We recently connected with Brennan Brinkley, Nicole Low, Tyler Kula and have shared our conversation below.

Brennan Brinkley, Nicole Low, Tyler Kula, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your career and how did you resolve those issues?

The most unexpected problem we encountered was how quickly our account went viral on TikTok. While it’s probably the best “problem” to have, the demand for more content became extreme after posting just a couple of videos. In order for the quality of our videos to be consistent both visually and comedically, it takes us a minimum of 2 weeks to put out a new video because we are simply a team of 3 people with full-time jobs. Unfortunately in this age of social media, we sensed the urgency from both the fans and the platforms to put out content more frequently or we’d be doing a disservice and possibly ending our run short.

We did carefully consider a variety of options on how we could post more frequently at the sacrifice of lower quality content. However, the three of us agreed that less frequent, but quality content would be a riskier, stronger payoff for both us and the fans in the long run. The main ingredient to our success has been the care we put into each video. Losing that care to meet demand could’ve been our downfall. Todays entertainment relies so much on expanding big franchises that they’re willing to sacrifice quality, and that usually ends up hurting their brand in the long run. And although Natural Habitat is on a much smaller scale, we sensed the potential dangers of trying to churn out more content for the sake of gratification.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

-For folks who may not have read about you before, can you please tell our readers about yourself,

Natural Habitat Shorts is a series of animations on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube. It was created in 2021 by us three (Brennan Brinkley, Nicole Low, and Tyler Kula). The three of us met at Florida State University while majoring in Film/Animation at the FSU College of Motion Picture Arts. Once we graduated, we eventually all landed jobs in NYC and ended up living together.

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-How you got into your industry / business / discipline / craft etc, what type of products/services/creative works you provide,

After spending a couple years working for advertising agencies, we felt that there was something more creatively fulfilling we could be spending our time doing. We thought coming up with some funny live action skits could be the solution, but it kept falling apart while transitioning from the writing to the filming stage. We then remembered Brennan had 3D modeled some unique adorable animals that could be utilized for an animated short. We had spent some time watching documentaries and thought it could be fun to interview people and then animate over them using Brennan’s animals, and then feature some animated B-roll of the animals doing funny antics on the side. While it was a fun idea in theory, it seemed like a project that would be extremely time consuming and probably not worth the payoff. But then we thought why not just animate the B-roll segments of the animals as little shorts. Once the three of us confidently laughed at the idea of a squirrel knocking over shelves in a grocery store, we decided it was time to create our first short. We knew we had something funny on our hands, but we still didn’t have the answer to what would set us apart from others.

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-What problems you solve for your clients and/or what you think sets you apart from others.

It wasn’t until our second video did we figure out what Natural Habitat could be beyond just funny animated animal gags mixed with real world scenarios. We had come up with our second idea of a bat using echolocation to find groceries. When we shared this idea with friends before posting, some of them didn’t get the joke. This was surprising to us as we thought everyone knew about echolocation. We then saw an opportunity to educate people as well as entertain them, using animal facts as the vehicle for our videos. Once we made this discovery, we knew that short form animated content mixed with our sense of humor mixed with animal fun facts would be the key to set us apart from other creators.

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What are you most proud of and what are the main things you want potential clients/followers/fans to know about you/your brand/your work/ etc.

Brennan- I’m incredibly proud of just doing it and doing it consistently. Animating is a lot of time and work and we all have full time jobs. Knowing that we’ve created 30+ fully animated shorts is really cool to look back on and realize you aren’t just a phony. That you can actually do these things if you put in the time and effort even if it seems daunting at first. Just the act of making something come to life is always incredibly rewarding and we’re so lucky we’re able to share our creations with so many people and that they love them as much as we do.

Nicole- I’m most proud of the fact that it’s been almost two years since we started this series and we’ve only gotten better (in my opinion). I think there’s always that fear that we’ll run out of steam or out of ideas but so far that’s been far from the case. Every time we release a new video it feels like we’re releasing the first one all over again and we’re always pleasantly surprised that people like them.

Tyler- Finding the motivation to make these shorts in the first place has made me extremely proud of everything we’ve accomplished so far. Its obvious what drives us to make these shorts now (we have a massive, grateful audience that look forward to these videos every other week!). But before we had an audience, we were trying time and time again with different ideas, skits, etc. for no reason other than to find a creative outlet for pure entertainment that we could call ours. We never gave up on something that could’ve easily ended so early on had we decided to simply skip the day we came up with the idea our first short.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The three of us have shared the same passion of wanting to break into the film/tv industry and tell our own stories eventually. While we didn’t necessarily take the conventional route of working at a studio like many artists/creatives do, we thought we could still find a balance creatively working for a creative ad agency for the time being. However, we didn’t really have as much of a voice as we thought we would, which pushed us into creating something ourselves on the side. Spending time in something that was unfulfilling had brought us closer to that fulfilling goal.

We weren’t exactly thinking about our end goal in the moment of Natural Habitat’s creation, but rather thinking about how we can create something that makes us laugh and we’re proud to share with others. It’s stressful for any aspiring artist to think about their end goal when you’re just beginning your career. Sometimes taking a step back and thinking about what you love creating now and sharing that with world will naturally put you on the right track.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

The biggest concerns we hear from many non-creatives is why aren’t we selling/promoting merchandise everyday or expanding the brand into something bigger than what it is. While we do have plans to become something bigger than what we are now, promoting merchandise constantly and harping on people to buy buy buy could be the thing that kills this simple, effective brand we’ve established. We understand that there are so many profitable avenues we can take Natural Habitat, but we are being extremely cautious about how we choose to position ourselves because this passion project is something that goes beyond making a quick buck.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://naturalhabitatshorts.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/naturalhabitatshorts/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Natural_habitok
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@NaturalHabitatShorts
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@naturalhabitok