to do, and then you have to figure it out. And really, you gotta lighten up.
