We recently connected with Corwin Cantin and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Corwin, thanks for joining us today. How do you think about vacations? Do you take them and if so, how? If you don’t, why not?
As a producer in game development, seeing this prompt gave me a hearty laugh. The video game industry is infamous for its “crunch culture,” and I’m no stranger to it. After 5+ years in the industry, one of my biggest challenges has been finding that work-life balance to live a happy, healthy life. To be honest, I still struggle daily with it. In this line of creative work, there’s no end to the daily emails, meetings, and tasks that one has to juggle. It can feel like an overwhelming swimming pool that you sometimes feel like you’re drowning in. The key I’ve found is to recognize you can just get out of the pool. It’ll still be there when you return. You just need to find the motivations to exit.
For me, I try to allow time for exercise (love bouldering at my gym), hobbies (gaming when not UTTERLY INVESTED in The Boys or Stranger Things, for a recent example), friends (love you, Volleyball Squad <3), or even a little peaceful solitude while preparing food or doing chores, to a podcast, music, or audiobook. Sounds like a dating profile, I know, but everyone has those things outside the job that are important. You just need to make time for them, so I try to do that even on the long days. For vacations themselves, I love taking staycations or a simple trip to visit friends or family. My favorite PTO story is one night, I left one of our sets early to see one of my favorite bands, I Fight Dragons. I dreamt of seeing them live for a near decade, and I finally met my dream. The concert was glorious! They played an autotuned Baby Muppets Keyboard and even a hacked Gameboy. It was magical, nerdy, and I’ve got a poster up to remind me that you can always make time for yourself and your dreams.
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 background and context?
My journey’s a little unique for how I joined the game industry. I was always that nerdy kid in high school, reading one of his many gaming magazines during the breaks, dreaming of entering the industry. My best subjects were math and science, but I didn’t think I had any skillsets for game development because I wasn’t an artist, so when I graduated, I pursued an English Bachelor’s at UNC. An English degree, of all things. Lol I knew I wanted to get into a creative field, so I thought studying English literature could help hone my understanding and skills of creative medium. However, I took one film class and was hooked! My professor, Kenneth Chan, had such an immense passion for film! He helped shape my interest and drive for the industry. At the time, UNC didn’t offer any production classes, so I finished my English degree, but now with a minor in Film Theory, in addition to my math minor. I told you it’s a unique journey.
After a little hiatus to apply to film schools, I found myself attending the Colorado Film School. I wanted to be a writer for the longest time, so I worked toward an Associate degree with a focus in Writing/Directing. The funny thing about film school though, the best education you can get is from practical, on-set experience, and outside of your own productions, students don’t need a second writer/director. What was I to do? Well, in my second semester, a classmate asked me to join her project because they needed a 1st Assistant Director, so I joined on a whim. That position sounded like it’d be close to the director, so maybe I can learn more about directing through observation. It was my first real set, and I had no idea what a 1st AD did. lol I was so awful, but I learned by trial of fire and absorbed as much as I possibly could!
From there, I sought out to be the best AD I could be! For the next year, I joined as many sets as I could, not turning down a project, so I could learn as much as I could. After a year of this, I bunkered down to AD my buddy’s semester-long senior film. This was when I learned the magic power of saying “no.” I knew how much the project would require of me, so I learned my limits and turned down all other projects. I gained so much knowledge and experience from this set. I don’t even consider it a student film. It was a grade-A production, with a seven-day shooting schedule over spring break, an incredible full crew, and an amazing cast. I’ll always have a high appreciation for The Undercard.
During this same semester, I also was taking the school’s first video game writing class, which just happened to be sponsored by a local game studio, Deck Nine Games. Easily the best class I took at the school! Taught by my wonderful professor, Will Hicks, we learned how to pitch our projects, write within a team, take direction from the lead writer, and even engage in feedback with a “publisher,” represented by Deck Nine itself. Believe it or not, that’s not how I Ianded my job. My personal story didn’t even get past pitch phase. Lol
Skip a semester ahead, I built a reputation as a solid 1st AD, built a name for myself in the school, and gained a strong relationship with Professor Hicks. If you’re looking for a teacher or mentor, find the ones whom you just enjoy talking with. Will Hicks was that and more. One day, he called me into his office. At first, I thought I was in trouble, but then I remembered I wasn’t in one of his classes this semester. Lol Turned out, Deck Nine was looking for an AD to help with their current project. Will asked if he could put my name forward. One serious mental argument with myself, a blunt internal monologue telling me to shut up, an anxious yes, and one long interview later, I landed the job! Deck Nine’s VP emailed me that same night, offering me the job as “Assistant to the Director.” They Dwight Schruted me. Lol
They truly needed a filmic Assistant Director, but that position is unique to game development, so most game devs didn’t understand the title. They needed an AD to help the director prepare and run their motion capture sets, not run their coffee or lunch order, which our director promised I’d NEVER have to do for him. Deck Nine was launching into a new form of games, interactive narrative, making what you could interpret as indie film but in the shape of a video game. They had their own mocap studio no bigger than a living room, and I became responsible for communicating with talent/agents, creating our mocap schedules, gathering all the set pieces and information we needed to run a set, then effectively running the set in tandem with the director. Our performance director, Webb Pickersgill, was and continues to be another mentor in my life who helped me get to where I am today. Huge shoutout to him, his support, his ideals, and general ability to be an inspiration to literally anyone!
Over the coming years, my “simple” AD job expanded more and more. I always was a member of the production team, but my skills and focus were so different than what you typically see from producers or APs in games. I commonly was referred to as the “black sheep” or in one case, Production’s “special boy.” That one still makes me laugh. It was how I was introduced in an interview for a new producer even. lol I picked up skills wherever I could, and I usually took on responsibilities that needed “someone” to own but others didn’t have capacity. We had a joke in mocap that I was also named “someone,” because if you heard, “I need someone to do ____,” I was “someone.” I’ve worked at Deck Nine for the past 5+ years now, and I finally adopted the title of “Motion Capture Producer” at the end of our last project, Life is Strange: True Colors. It helped clear up confusion on what I did at the company, and it honestly fit my wide role much better. Between Webb and myself, we’ve built an efficient, fun, welcoming set environment, along with an astounding team and the most talented actors you could ask for.
That mocap room is what I’m most proud of. I take so much pride in all the amazing content we’ve shot, the smiles and laughs we have each day, even with the ridiculous amount of dad jokes. I used to bring in a #1 DAD mug just for set. We’ve built such an amazing team there, even outside the MoCap department. I know it’s a red flag when someone at a company says, “we’re a family,” but it describes the team well. I don’t think there’s a single dev or department I don’t enjoy working with, and folks are always looking out for each other. I’ve met some of my best of friends at Deck Nine! After hearing the horror stories about other game studios or even film/TV production out in LA, I love how I came to find Deck Nine. The team cares so much for each other, the company strives to improve and evolve a healthy, inclusive culture, and we have a blast making games! Despite all the hard and occasionally long hours, the cool sets and people make it worth it!
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Coming from a film background, I experienced a high “hustle” atmosphere. You had to constantly be on the move to succeed, and the 1st AD was an integral part of that. They ran the show, ensured we stayed on-schedule, and typically had to be the logistical bad guy to the creative artists. To make any creative project, you HAVE to hit your schedule. Rarely, especially in film or games, do you get to just make whatever you want no matter how long it takes. That’s where the AD comes in, keeping the team focused and constantly evaluating if creative sacrifices had to be made to hit our goals. As such, the 1st AD typically was misconstrued as “the asshole” who yelled a lot (apologies if that needs asterisks). Now, I learned early on that this wasn’t the case. The 1st AD needed the trust of the crew. Any team member had to feel comfortable coming to talk to you, about sometimes very sensitive issues, so he couldn’t be a jerk, he just had to keep all the gears oiled to keep the train moving. Apologies if that’s a bad analogy. I might not know how trains work.
While I think I found success in that role, finding the balance of oiled gears and still having a heart, transitioning into games was an interesting endeavor. Games don’t have the same “hustle” that you see in film or TV, and you find yourself working with a wider variety of personalities. A couple of years into my time at Deck Nine, I had started to ruffle feathers with some folks. They didn’t take kindly to my tone, thought I was being bossy or even mean. When I learned this, I was genuinely surprised, as were many of my coworkers. We realized my stern, blunt AD tone didn’t translate well with some game devs. Folks just hadn’t experienced film set culture, so they didn’t see the care I had for folks behind my monotone conduct; they just saw a jerk. I’m sure I was at times, for what it’s worth, but from then on, I set out to change my approach. We still needed the AD/producer to facilitate an efficient production, but I learned how to tailor my conduct to show more support and care for the team, to tailor my communication dependent on whom I was talking with. I both wanted folks to be able to trust me but also enjoy my company and perspective.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
Games have long suffered from crunch culture, and I still find myself working with folks who have trouble recognizing that we shouldn’t make the team crunch just to make deadlines. This industry has it ingrained that when the opportunity arises, we should just work the team, rather than adjust deadlines or the work, be smarter with our schedules and scope. It’s a controversial topic, but I’m of the mind that deadlines/content should adjust first, not the team’s hour count. Any game dev should have the option of putting in the extra hours to make even better content, not have it forced upon them.
With that philosophy in mind, my goal has always been to ensure folks can enjoy their days, take pride in their work, and live their lives outside the job to the fullest. No project is ever worth someone’s mental, emotional, or physical health. In addition to advocating for my teammates to take care of themselves, embrace the downtime they need outside of work whether it’s just leaving work at a reasonable time or taking PTO, I try to do whatever I can to set them up for that work/lifestyle. It’s difficult, especially whenever you have a new project, new team, and new pipelines still being tested, but we’ve seen reasonable success. I sometimes set a bad example for my own philosophy, but I’m working on it. lol
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/corwintc/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corwin-cantin-428a20b8/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/CorwinTC
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CorwinTCMedia
- Other: https://www.twitch.tv/spryspeedster
Image Credits
Webb Pickersgill, Erika Mori, Zachary Andrews, Dan Ruescher, Garrett Thompson, Alexis Bloom, Chris Sampson, Chad Gleason and Nate Fusco.