We recently connected with Nassib El Mourabet and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Nassib thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, let’s imagine that you were advising someone who wanted to start something similar to you and they asked you what you would do differently in the startup-process knowing what you know now. How would you respond?
If I was to start over, I would do 4 things differently. 1- Educate myself about investing so that I could coast through economically challenging seasons when freelance isn’t cutting it, and also give myself greater freedom to tackle personal work. Creative career pursuers, I feel, don’t get taught enough about business, finance, and being savvy with money.
2- I would have skipped university altogether, and invested in online learning only, and invest the rest of the tuition money if I had it, into high yielding saving accounts. Why skip uni? Well, no one asked for my degree as an animator, and also, most of the softwares I learned were obsolete after graduating. I could have learned what I needed to learn for a 10th of the cost. Today this number is even much less than even that.
3- I would have considered time set for personal work to be sacred. My biggest regret in 18 years of work is finishing just 1 simple personal project nothing more, and as a result, my portfolio does not reflect the work I want to get more of.
4- Network network network. Back in my hometown of Beirut, work landed in my laps due to scarcity of talent. Moving to London, I had to start from scratch competing with over 10,000 freelance motion designers that service London alone imagine that. I had so much work coming in I worked remotely and never bothered to ask whose project is it (which director filmed the ad? Who was the agency, what were their names, etc..) I was out of sight and behind the curtains. Didn’t even bother asking to be credited when my work was published on social media. Moving here to London, I had to start doing proper networking.
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?
In school I was crazy about gaming and the world of animation. I remember watching cartoons after school like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, GI Joe and Transformers, and and the classical WB cartoons and Looney Toons, and seeing various Disney films like Aladdin and Fantasia that really amazed me. My father gave me my first electronic game when I was only 3 years old, it was space invaders. The world of electronic games drew me in like no other and it’ why I actually studied it at university. I never ended up in games though, as I had to go back home after uni where I immediately landed a job in a post production house, doing motion design, 3D animation, and VFX work on commercials and tv shows.
I had a full time job for 3 years before leaving to freelance, and haven’t looked back since. I’ve been a freelance motion designer and art director for 16 years now, out of my 19 year career.
What I do is basically create things that a camera crew can’t film, whether particles for a detergent in an ad, or the intro for a TV show, or putting a man in space, or a 3D character on a couch near real actors. I also do fully animated pieces like an explainer video, or a title sequence, or concert visuals. After so long in the industry, I’ve dabbled in pretty much every medium and platform there is.
As an all round animator, my clients do not hesitate hiring for the most challenging projects, even if it’s a specialty I haven’t previously produced work in. I have built strong bonds with my clients where trust and peace of mind are key traits. I have been there to save the day plenty of days as well.
I grew a reputation in my work on commercials where, in addition to providing an animation or vfx shot for example, I would also “fix things in post” and this has somehow been a skill I do on almost every single project I have worked on if it involved film. From cleaning an actor’s makeup, to removing cracks in walls, to hiding flaws in a product shot. Filling a stadium with crowds, extending a building 3 floors up, and even removing people from shots.
My proudest project has been with Kinder where I was able to single handedly complete a 3D character animation start to finish in 14 days, whereas previously it had taken a whole team over a month to do the same. And the funny thing is that I had not done a 3D character before, and it was on a new software to me. I am also proud of creative directing and animating the title sequence for a TV show 9 years in a row, having to go from concept to completion in limited time.
Unlike most freelancers who come in to do a 9 to 5, I treat my client’s project and deadline as though I were their partner. And this is what keeps them coming back to me after 18 years. I am also proud of my street smarts and hustle mentality that has gotten me through difficult times in my life.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Moving to London from Beirut was probably the most challenging part of my career, because I got the right to work mid 2019. I moved here, started to look for a coworking space to work out of out of and hopefully meet some new people. I got in touch with recruiters and met old acquaintances. While building up for some work, I did things like work as a tour guide on those guide apps. I did anything to get myself going. And then, in less than 10 months after having just started to get the wheels moving, the pandemic hit. That took a while to recover from, after 8 months with no work, and the hits kept coming since! But I’m a resourceful guy and always managed to make ends meet. But till now, I am still not where I was in Beirut in terms of my sales and amount of projects being sent my way. I’m working on it though! The work is more rewarding and the brand names are well known, so I did up my game in many ways, which is why I moved here to begin with.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
Definitely a lot of misunderstandings when it comes to what I do and how I do it. Many people think we are making cartoons, and they assume it’s as fun as watching them. What they don’t know is that our work is often not appreciated, rarely paid for properly, and many creative freelancers are usually exploited whether be it with their time spent on projects or the requirement of them to be creative on demand and per hour sometimes. Motion Designers, Animators and VFX artists are some of the many talents that bring us everything we watch on all our screens on TV, on our phones and computers, in cinemas and in museums and art exhibitions, everywhere really! Yet when it comes down to business, many clients belittle the work and assume they can find someone cheaper than you to create the same result. Some project schedules I receive are completely unrealistic, like a request I received once for the creation of an Avatar inspired character and animating him in a fantasy tropical jungle for 45 second commercial, all in 5 days. Or someone who gave me a beautiful motion piece done for Apple, and said he wants something simple and low budget like this, which was an ad that probably cost high five figures easily, and they want it done for $2000.
We are expected at times to come up with ideas ourselves and be the creative director for no extra charge. Conceptualizing and research aren’t even included in the schedule.
It’s tricky when working with a client who has never engaged in motion design or animation or anything digital. We get asked the weirdest questions and receive the craziest requirements to take on a project. “Must have worked on orange juice product before” like how is that even a requirement. No sorry you only worked for Pepsi and Coca Cola and 40 other beverages but I don’t see any orange juice experience.
All jokes aside, I always manage to align my client with me and explain to them processes and break things down. It’s highly rewarding because on the next one, they already know and they can share with others :)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.plunk.tv
- Instagram: @plunk.tv
- Linkedin: nassib-el-mourabet