Produced By - Craft with Conscience: The Importance of Meaning in Animation & Design | #44: Rishi Rai

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

Rishi Rai, a London-based freelance 2D animator and motion graphics designer, brings quirky characters and ethically driven stories to life. Growing up in Nepal, his artistic spark ignited early, leading him to pursue animation studies after arriving in London. Since then, Rishi has honed his craft across diverse projects, from socials and TV commercials to explainer videos and live events. His passion lies in animations that not only entertain but also spark thought and inspire positive change. Tune in to this episode to delve into Rishi's creative process, discover the details of his exciting projects, and get fueled by his infectious enthusiasm for impactful storytelling. Elevate your online presence with the help of Trailblazed, your (and our) favourite digital marketing agency. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://trailblazed.digital/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you enjoy the show, please, consider supporting it on Patreon or by buying a virtual coffee (or chocolate). ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ProducedByPodcast⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.buymeacoffee.com/producedby⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Boost your creative career by joining our new Skillshare course and feel free to let us know how you liked it. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://skl.sh/3Rh7ZtY⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date, get the latest news and much more. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7092551882589528065⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Rishi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rishi-rai-a2b48b75/   https://rishirai.co/  https://www.instagram.com/raimation/  https://vimeo.com/rishirai   Baggage (short film): https://vimeo.com/123011160  Connect with the host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow the podcast: Links: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Web: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://produced-by-podcast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://instagram.com/produced_by_podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT5LHnM6YCaeVzIr0WatOsw⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/41BiG5YvGIgITz1N14hF2E ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/produced-by/id1684669642⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you enjoy listening to the podcast, please, leave a review on your podcast app, subscribe and share it with your friends. You can also send us a message and share any feedback, advice and tips for guests. About Produced By: Produced By unveils captivating stories of courageous people who set out to pursue careers in highly competitive fields, despite often challenging circumstances. Enter the spotlight with our guests and get inspired, whether your interests are in the creative industries, personal growth or you simply want to have fun. Listen to individuals who represent a wide range of professional backgrounds, geographic locations and career stages. So come along to follow their adventures and learn from life's experiences as we kick off on this epic journey. Thanks for listening and see you soon! Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to Produced Buy. Just quickly before we begin, if we enjoy the show, please consider supporting it by joining our Patreon. You can choose from a list of memberships and we'll receive some exciting rewards. Thank you and back to the episode. Hello, Rishi, thank you for joining us today and welcome. Thanks for having me, Thomas.

So Rishi, can you please introduce yourself? I'm Rishi, I'm a most in graphic designer. I've been working in this industry for more than eight years now. But yeah. Sounds like a lot of experience. Yeah, like when I think about it now, it's actually quite a lot. So can we start with your background? Where do you come from?

Yeah, sure. So I'm from Nepal. I've been in London for more than 15 years now. And growing up, actually, I wasn't really exposed to sort of animation. I did grow watching cartoons and stuff. I really loved it. I never thought I would be working in Muslim graphics or animation field at all. Because my parents weren't working in the industry or at all or anything.

But one of my sister was really into art and she used to to like do a lot of competitions, but she used to win a lot of competitions. And I think I kind of got through her as well. It's a good motivation. During free time, yeah, yeah, like growing up during free time, we used to do some drawings together. Or like I would do some drawings on my own as well.

Yeah, that sort of, at the time I really loved sort of growing and sketching whatever. And I was really small. Yeah. See, that's really exciting. I think I've never met anyone from Nepal. So can you tell us, I like geographies, can you tell us more about what was it growing up in the country? Oh, yeah.

So I grew up in east part of Nepal. Like it was more on the, because Nepal has like three sort of say like a mountain hills and the plains. People are more known for the mountain. People are more familiar with the mountains, but actually the cities are on the plains. So it's like a small city I grew up in at the time was like not very populated, I would say. Yeah, it's like a relatively poor country. Not a lot of facilities.

And my school was pretty small as well. And if I'm not mistaken, is the capital city Kathmandu? Yeah, Kathmandu, but I didn't really grow up in Kathmandu. I'm not very familiar with it. If I were to go to Kathmandu, I would probably get lost. Is it a big city? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's very big and very populated, a lot of people there.

And if I'm not mistaken, Nepal is where the Mount Everest is, right? Yeah. it is um it's a lot of mountains and the imalayas basically so is it like a beautiful country with the countryside the mountains in the background oh yeah if you do get a city um up north then you would see a lot of those hills um mountains from my area area, it was not as easy to see the mountains because it was very far south. But if you go up north, then you would definitely see that of this mountain range. When, say, this layer sky, then obviously, you know, you'll see it.

I would say it's a fairly small and peaceful country, all in all. Yeah, and I guess it's quite popular among the tourists because of the mountains. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a lot of people come to sort of a, I guess, like track or like a climbed in Mount Everest. Yeah, it's fairly, also it's like very, it's fairly cheap to go to, be there to go to it's not very cheap because obviously

flood is pretty expensive, right? But to basically be a tourist there, live there, is very cheap and you can manage with little money you have. People are lovely there, like, you know, very friendly people.

They try to help you as much as they can. But I think some of my friends have been there and they loved it. I can love the whole experience. And what about you? Didn't, haven't you dreamed of? Or didn't you have an idea to one day climb it as well since you are from there?

Oh. No. I'm not a big fan of cold. That's one reason. Yeah, never, I never, yeah, never, never, never, never thought of. trying to fly my breast. I didn't quite get the idea of doing that, like why people do that.

That's sort of a challenge, I suppose. They want to challenge themselves, but I'm pretty comfortable being in. Not freezing to that. Not going at the top of the non-gabrous, no. Yeah. And one thing that comes to my mind is, local cuisine because I'm pretty sure I've tried some like a food in a restaurant from

Nepal and it was delicious. So it was the cuisine like there. Is it so good? It's we have in Nepal you have a lot of ethnic groups and depending on the ethnic groups, you would have different kind of food. But usually it's we have a lot of spices, but the main food that we really like are dumplings. We call it Momo. It's very popular in Nepal. And a lot of Tibetan food is very popular as well.

What do you call it? Tukpa. My other stuff. Eating momos and Tukpai in my sort of city. Yeah. But yeah, it's like if you go to Kathmandu, you probably have more variety of food. I can be different sort of from different things like Sakali or stressors and I haven't fully tried that yet. But it's yeah.

Yeah, I think the one I tried, it was from Indian Nepalese restaurant and it was awesome. And what's the language that is spoken there? Oh yeah, it's Nepali. Okay, what a surprise? Yeah, yeah. Is it similar? What language is it similar to? I would say it's kind of similar to Hindi.

So we share sort of similar, actually we share things the same alphabet. So the writing is pretty much the same. Yeah. But the language is slightly different. There's a lot of similar words and, probably grammar as well. But since it came from the same sort of like a group, like Sanskrit, it came from Sanskrit.

Yeah. And it's very similar. So I think if you know Hindi or Nepali, that it's easy to learn the other language. Yeah, that's cool. So tell us, when did you start, you know, pursuing your artistic, skills.

Well, it's a long story. So like I said, growing up, I loved drawing and sort of, you know, doing that in a free time. Then as I grew older, I stopped doing that. And because, you know, like when you say like in your teen years, you would have different hobbies. I was more into music. I was playing guitar

because all of my friends were playing guitar, right? And I was like learning as well. So I was self-taught guitar. And then I wanted to be in a band. I wanted to sing and play guitar. But then sort of like in my secondary school, sort of what was it, Olibe, GCSC, it was like a general. we just have to do like all the general subjects and when I started doing a level

actually I did my a level in UK and so when I tried to do music the school that I wanted to do the college that I wanted to do music wasn't they didn't have music anymore so I was like maybe I'll do art and because I was like I was like I was like I I don't want to study anything that I don't want to. So I pursued art, and I really loved it. And I never thought I would do animation, but then I went to a student, Curry Advisor. And I spoke to her, and she sort of came up with a list of things,

a list of careers I could potentially have in the art field. and when he came to anime and I was like oh yeah this sounds awesome yeah yeah exactly

because I the time I was just about starting anime I was watching starting to watch anime

but at the same I love watching cartoons right but I was really into anime at the time and I was like yeah sure that sounds great

that could be a lot of fun and then I went to you need to do that subject and just sort of snowballed. Yeah, I don't watch much anime, but maybe some recommendations or tips. What was your favorite one, whether film or series? I think it depends on your sort of preferences. If you like action, you could try a demon slayer. Yeah, I heard of it. I haven't seen it.

It's amazing. Yeah, it's just amazing. One punch man is pretty fun to watch. What else is there? Obviously, the classic one piece, but it's like so long, you probably need a bit of a patient as well. Yeah, so what do you think? One of the classic as well, yeah.

Yes, yes. Those are the ones with thousands of episodes, right? Yeah, that too, yeah. So what do you think about the adaptation from Netflix, the recent one of One Piece? Oh, you know, like everyone, I thought I would hate it. So, but then I wanted to give it a try. And the first episode I watched, I think the first half of it, I was like, I don't think I like I like it. And then sort of the second half was like, oh, okay, it's actually pretty good.

Because there were some scenes where like Zornis S. Ward was like bent. Yeah. I think you probably people saw that. I was like, oh, no, that's not that great. But then I think in terms of like adaptation, I think it's pretty good. The actors were really great. Yeah. Yeah, actually, I actually went and watched the whole sort of, so it's in like a day, I think. Yeah, binge the whole thing.

Yeah, I binge the whole thing. Yeah, I was like, oh God, this is so great. I'm so disappointed that I was like at the end of the episode and I was like, I'm glad to hear that. And yeah, yeah. Tell me how actually did you end up in the UK or in London? Yeah, so my dad was in the army and so he was one of the first, basically. Sorry, one of whom?

Gertes. So basically it's like army from, basically the army from Nepal who comes to you, they serve the queen. Oh, wow. that for yeah he did that and he retired and he served in other countries and then later on he got to come to UK basically and then I threw him I came as well so I'm just curious how come or why does that happen that Nepalis soldiers are in the UK's army oh yeah so we I don't know quite the whole story, but basically the British government found out that Nepali Shult was pretty brave and, you know, sort of like, press from brave, basically.

They really wanted to have sort of in their army to fight a long side during war during war and I think since 200 years ago, they started, we started sort of working together with them and then that sort of snowballed and carried on. And still they employ a Nepalese soldier in New York. That's interesting. I didn't know. Yes. So then coming back to your education, you decided to study animation at university? Oh yeah, yeah. So I did two years in London Met and my third year in

Middlesex. And why actually why didn't you do three years at one evening? Oh yeah, um, so when I was studying in London Met, um, what was the case? Oh yeah, I think one of my, our teacher was was about to leave and it was amazing like she was she basically knew she basically taught us like all the styles of animation like you know sub-motion after 2d and drawn animation a bit of 3d mind as well and I thought like you know um would be a good change of scenery if I were to just try another uni just to see the environment because the first two years I was just having fun most of the time. Parties.

Not necessarily. Not really, but I was just enjoying my subject basically. It was not fun. I was I suppose not fully engaged in it but then at the same time when I was working on those projects, I was just generally enjoying and having fun. But in Middlesex was when I realized I'd have to be slightly more serious about it. Because you will see like all the, all of my classmates were pretty serious about it. I was like, oh shit.

Yeah, need to be more serious. Yeah, need to catch up. So. But it doesn't say as well, yeah, that's fine. No, but I guess it's good. you know to like inspiration or motivation to work harder as well and as you said you are learning various programs and different types of animation so still in the third year where you like learning the these like a broad techniques that

you know kind of from everything or where you focusing on a specific one what you want to do later on so in our third year Since animation in Middlesex, it was very sort of into hand-grown animation. I mean, you could do other sort of after-effects animations as well, but I really wanted to do like hand-drawn animations. I learned a lot of that, and it was mostly, the emphasis was mostly on storytelling, you know the art of storytelling and how to have like good story um basically yeah and i think yeah i'm very fortunate that i was able to do that and meet like um all this lovely people

you know studying there as well so do you remember what was the final project at the third year Was it some short film or what was it? Oh yeah. I did like a three minute animation. Oh nice. Yeah. Do the whole thing by yourself? Yeah, it was all like hand-draw.

Oh, like remembering the times. Yeah, it was all hand drawing. It was used, I used TV paint and ice for sex. The TV paint is just the animation. and after practice to basically composite everything in there. Yeah, that was the whole... It was like quite... I felt like it was like pretty long, it took me forever to do them.

Is it, are you a perfectionist or was it challenging? Yeah, no. And it was, yeah, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. And in, say, you and me, when we were sort of signed to concept of story, I mean, obviously a lot of us were having trouble, like, trying to find, like, a story or make a story. And like I said, I'm a bit of a perfectist, and I was not happy with all the stories that was making. I'm coming up with and I spent

quite a few months working on it it took me forever to sort of finally be happy with this story and I actually didn't finish the whole story didn't finish the whole animation before I graduated

but I did finished it i'm surprised yeah and do you want to share briefly what what is it about what's the story uh yeah um the title's called baggage um so it started with just me sort of uh learning with the idea of people carrying baggagees and how it could sort of relate to their personalities basically um but i found that i couldn't visual how I was going to show that and I felt I wasn't fully attached to that sort of idea. And so the video kind of transformed into say a person sort of almost like trying to trying to contractually get into this idea of you know, that person carrying a bag of

that he couldn't let go up. And just struggling in the metal trying to basically live with the that this basically he has. And then finally, he sort of lets go off it because he has to, not that he wants to, but he has to sort of, yeah,

that was the whole sort of the idea. Is it available somewhere? online so that we can have a look. It's in Vimeo. Cool. Yeah. I will get a link and edit to show notes. Oh yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. And I'm curious if I compare it to

a film course. Does it also happen that you as animation students that then you sent your films or short films to festivals? Yeah, yeah. So the way it works is you have a completed animation. And then it's basically shared to film festivals. Usually there are like film festivals for students or like any other people. I think most of the film festivals you would have to pay.

get into some of them you don't really have to and and then yeah that's i think that's one of the way of like you know getting to meet people in the industry or having sort of a bit of a networking session you know whenever you can sort of go to this um like i'd easily like that yeah yeah but i think it's it's great that you still managed uh to finish the film uh after graduated because It feels like often that people either lose motivation or don't have resources anymore, so they ended up not finishing that. So it's good that you did. Oh, yeah, thank you.

Yeah, it was like in the back of my head constantly nagging me. And I was like, oh, I have to finish this. Yeah. And how did you start thinking about, you know, starting your career once you graduate? Did you have a plan? What were you going to do? I was trying to find companies. I really like and yeah generally just applying through some websites that I found but that was a

general idea I had no clue that actually the job market I mean into the animation weren't as you know to run many so flying around so it's quite competitive it is quite competitive yeah um also doesn't help that uh i didn't finish my grader um because you know like uh we had a a quiet friend at the end of the hour yeah that was a time where you would have all these uh people from different companies coming in and oh yeah like a networking event to help you too yeah yeah and then if you like your work then they would obviously as we kept doing or you know. Okay, yeah.

So did you then decide to start freelancing or did you find a job somewhere in the end? So yeah, like I said before, I did a bit of freelancing. As in it was very little, like I worked with my friend. And they were like maybe two or three videos like, like, three minutes something video in a spam of like two years and also I was work I was working with one of the company doing like few clips of animation like to the sale animation it was not a lot of work I had to basically find like a full-time job somewhere else yeah I was working in a cafe at the time yeah for like two

and a half years or something before I landed on a motion graphic role. Okay. Just before I got my full-time motion graphics job, I did a little course in S-CAP Studio. It was about, it was the motion graphics course. But yeah, it was like, it was not easy to actually find like a proper job and sort of full-time job in animation. If you want to boost your online presents, check out our digital marketing agency called Trailblazed. You can also enroll in a Skillshare course called the 10 Tips on How to Succeed in Your Creative Career,

which was inspired by the podcast. Lastly, make sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter called Creative Spotlight to stay up to date with the show and more. Links are in the show notes. Thanks. So from this experience, is there perhaps something that you'd recommend to maybe students or people who may find themselves in such similar situation? Oh yeah. So in the beginning of like sort of trying to find jobs, it can be very demotivating, quite daunting. you know, because you

most often it's the case that you won't get any applies for the companies that you apply and just relying on sort of advertisement alone

I think it's not fully rely on that so if you like a certain company then you can go ahead and call them up or email them whatever you know like just ask them what kind of candidates they're looking for, even if they haven't advertised or anything. It's one of the ways that I actually got one of the jobs, one of the freelance jobs that way. So, yeah, be more out there, you know, go to festivals, do a lot of networking.

It's easier to get jobs through people that you know. usually and so yeah just be out there just showcase your work festivals film festivals or whatever you would like to do yeah I mean but yeah just be more again yeah sounds like be more be more proactive in general yeah yeah yeah and yeah apply to your as many jobs as you can you know I found that it's it's so much helpful if you say list the companies that you applied for and sort of you know their description or whatever so say if they come back to you then you can set the list and say oh hey you know this and that let's go through as many applications as again and the course you did

did it help you to get the job because of the skills you acquired or did you maybe meet someone who helped you to get a job or in what way did it help you? Did you mean the Muslim traffic course? Yes. I think a little bit of everything, I think. I didn't get jobs from the people that I knew in that industry in my course. But what happened was the instructor, he sort of basically helped us to make like a show reel. Basically we were doing varieties of animations, like from designing and animation to tax animation,

and tracking and stuff and three, like the same 40, a bit of each. So it kind of helped us to sort of know what kind of sort of show real generally, you know, companies look for, because they tend to look for a generalist in motion graphics, basically. And it was just, they just helped us to sort of make like a showreel that giving us feedbacks in our designs or animation. So, yeah, I think in that case, I helped in a little way. Yeah. So do you want to tell us more about the job you got afterwards? What kind of job was it? What were you doing? Maybe some projects. Oh, yeah. So it was, yeah. I forgot the place. It was quite far north. London? Yeah, well,

technically it was in London. Just the after-scress of London. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was like some small studio. Yeah, it's an agency that worked with fairly, I would say, small to medium size, I would say.

It was, yeah, like I said, pretty far. I had to travel four hours a day to get there in the first year or so. I met lovely people there. We had just one room for all the motion designers. We were five of us. And it was like an amazing environment. They were all very lovely.

We were bouncing up ideas. we were learning from each other. And probably one of the time where I actually learned life and I think I got really better really quickly there. Can you say more about some specific projects? Oh, yeah, yeah. Sorry, yeah. Totally fine.

We were working on, say, TV advertisement, some internal client content. like Xenna videos. And one of the projects that I worked with was for live events. For AT-O-P tennis. So we worked on the animation for the banners, you know. Say someone scores and they would be like, hey, so. At the time, I was like a junior old.

I was working with the senior, the head of the modern graphics. and I actually got to travel to Italy. Oh really? And yeah. But it's not as glamorous as it sounds. Was it for the tennis match? Yeah, tennis match, yeah. Okay.

So it was just going to the location and then coming back to hotel because it was fairly busy. And was it basically to see your work? Yeah, actually, yeah, I went to, so after doing all the animation, I actually sat down and what the game, one of the game, and I was like, okay, this is pretty cool. To see the whole thing sort of in a play. Because you know, like you're easily set on the computer, working on it. you wouldn't be able to properly visualize how it shows. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, just seeing the whole thing together, it was amazing. Oh, and then there was in O2, finally, the client invited us to sort of come to O2 to watch one of the games and with the animation that we made, right? And it's amazing. We were with our whole Mosulpakis team. It sounds like a great little reward for your work to see it somewhere. Yeah, exactly.

And especially on such event with plenty of people and I'm sure even some, you know, tennis stars. So it's really cool. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty, I guess that was like the highlight of my early. Yeah. So for how long did you stay in the company? I think about two and a half years. Something, yeah, about three years or something. And why did you then leave or why did you change your career from then? Oh, so it was the time where we were basically, UK was coming out of the EU.

And our company was sort of struggling, sort of, you know, struggling, sort of we need to maintain sort of most of us. And they were like, they had to let go a few other people. Unfortunately, I was one of them. And that's been a little while.

So what were the next steps? Did you then decide for freelancing or did you find other job? Oh yeah, no, I basically after that for another sort of job which I

ended up working with everything sorted but yeah right after leaving that job it took it took a while

to find another job at the time because it was like I was the Brexit era yeah yeah exactly like it was obviously a lot of the competing scenes and you know also I wanted to find a job that was more

comfortable with that I liked and and compared to how I got the first job versus how the second job was the whole process of you know going through interviews first job was like literally just one interview and I went through. And the second job was at least there were like two interviews and a bit of more processing. So it's quite interesting to see, you know, how that's a kind of development basically. Yeah, yeah. So was it like, or for how long did you stay in that second job?

It's not the one where you are now, right? because now you are a freelance. No, no, no. Interesting. It was similar to two years as well. Okay. And the first job was made redundant. And then the second one, also, I was made redundant because of COVID.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Which I think, which fortunately, I think, worked on my advantage. It was right after I left that job. I basically found a job right away, I think after a week or something, found a job right away, and it was felt that I, basically, my principles aligned more. So it was a company that sort of wanted to work on projects that are more conscious about the environment and the ethics and, you know, sustainability. and stuff and I was like oh yeah just take me take me please but yeah okay it was great that day yeah are there some projects that you can tell us about oh yeah so we worked

what was it cop 26 we did like a three minute animation about what copies and you know the whole information about COP26. We also did some animation for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Well, it's another one. World Economic Forum. We made like a seven-minute animating about future of jobs. We worked on few charities, like Creative Mile. But yeah, all in all, it was like,

Because I love to work with, say, charities and sort of companies that tend to sort of, you know, have similar. So it's a lot of fun, basically, working in this company. And then what happened if you left the company? Oh, yeah. And so after working in this company for two years, I thought, I thought, I want to. to do something on my own. Mm-hmm. I was great working with them.

We were a small company, like five or six people. We worked great. But I was like, you know, in the back of my head, I was like, oh, I want to do some try freelancing because I had never done like a full-time freelancing. And I love the idea of having my own time. and choosing my own projects and

yeah just and just managing my time however I liked because you know I wanted to say make like small stories on now

you know yeah just the idea of like having a bit more freedom of my time that's what sort of motivated me sort of you know to

And how is it, how hard is it to, more maybe not hard to find enough projects when you are freelancing? Yeah. I think I think I'm very lucky to be able to. So I've only been freelancing for like eight months. And last year I think I was quite lucky because I've got like direct. clients, say, three or four direct clients and some creative talent agency that I work with. And so I got most of my jobs from people that I knew, like companies that I worked with, like previous two, company that I worked with. And one of the jobs that I got through was from my uni friend basically because he also worked

works and it was like the art director there and so yeah it's like because 2023 I recall like one of the few of the moston designers that I met they told me it was not the best year you know yeah to be a freelancer because obviously it was very very quiet but I was lucky enough to basically have some sort of connections and you know and get some jobs to just give me float but i think generally speaking it's good to know people in the industry and sort of you know good that they know you too then how you work and if they like your work obviously they're going to pick you over someone that they totally don't know about yeah and and again are there some projects that are worth

mentioning that maybe they were interesting or you specifically enjoyed it for some reason? There was one project I worked with it. It was a character animation, just animation, not the design. So basically I had to rig the characters and animate them. It was like a projection on a plane sort of book so every time you flip the the book basically the new animation would come up on each side and I think we only had like a maybe a week and a half to work on it and it was like five or six scenes we had to animate and the clients were not super easy I in my client's client were not super easy but we finally got through it and yeah it was like pretty fun to work on it but i think that's probably one of my highlights last year is that somewhere on your website or

portfolio so that we can have a look no not yet i haven't put it there yet but i'll put it there at some point. I'll be curious to have some logos. Yeah. I'll put it there, but I'll probably have to get rid of some lovers and stuff. Yeah, of course. Because apparently I'm not allowed to do that. Yeah.

And can you introduce a bit a process of how you work? Basically, when client gives you, I don't know, some instructions on what they want. and basically how you start if you, I don't know, draw it on paper and put it into a program and what does it look like until the final product? Yeah, sure.

So it depends on the projects like how I have to start like say it's like a very start of the project if they have like a script or some sort of description on the project

say if they have a script then I would obviously ask them how long they want certain projects to be and and then there's a process of the visualization where I would have a bit of like a quick storyboard like sketched storyboard to ask them if they're on board about the whole visual sort of in a narrative and then that would be a place of storyboard as a moodboarding and style of framing. So doing that into style frames and basically option as well like if they're okay with it then then final

final sort of the phase would be the animation. Yeah. And the similar process you would I would go through the clients if they'd have the like certain sort of steps and you know, So the anima, a bit of the animator, and again, like, you know, I think what's letting the client know if they're okay with, you know. Yeah, addressing the feedback. Yeah, addressing, getting the feedback from the client. Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Like, you know, you do the animation and then send it all with the client. Yeah. And what software and? What tools do you use? It's some Adobe stuff or what is it? Oh yeah, yeah. So I only tend to work with 2D animation. So usually the main to go to is afterfax.

Photosop and illustrate. These are my go-to software. So my motion design were three of these software. three of these software tend to fulfill all the stuff that I want to do. Unless you want to try something new, like there's few free software online, like Krita, it's like a drawing, hand-brown animating software. Yep. But yeah, just Adobe Sweet if you know how to use afterfax, Photoshop and Illustrator and maybe a bit of a premiere,

That would be great to use of after the good workflow and the industry. And is there some kind of, let's say, dream project that you would want to work on? Maybe specific type of project or specific company or the client? Oh, very good question. Yeah, I would love to work with charities. like I said before, like projects that are more conscious about the environment and the ethics. Well, like sustainability or veganism, I'm a vegan myself and I'm quite passionate about it. I know a lot of people don't have good views about veganism,

but I think it sort of aligns with sustainability and sort of in the whole sort of ethics and the environment. And yeah, I would love to work with like charities or any project that's aligned with these views. Or like small short stories that's quite inspiring, you know, to work on. So if anyone from charities is listening, reach out to Rishi. Yeah, that would be amazing. I mean, I wanted to search for charities that I want to work with. but yeah please reach out to me

if you've got any any stories that you want to make Rishi what do you do when you run out of ideas and creativity how do you basically recharge

good question again it's all about inputting ideas I think so if you run out of ideas It's just going and exploring, like, you know, finding different animators or artists the way they do the work, the process. And yeah, just like I think what I tend to do is I go to Pinterest or motionographer. that's one of the main website and just go through videos

just because they got tons of inspiring videos or Vimeo you know they got like all this stuff videos and even just like you know sort of just having like a very rough sketch would be amazing to do

because you know when you have ideas like most of the time you would I think it's mostly like in brand thinking oh the idea is horrible so you know I tend to do that my brain tends to do that whenever I come up with some ideas are horrible but I think putting that in sort of like a very quick sketch to see the whole the whole thing like I think it's quite helpful just breaking down certain elements that you don't like and just like highlighting the things that you like. I think that's sort of how I usually do too. And I know we spoke before about anime, but have you got perhaps some animators or specific films that you follow as your inspiration?

I don't have specific animators. I'm terrible with names as well, so I can't recall. I just like, because I think now we are at the age where we can sort of see a lot of animators, talented animators everywhere, pretty much. So I just tend to follow like whoever has like, um, whoever cuts cut off my eyes. A lot of the Instagram is, uh, yeah, I follow them mostly in Instagram. Um, it would be amazing if I could group them in Instagram and then have just

feeds from them, but. Yeah, to create a separate profile. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also like in LinkedIn, like, you know, you can't group, group for most of design or any creative right so i want to try to do that but whenever i see like a a really good content i tend to save it in instagram and if i have to i can go back to me and just look at whatever i save yeah and just as we will be finishing soon um what what are your basically plans for the future? Have you got any specific roles or projects or where do you see

yourself in a few years? So I haven't actually, it's not like a concrete plan at the moment, but I do want to make short stories like say like a minute or a minute or a set. second stories. Like, what I've done, like, recently I've done little animations called My Dream.

So, like I said before, it's just like I want to work on projects like I'm walking to the body environment and the ethics and maybe explore more into charities and helping them

you know, making those stories come to life and it would be amazing to have actually to find people who have similar interests and say a mason designer animator or like illustrator or whatever and collaborate with them yeah let's see hopefully someone will be listening and oh yeah great yeah that would be great yeah that would be great yeah I was just going to say speaking of this, if you can or if you want to say where people can find you, reach out to you or connect with you, or even promote your work. Oh yeah. You can find me on Instagram. It's RaiMation. It's literally my show name and animation merge together. Or, sorry. Or my website, RishiRai.com.

and got pretty much, if you go that, you can pretty much find me in my Instagram or LinkedIn. Yeah, I will share it. And then in a final few minutes, is there something that you want to add, you want to share or something I forgot to ask you? I don't have much, but I think one of the things I want to share was being in a creative field, being in a competitive environment. it's not easy sort of to go through, you know, such a time where I was like, maybe I had to try a different career while I was trying to find a job. But it's important to be more consistent and sometimes go easy on yourself, you know, while you search for these jobs.

and I think it's easy to have like imposter syndrome for all the artists, you know. I thought I was the only one who was having it at the time, but it's actually quite a lot of creative people that have it. One of the, like some of them are amazing, you know, animators or illustrators. But, yeah, just to know, you're not alone basically you know whoever is trying to get in the industry and it's hard to get your foot at the door but after you after you secure that then it's it is much much easier and from yeah i agree i think it's a great point because it's very competitive

hard to stay in especially with all kinds of factors that are outside of your control and With, as we discussed before with social media where you see everyone in the best light, it might be hard not to compare yourself to others. Yeah, exactly. And even now, like, you know, even if you have a lot of experience, I don't know if it's the economy or the time of the year. It's not as easy to like, you know, find jobs. Like one of my friends is trying to find a job full-time, a job in. most on graphics and it's not it's not like an easy task and yeah and a lot of freelancers also like looking for jobs and I'm pretty quiet at the moment as

well and like Ted and all that I've stopped playing one but I think it's how usually things are you know like quiet period and then like busy period yeah I agree it's it's important to always through sometimes. Yeah, I think it's a great message to finish. So thank you, Rishi. Thank you very much. Joining us, it was a pleasure.

We will wish you good luck. And I will make sure to add all the links to the show notes so that people can have a look and even reach out to you. And thank you, thank you for joining. So thank you. Thank you, thank you, Thomas. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast app, get in touch to provide your feedback or share any ideas for future guests.

Thank you and see you soon.