We were lucky to catch up with EJ Hassenfratz recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, EJ thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

Learning the craft of 3D and animation can be daunting in the day and age of AI. I have artists writing to me all the time doubting if it’s even worth the effort to learn 3D when AI could easily do the craft someday. I believe while AI may streamline certain aspects of 3D creation – the role of human creativity, storytelling and originality is irreplaceable. For example, while AI may make modeling in 3D easy, it still takes the skill and understanding of the craft of lighting, animation, and composition to craft compelling visual narratives using whatever 3D model AI generates. AI will offer efficiency and allow artists to more easily augment the creativity and artistic skill they possess. Artists will then be able to focus more on the craft and hopefully need to be less of a technician.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I got into the industry due to my family being into graphic design. My father and late uncle were big influences on me growing up and so I was always drawing and interested in art. By the time I graduated from college, motion graphics was starting to be a thing and 3D was becoming easier to use as well. Unfortunately my college didn’t teach animation, After Effects or any 3D application so I had to learn those things on my own. I started in 2D animation and soon moved to 3D which I fell in love with. Ever since, I’ve been focused on helping others learn 3D because I notice there are so many others who were also self taught and I’m just trying to make things easier for others because I know how much of a struggle it was for me and I helped get through by learning on folks in the community who were very generous with their time and expertise so I’m always trying to pay it forward. Through teaching and making tutorials it led to many opportunities and speaking engagements all over the world and I think that’s one of the things I’m most proud of. Nothing beats hearing stories from folks who have watched my training and hearing how much it has helped them or impacted their career. It just becomes addictive at that point and I just wanted to lean into the teaching aspect of things which led me to my current position at School of Motion which is an online school dedicated to teaching people the craft of motion design and 3D.
Right now I’m getting into the physical realm and learning how to sculpt in 3D and print my creations out so I can hold them in my hands and now I’m addicted to that too and really excited to share my journey and help others also be able to experience their work outside of the screen in whatever form possible. I feel like we can be so disconnected from our work and I feel like in the age of AI it’s going to be so important to get that connection back.

How did you build your audience on social media?

People look at my following and subscribers and always ask me how did I do it and to be honest I think people want the shortcuts to everything and hate when I tell them that I go the followers I do today because of consistency. I’ve been doing this for 12 years now and had to get to where I was video by video, post by post. Consistency beats intensity all the time. Sure, going viral could be a strategy but are you going to expect to make a viral video each time you post? Probably not. But each thing you do, each work you create and post online is another opportunity to be discovered and find more fans.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One of my biggest mistakes getting into the industry was thinking by learning a lot about the technical aspects of 3D that it could make up for my lack of knowledge about design, animation, all the fundamentals. Ever since I’ve been trying to go back and learn all those things that I glossed over because it’s hard and it’s also not super sexy sometimes but the fundamentals and the non-technical skills are the exact thing that is going to be relevant in the age of AI.

Contact Info:

• Website: eyedesyn.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/eyedesyn
• Twitter: twitter.com/eyedesyn
• Youtube: youtube.com/eyedesyn