The Achieve Podcast - Allison Ataide (Lightning Animation)

Welcome to another episode of the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs who are building meaningful businesses, shaping their industries, and having an impact. I'm Taylor Baker Baker, your host, and excited today to be joined by Allison Atahid. Atahid, did I say that correctly? I apologize, my Brazilian isn't as well as it should be. Uh, with Lightning Animation, and you can find them at lightninganimation.com. Now, Allison, give us the backstory because you've been in this for over a dozen years now.

Yeah.

How did you get into this niche and who are you currently serving?

Oh gosh. Um, I mean, I can pretty much pinpoint it to the day I was a junior in high school. Um, you know, in my art class thinking like, oh, maybe trying to figure out how I could use it. I was like, I don't know if studio art is for me. And, um, my art teacher just kind of offhandedly showed me a student's work that he said was currently working at Disney. And until that point, I hadn't even thought about animation as a possible outlet. And he said that and I was like, "Oh, okay." And then it just fell into place. I found a program that was tiny but great. Started and never looked back after that. And I mean, there were definitely moments where I was like, this is a heck of a lot of work. But, but I don't know, it just always kind of felt right. So, you know, I did my art program right out of high school, got to be on an amazing team for my senior film. We won a Student Oscar, which was really cool, got to do like the whole Beverly Hills thing. And then After that, I mean, my first industry job was when I was 19. There's a studio here in Idaho that I was fortunate enough to work with pretty early on, and they kind of helped me really get going, helped me get into my art program and stuff. And then, you know, kind of during, through school, it was a bunch of different projects I worked on, a bunch of, a few different studios. I got burned by a couple startups. I think you won't find someone who's worked in animation who hasn't had to deal with that. Felt like I learned a lot though about, you know, what not to do. Um, and then, uh, kind of like the, the big ticket item that, that I got to sort of make my name on was working on Hogwarts Legacy for 3 years. I worked at Avalanche. Um, I was on the cinematics team for 3 years, and that was an amazing experience. That, um, I mean, if anyone's, if anyone's played that game, like, it's so story-centric. It's so about the experience of the player and wanting to just immerse them in this world. And being on that team taught me a lot about kind of immersive storytelling, how to sort of carry people along. Um, and then after that, uh, I worked for a company that I like cannot say a freaking word about. It is a franchise you would definitely recognize. I would say it's at least as big as the Harry Potter franchise, but can't say a word. So, um, I worked for them for a little bit, um, and then got married, started a family, and it sort of started to push me towards— I wouldn't say I necessarily chose to start a business. It was, um, you know, my husband had an MBA and he sat me down one day and he was like, we should start our own thing. I was like, I know nothing about anything except animation, babe. So, but I was like, but I suppose I could look and see if there's like some freelance projects or something. And, um, and over time the projects just kind of got bigger and bigger, um, I, you know, I got the chance to work for some, to do some, some like mini series for some pretty popular YouTubers. Like, I got to do a mini series for the Dr. Glockenflecken YouTube channel, which I don't know if you know who they are. I knew who they were when they reached out and I was like, this is amazing. So, and I had like, like my friends in the medical field know who they are and they saw it and they were like, that's so cool. So, so I've gotten to do a few, a few like bigger projects as time has gone on. And then, and now, you know, fast forward to today, we've been doing this for probably about 3 years. Right now it's like pretty even split between things like indie film, we do a lot of educational content, you know, online courses and stuff like that. The nice thing about animation, and if you know good storytelling, it can be applied in a lot of different areas. It's actually kind of funny, 'cause when I talk to business owners who are looking to use animation, they get like a little, like too excited. They're like, oh my gosh, I could use it for my social media, my website, my sales process, blah, blah. I'm like, okay, okay. And they're like, my training process, everything. And I'm like, okay, that's cool. I'm glad you're excited. We need to, that's, you're talking about like 6 figures worth of work. Let's just calm down and, and talk about, you know, where it would be most impactful.

That makes sense.

And that tends to be what the focus usually is, is like, okay, well, what's the message you really want to send? Because fortunately, animation is such a powerful storytelling medium that it's like, you know, like for example, I was talking to a doctor who's a private practice doctor, so he doesn't take insurance. And he was like, I have such a hard time explaining my business model to people. Takes me like half an hour. And we sat down, I was like, I can get this down to a couple minutes at the most. I mean, if you're smart about how you explain it to people, um, and, you know, so it can just be a really, really powerful thing. And it— and the cool thing is it does kind of span across a lot of different industries.

Yeah, so true. And, and like they say, a picture's worth a thousand words. Yeah, animation's worth, what, a book?

I say that all the time. Yeah, big app. A picture's worth a thousand words, a moving picture's worth a million. Yeah, that's like one of my little you know, sales lines.

Yeah, it's so true though. It's so true. It sticks in and you remember so much more. Now, how big is the team in the organization right now?

Oh, that's a good question. I mean, it's like, like full-time, it's me, you know. It's, it, I like, like the thing about animation is, is it's a longer pipeline production process. So it's like, well, there's the storyboard artist who I need for the beginning of the project. There's the, the illustrator who I need for a certain portion. And then there's the animators, which my emphasis is animation. I do do illustration and I do do storyboarding as well, but like, if someone were to ask me what I am, I would say I'm an animator. Um, and so I, I have tons of subcontractors and I usually have like, I try to, depending on the size of the project, I usually have like 5 or 6 projects going at one time. Um, so at the time, at the moment, I think I have like 10 or 15 active subcontractors, I think. I've got like 3 or 4 illustrators helping me right now, and I've got, I've got my storyboard artist. I was just talking to an animator yesterday and we're talking about tag-teaming a couple different projects. Um, we just finished another project, wrapped that up a week or two ago, and there were like 3 or 4 animators helping me on that. Um, so it's like, I've got, you know, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's just like trying to keep, trying to keep the budget a little bit more reasonable for these small business owners and stuff like that. It's like, okay, well, how do we tailor this to what you need? Um, and that involves a lot of like, well, who's the subcontractor who can, who can fit this project the best?

So yeah, and that's good. I'm glad that you're very conscious and aware of that because those, the small businesses are on tight budget and, and you're, you, you show them all the possibilities, they want it all. It's like, all right, well, let's focus on what's going to make the most sense for you.

Yeah, a lot of, a lot of my work has been actually figuring out how to make custom packages for these small businesses. Like, one lady wanted to start an educational YouTube channel, and she was like, I can't pay $1,000 for every video. I'm like, yeah, I get you. I mean, you have to post hundreds before, before you even gain any traction. And she was like, is there a way that you can meet me halfway? And I was like, well, I in the program that I use, you can build a character that is animatable. It's really hard to explain, but I was like, I can build the character and then I can do a video showing you how to animate it. And then, you know, maybe I can do a couple complex animations for you, like a walking cycle that you can use and stuff, because certain things are, once you know what to do, fairly simple to animate once you have the tools in place. And so I built this sort of custom package for her. I built the character recorded video on how to animate it, did a couple— like, I did her intro video for her, and then I did a couple sort of loopable, reusable animations that she could use a bunch. And, and that kind of gave her like a starting point for her YouTube channel that didn't involve shelling out a ton of money for, for all of this, you know, high-level animation.

That makes sense. And now for you, as you try to grow and expand, what have been some of the biggest bottlenecks or obstacles that keep showing up?

I mean, I think anybody who's a freelancer knows that, or anyone who like works in indie film or works with clients directly knows that, you know, there's starts and stops a lot. It's one of the reasons why I usually try to have several active projects because one project they'll be like, oh, I, you know, not necessarily like they lost their funding, but it's like, okay, you know, the investor I'm working with is taking a little bit longer. Like right now, 'cause it's tax season, there's a decent number of people bumping into like, I thought I had this extra cash and I don't. And a lot of those issues can just be like, you know, there's just nothing you can do. You know, you're like, you're working with a government grant and it takes them longer to send the money and different things like that. Shockingly, on the production side, it's pretty easy to produce stuff. I've honestly been really happy and amazed with like the size of what we can produce on such a tiny team. Um, once, once things get going, it's been really, really cool to be like, well, production's not really that big of an issue. It's— most of the problems tend to be like, is the client ready to go? Um, you know, do they, do they like have the, the funds ready to go and stuff? And, and it's And, um, that tends to be a bigger issue because people are so unfamiliar with this process. People are so unfamiliar with, um, what it takes. Try as I might to educate people like, hey, here's what to expect. Um, you know, I'll still get people who are like, well, I thought this thing was going to happen by this point and it hasn't. So that those funds need to go somewhere else. And it just, you know, it, It can just be stuff like that sometimes, the logistical side of that.

That makes sense. Now, when it comes to your marketing, your messaging, your outreach, what have you found has been working for you and where are you filling the gaps, frustrations?

Um, as far as marketing goes, um, a big part of it is just networking. Like, I know how irritating that is, especially for artists to hear that. And it's like, it takes a very long time to get some traction. But like, I personally feel like part of the reason why this business has been successful is that I do not spend a ton of time with other artists. Like my dad owns his own business. My, you know, like I said, my husband has an MBA and everything. And so anytime I want to have a conversation with them about this, they have, you know, they ask me business questions and kind of forced me to look at things a little bit differently as far as like what was a smart way to run the business. And, you know, acquire new clients and things like that. So it's networking, it's casting a really wide net. When I first started thinking like, okay, I'm just going to go all in on this, I remember driving around town being like, every business could use animation, wow. And thinking about like dropping hints while I was at the doctor and stuff. And I don't necessarily recommend that, but, but But I think especially for creatives, it's harder to dive into connecting and reaching out to people that you know who may have work and stuff. And then yeah, just, you know, casting a wide net. Like recently I've started looking into doing meta ads and stuff like that. And—

What is that?

Oh, sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna say, like, over time word of mouth kind of starts to build, and people who know people, and— but it takes a long time, unfortunately, to, to get to that point. You have to hustle a lot in the beginning. I would say it's still not super smooth. It's definitely a lot better in the last year or so. It's been much, much easier to, to just have work come, um, but it's something you're always trying to feed.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of businesses have that, how to keep the pipeline full instead of feast and famine.

That's cool.

Now, one question, there's a lot of talk around the AI and automation.

Yeah.

And doing the— where, what are ways you have found to use it internally and where do you still see opportunity?

That's a good question. I think most artists you talk to have a very bad taste in their mouth as far as AI goes, um, because of like the generative imaging. And I have, you know, I've talked to some people who are like, well, what if I just use AI to do this and I'm always like, okay, the only time I— like, when AI was first kind of coming out, the whole generative imaging thing, um, and I tried to use it, those were like the projects that went over budget because it wasn't where it was, where it could actually be helpful. And I would say it's still, as far as actually producing stuff, isn't terribly helpful. Like, there's certain things that it can kind of help you with, but because the pipeline is so technical and integrated, um, it's, it's not super helpful. I do use, I do use AI to help me with like coding in my program. That is really helpful. Like if anyone who's listening uses After Effects, asking, um, you know, Claude or whatever to be like, hey, I want to do this thing, can you generate code for it? That can be super, super helpful.

Yeah.

Um, as far as, as far as incorporating it in other ways, um, probably the biggest thing for me is, is more going to be on the business admin side, and I have no idea how to get literate in that as far as like, you know, like I have an Excel spreadsheet that I use to manage a lot of my projects and, and, you know, like I'm sure there's a way to, to make this easier on myself. It is also one of those things, though. It's like, well, when you're busy and you have work, you kind of don't have time to, you know, learn AI to help you with this other little side of your business. Um, but as far as the creative side of things, um, you kind of have to be careful with how much AI you use with different things, partially because the Supreme Court just came out with a ruling that you can't copyright anything that's AI-generated. It has to have a human creator. Um, and then again, when you're working in the entertainment industry, you can get some people who are like, if you touch this project with AI, I will be furious. Like, we will kick you off. Because, because yeah, for, for a lot of people it's like, well, you know, if you, if you want to be like, well, it's downright theft, there's that field. There's, there's the people who are, who are like, well, if nothing else, you're training it to take all of our work away or devaluing what we do. You know, you can get really into all of that with a, with a creative team. And, and, uh, I remember talking to a fellow studio owner who was approached to help develop an AI pipeline for 3D, um, animation like in movies. And it was a really, really, uh, delicate conversation being in that call, um, because he was like, if I create this pipeline I'm potentially making myself a pariah for, you know, the millions of artists out there who don't want this, who, you know, do this because they enjoy it. They're not necessarily looking at— oh, there's my husband's arm popping in the frame, sorry— um, uh, who, you know, who do it because they love it, because they're artists. They're not as concerned about, um, you know, zooming through it. Um, So yeah, it's AI. Anytime you talk to someone like in my creative field and you're talking about AI, um, as far as creating art from AI, which is generally where the conversation tends to go, you get very mixed reactions.

That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

Now, Allison, when you think about the next stages of the business, what are you most excited about?

I mean, at this point, I, I want to expand my team in a more official capacity. There's a few subcontractors actors that I'm like, you are amazing. I use you in every stage. You're so hardworking. You're awesome. Um, I'm wanting to— and I've been getting bigger and bigger and bigger projects and bigger and bigger and bigger budgets. And I'm hoping that especially this year, we've got a few really big projects that are going to be released soon. Um, I'm hoping that with that we'll get more long-term contracts. And if that happens, like, I have a couple people that I'm like, yes, come on, let's, let's, um, let's, let's grow a little bit. Um, There's, there's a couple indie films that we're working on right now that I'm just so excited. It's gonna take a little bit for them to get released, and it's such a pain. Like, anyone who works in this industry knows how frustrating it is when you've got this, this amazing piece of work, because it can take— you can finish it and then it'll be like a year later and it still hasn't been released, and you can't talk about it because you can't spoil it. So, um, but we've got some really cool projects we're working on right now. So, really, really excited to see what happens when those are released. And that's, you know, the hope is that we can keep landing work like that. And—

Love it. I love it. So, if you had to pick one constraint to focus on and solve over the next 90 days, what would it be?

90 days. That is a good question. Man, to focus on, like, or, or if I could snap my fingers and it would be fixed in the next 90 days, I guess either or. I mean, I'm just, we're just trying to make cool stuff right now. Thankfully, um, we're, we're booked pretty, pretty, um, pretty well. I'm not going to be like telling people like, don't reach out if you want us to do work, because please always reach out. But we've got some really amazing stuff we're working on right now. There's a couple of indie films we're working on, and then there's a short film that we're working on and they're just some super fun, cool projects. So right now I'm just deep in production, like we're just trying to make cool stuff. We're just trying to make the coolest product that we can. Once all of that passes, it's going to be back to getting the Meta ads in a good spot to where like they reach the right audience and they, they, you know, the copy sends the right message and everything. What I'm targeting with Meta ads is people who are developing their own online courses because that is more of a plug-and-play pipeline. Like with indie film and with short film, each thing kind of has to have its own style and that comes with its own sort of custom workflow. Whereas with online courses, it's like, okay, it's pretty standard. You need script, you need the, you know, episodic, whatever. Like it's a little bit more standardized. So it's, it's projects we can take on more excuse me, en masse. And so, you know, with something like Meta Ads that reaches a much broader audience, it's something that we can kind of target more.

Yeah.

So that's— that'll be the focus. Like when I have time again, when I'm not like dying trying to get so much stuff done with, with the, you know, actual projects.

Yeah, I can see that. And again, thank you for coming on and sharing. And for those who do want to reach out, and so lightninganimation.com, anywhere on LinkedIn, anywhere else you want to send them?

Uh, you can find— if you go to Lightning Animation on Instagram, you can find us there. I am so bad at social media. I, I, I need to be so much better about it, especially as someone who has a ton of content to post, but I just I'm not as proactive about it as I need to be, but you can find us there, um, and you can reach out there if you'd like. Um, it's pretty easy to schedule a Calendly meeting through our website. Uh, you can find us on LinkedIn as well. And yeah, pretty much any channel you reach out to is going to go directly to me.

Yeah, no judgment on that. I mean, the cobbler's kids are the ones that don't have shoes. Yeah, the frame of the house is the one that isn't finished. And so it makes total sense.

Well, and I like to think it's like I'm focused on making sure my clients have good stuff.

So I totally understand that. Yeah, that's cool. Well, thank you again, and thank you to our sponsors of today's episode, Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional executive leadership for growing businesses. And if you enjoyed today's episode, reach out to Allison and the team. If you have a project you have some questions about, give them a call. They can kind of walk you through what the options would be, and there's a lot of good potential with this animation, the value it brings. Like, so reach out to Allison, and we will see you on the next episode of the Achieve Podcast.