Seize The Play!

Cooking Up Chaos w/ Samantha Mireles On 'Suck it Smash'

• Spillt • Season 1 • Episode 3

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Ever wondered how creatives face off with Impostor Syndrome while while facing the blank page?

Get ready for a deep dive into the artistic efforts of Samantha Mireles, one of Spillt's phenomenal art directors, as she takes us through her incredible journey of creating an open-ended project for Adult Swim.

Hear how Samantha, armed with her love for Disney and a knack for baking, conceived and developed Suck it Smash. Drawing her inspiration from diverse sources like Nintendo's Kirby and the game Bouncy Smash from IV Studios, she crafted a story that's both hilarious and gross.

Joining forces with Taylor Cox, they created a unique visual style that seamlessly blended 2D and 3D elements. As we talk with Samantha she reveals how finding the right collaborator can skyrocket your career to amazing heights.

PRO TIP: take a look at the actual working boards Samantha assembled using Milanote.

Sit back and listen to this deep dive that is brimming with ideas on creativity, collaboration, and some unique behind-the-scenes insights into what it's like working from an open brief for a major network. 

Join the creative conversation on all things animation and motion design:

Check out our studio website for Spillt's latest and greatest work!

Until the next time, SEIZE THE PLAY!

Samantha Mireles:

Um, yeah, I definitely, you know. I guess I could say like I have been posturing syndrome, right, and so it's like I do get scared sometimes with concepts like that. But I think the nice thing about this project is that you know there was communication from the start.

Ryan Summers:

The voice you just heard is that of Samantha Mireles, one of Spillt's awesome art directors. Now, who's Samantha? Besides being an awesome animator, designer and art director, she also happens to be the in-house expert on anything that has to do with Disney. That's right, I thought I knew everything about the Disney parks, but when Samantha starts talking, she puts me to shame. She also happens to be an amazing baker as well. We're hearing from Samantha today because I want to talk to her all about the process that she went through for Suck it Smash, a really awesome project that she developed all on her own from scratch for our friends over at Adult Swim. Now how often have you ever had a client call you and say hey, got some time, want to make something for us? Just do whatever you want. Now I know what that sounds like. It sounds like a dream job, but it also can sometimes turn into a nightmare because that blank page. It could be pretty frightening. Let's check in with Samantha and find out how she got over her fears.

Samantha Mireles:

Yeah. So I'm right there with you. They definitely like they're such a fun client to work with. They don't give you constraints, like their pitches are just open-ended. For me, I was really excited. I've been fortunate enough to work with Adult Swim in the past and they've always been just one of my favorite clients because they just really trust the artist, their process and they just let you run with it. It's just so much fun because, like you said, it is scary to have such an open-ended pitch, but it's also fun because you get to challenge yourself and just have fun and just go with it and see what comes out at the end.

Ryan Summers:

That's what was so exciting about this one, because the show was originally attached to an Adult Swim show, to the Eric Andre show, and it eventually morphed and changed into something else. Everybody on our team was given an opportunity to pitch, so it was really cool to see, with a completely open platform for coming up with ideas, where everybody went. Can you tell us a little bit about what your specific idea was and what were you thinking of? What were your influences? What led you to the place that you ended up landing in?

Samantha Mireles:

Yes, like you said, this was tied to Eric Andre and so I had never heard of him. I knew of him but I never watched his skits, and so I started watching a couple of stuff on YouTube and I was like, oh man, this guy really likes to involve food. I was like, okay, I want to play with food. One of the biggest inspiration for this was Kirby.

Samantha Mireles:

Like Nintendo's Kirby and I have this image or this gif of him that I use all the time, where he's sitting on a dining table and just inhaling an insane amount of food all at once, and I thought that was really funny and I thought I could tie that in with how Eric Andre plays with food. I kind of just started there and I knew that I wanted this spot to be fun and cute and this character to be malicious and create chaos in a city, which was awesome to be able to just like. It was so open-ended and that character had nothing to do with Eric Andre, but it was still just like a fun concept to go with. And then like, just like Kirby being such a big inspiration, like I knew, I wanted to be like a side-scrolling, you know left-to-right type game, and one of the first things that popped to mind was Ivy's Studio Bouncy Smash.

Ryan Summers:

Now I have to cut in here and tell you if you've never been IV Studio's website, you really should go take a look, because they're a huge inspiration for us, not only because they make great motion design for clients like CBS, Reddit and Bad Robot, but they spend a lot of time making their own stuff as well. Bouncy Smash that's an iOS game that we've been addicted to for years, but they didn't stop just there. They also make crazy things like deck-building, board games like Moon Rakers, and animated shorts and graphic novels for their own IP. You really have to go and check out the page that they have on their site for something called the Carrier. It's essentially a pitch for their own TV show. You find them a huge inspiration for our own work, because they're really leading the way for people who want to make their own work as much as they want to make work for other clients. You should check them out.

Samantha Mireles:

And I just watched their trailer a ton of times and I just thought it was so fun and dynamic and that's just how I wanted my spot to feel. I think we achieved that. I think it turned out to be a really fun spot.

Ryan Summers:

Yeah, you guys nailed it. It's so funny because the whole team presented ideas and they were all over the map. If you've watched Eric Andre, there's a lot of points of entry trying to figure out what can you do to capture. Capture him without actually showing him. That was the one note I think we did get from the client initially. It's like please, please, make anything, just don't show him, because it would be a lot easier to just get it through. So you have that. That kind of was a weird additional wrinkle, but it's funny because your idea and my idea were the ones that went through and they both were built around kind of being gross, being ridiculous, and food, which we didn't talk about it at that time, but it ended up being the same. So so that's kind of what happened.

Ryan Summers:

We pitched all these different ideas. Everybody had different ways of pitching. Some people had storyboards, some people had reference, some people wrote scripts, but at the end of the day, it was Samantha and I that both were kind of tasked with cool it's pitched. Now can you show us what it's going to actually be? For me, it was really exciting while I was developing mine. Your process was so fast. I was shocked to see like how fast you were coming with ideas and you're kind of whittling down the references and that kind of research you done. But how did you approach it Once it was told to you like cool, you won, now you got to go make it. How did you kind of flesh the whole idea out?

Samantha Mireles:

Yeah, so I had a ton of fun with this.

Samantha Mireles:

Like I went straight to like what does this character look like?

Samantha Mireles:

Because I knew that I wanted the spot to revolve around a character, and so for me it was like you know, like I mentioned earlier, I wanted him to be cute, I wanted it to be playful and squishy and like malicious, and so I started like kind of just creating what that form looked like.

Samantha Mireles:

And I think at the beginning I kind of started like over complicating him by like adding arms and legs, and so I really simplified him and he ended up being this like little gum drop guy that would be just like slid and elongated and jumped. And so once I got like a few just like sketches of what I wanted him to look like, I threw that into like cinema and I started playing with like textures, because I knew I wanted him to be, you know, glittery and transparent. And so I thought it was a lot of fun to just kind of, like you know, bring this character to life before I started like storyboarding anything. And so once I got the character kind of like you know, nailed down, I jumped into Milanote, which Milanote is always so much fun just because you get to see your whole space like your creative space and you know it's very interactive. But from there like I think that's where I had the most fun was just doing like written descriptions of like a shot list.

Ryan Summers:

Now, we've never had a sponsor before here, but if we did, we probably all want it to be Milanote, because it's completely changed the game for us at the studio, for how we all collaborate together in a really visual way. It's really different than anything else we've ever used, and we use it for almost everything, whether it's capturing notes for a meeting, putting reference together for decks or even doing something like figuring out a game plan for a podcast. Milanote is something that I can't suggest more highly as a way to get everything in your head down on a page in a way that everyone can comment and see and share and be inspired by the entire team all at the same time. We used it like crazy on this Adult Swim project, so much so that if you go to the show notes, we're even sharing a link to all the boards that we built for this project. Go and take a look.

Samantha Mireles:

I don't know if you remember, but like my whole Milanote, the way I populated it, instead of going straight into like storyboards or illustrations, I just threw in a bunch of gifts for like just to showcase that energy that I wanted. And I had a lot of energy and I had a lot of fun with that and so, like, if you were to open my Milanote you'd see a ton of like Dragon Ball Z, Super Saiyan, like you know, big old moments, and I thought that really like helped sell the idea for it, for myself at least. And then once I got that done, just like a visual representation of what I wanted to look like, and I started storyboarding and I actually sat with my boyfriend, Cody and him and I kind of just like you know what are some fun key moments that we could do. And for those of you that don't know, like, we originally had our character Chase poop, and that was a little too much for adults ones, so they swapped it out for a couple.

Ryan Summers:

That was the funniest thing, that of all the lines that we couldn't cross, which this one and mine both have a lot of like pushing limits, of things Weird and gross and strange and has like that kind of like a red and stimpy level of like fun. The chasing of poop emoji was just too much Like adult swim was like even that that's the line, that adult swim kind of like we can't have a kid watch this and think twice about it. It was funny that that's what broke it.

Samantha Mireles:

Yeah. So then, like you know, once I started doing the storyboards, I threw them into an animatic and you know, the spot was 15 seconds and so when I originally started designing out everything, I thought I had enough. But when I put in the 15 seconds, I'm like okay, this is really slow. And then, yeah, I jam packed it, like I doubled up on frames and I was like this is feeling good. And then, once it came down to like production and Taylor Cox, you know he came in to animate, we realized that, like whoa, we had too much.

Ryan Summers:

Yeah, I love seeing that because I felt like I had I had the opposite problem. I felt like I was like packing it too full, too full, too full, and then I had to cut it back down to 15. And then eventually we were able to be like, oh, we can make a 30. Oh, cool. But it's interesting whenever you approach these like, especially when things aren't script driven, when it's just like oh, I have these ideas and I have visuals and what could I do? Like that transition from, like, the written ideas to the drawings and then the drawings timed out, and then the timed out drawings to animation. It's amazing how much it's like you almost remake your whole piece three or four times, even in a 15 second piece, how it kind of changes. You know, along the way, was there ever a moment where you considered doing the character in 2D? Because I know you had done some drawings and some sketches and there were some references there. But what pushed you towards going towards like the 3D? Simba 40 wrote.

Samantha Mireles:

That's actually a really good question. I think I just wanted him to feel, you know, like three dimensional and like I had in my head like the glittery look, and I just didn't think of it as a 2D. The 2D aspect for me was the background and his facial expression, but the 3D, I think, because originally, when this was I guess not that I knew those or I thought it was going to be a 30 second, but I had these crazy moments where, like his head was smashing and like that, I always just pictured 3D. So, yeah, my head, just like I am definitely a 2D animator. I think it was just one of those. You know, this was an open project and I was just kind of experimenting, so I just wanted to do something in 3D over the 2D. But it was nice because I was able to bring the 2D back in with the, you know, the face and backgrounds.

Ryan Summers:

Was there any trepidation or fear, knowing that you would be directing a project that would require you know tool sets or skills, or you know things that you didn't personally do yourself?

Samantha Mireles:

Yeah, definitely, you know, I always, I guess I could say like I have been postured syndrome, right, and so it's like I do get scared sometimes with like concepts like that. But I think the nice thing about this project is that, you know, there was communication from the start that we were basically able to just pitch any idea without feeling any constraints or like working around things that we're not familiar with or lack of experience in, and so from the start, like I just knew, you know, I wasn't going to shy away from the 3D, and actually worked out really nice, because Taylor Cox, like he, did all the animation and then I was able to then open it up and kind of just like tweak things here and there Because, like you said, I don't see myself as a 3D artist, but I can definitely work in it. Like you know, I built out this character and like I can texture, I'm just I'm just slow at it, right, and so it's like I just need more experience.

Ryan Summers:

But I think we had a really great conversation about the idea that because you know the fundamentals and you understand storytelling and you have an idea in your head full of you know, references and things that you love, you are the perfect person to direct this. And I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with what that actually means. And I think we even had a conversation at one point where you're like I think we're going to have to get somebody else to direct this because I'm not going to be the one who can animate the character or rig it or do all those different things. And I thought it was a great moment where we're like no, that's exactly why I wanted you directing it, because being able to have that step where you take two steps above and look down over an entire thing and can distribute the assignment or understand how to collaborate with someone and, like you said, like Taylor was the perfect person.

Ryan Summers:

I thought that he was the perfect person to bring in because of his skill set, but also his affinity for the same things you love. We'll talk to him a little bit later, but he loves Kirby, he loves video games, he loves side scrollers, he loves that aesthetic of that kind of like take a 2D design and stick a bicycle pump to it and inflate it where it feels like. It's like this beautifully designed, inflated 3D thing. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like, because I know there was that trepidation, a little bit of fear. But talk a little bit more about what was it like working with Taylor as a specific artist, and did you feel intimidated or more comfortable after talking to him? I think we even talked for that first kind of like interview session. Like Taylor, you're the right person. How did you feel after that first hour of just like hey, is this the right job? Do you want to jam on this with me?

Samantha Mireles:

Yeah, no, when we first met him, I know, when he sent his portfolio, I went through it and it was the I don't know what year it was, but the dash bash Spot that he worked on and I'm like this is it? Like? This is exactly what I envision. It's that like 2d and 3d mixture and you know I watched his reel a few times and just like his opener with like the the race car just going through, I thought that was, you know, exactly what this project needed and I think him and I worked like really well together.

Samantha Mireles:

He's a very you know, we like had a really good communication amongst ourselves and he's very collaborative and we just had a bunch of like dns coming back and forth, like how are we gonna do the backgrounds and how are we gonna like incorporate things, and I think, overall, like he he was, he adapted very quickly and was just great about you know, dealing with like my internal notes and the client's internal notes or an internal notes, but their notes and just like came up with solutions and Just seem like I just kind of handed him off just this. Really, I don't say terrible, but just like not a great Model to work off of and just to see the way he like stretched and elongated it and it's like I learned a lot, just like opening up his scenes and seeing how he works. So I think, you know, it's just like a really good Partnership to have and just like I learned a lot from him and I hope that you know same for him. Um, but yeah, I definitely look forward to working with him, you know, in the future.

Ryan Summers:

I think I think it's great advice for people listening, because it is kind of the ethos of what I feel like makes spilt so special Is that that you can get better by doing projects on your own, but you can really move up the next level only by being on a deadline with other collaborators and it the speed that you can go like I always think about how Taylor loves like Mario cartony, I think, even in his demo reel you're talking about has that shot where it kind of goes over those, those triangle speed boosts.

Ryan Summers:

I always think of those moments when you collaborate with people that just like connect, that you can do a speed boost like that in your career and your skill sets, in your confidence, by just working with someone else. That's the right person and it I feel like so many times that's the opposite of what a lot of people in the industry think is the right path. They have to learn it all, they have to do it all. Their demo Ro can only be full of stuff that only they've done. But I really want to encourage people that it is the opposite right like it. Like I think we got a great piece that if you look back at your initial sketches, right, your initial just black and white sketches and then you see the final piece. That spirit of the initial idea is there, but it's just been plus pushed and polished from where it kind of launched.

Samantha Mireles:

Yes, how do you?

Ryan Summers:

how do you feel about the end product, how do you feel about the final like? When you look at that, when you look at where you started, miranda, are there any surprises or is anything we're like, oh man, if we could only have had Another week, because you guys, you guys knocked this thing out super fast. On our side, we were like I have no idea how Taylor and Samantha are doing this right now.

Samantha Mireles:

Yeah, no, for me, I think, for you know, 15 seconds. It turned out to be like a really fun spot and pretty spot on from what I had envisioned. Like I think that we didn't, you know, get away from the first animatic too much. I do think like if it had been the 30 seconds, we could have added a bit more of those like dynamic scenes that I had talked about earlier, about like the head smashing and like him growing Cause, like I think one of my big pitches was like yeah, I picture him like those used car flailing man, like sales tactics that they use, and so I think that's the only thing that was, I don't want to say missing, but we just didn't have the time, like within the 15 seconds. But overall, like the look, the animation, the style, it's all pretty spot on and I was super happy with it.

Ryan Summers:

Well, there you go. That's the inside look and how you take the blank page and turn into something as fun as something called suck it smash. That's actually the title that we ended up coming up for this crazy piece, and I think it really hints at the fun that's to be had and getting the work done. All too often we look at the blank page and we stare at it and we wonder how are we going to get through the day, how are we going to get to the finish line, and I think Samantha's given you some of those clues just from listening to our process here. One I think this is something we're going to talk about a lot more often here is that imposter syndrome isn't really something to be defeated. It's more like something that you can actually become a lot more friendly with and speaking of friends, the other thing I think we really learned from this process that's built was that it's so important to find collaborators that speak the same language as you and understand where you're trying to go.

Ryan Summers:

Something that we see all too often are artists just being brought on jobs, almost like their numbers on an assembly line. But if this job if suck it smash taught us anything, was that sometimes finding the fun in getting the job done is more about treating people like people and making sure that there's a connection there, and I think it really showed in a job like suck it smash. You can see the fun pouring out of every direction. And when you hear Samantha talk someone who was probably a little bit nervous, if not scared having that right person who she knew spoke the same language and had the same interest and even when they weren't working we're thinking about the same kinds of things that Samantha was thinking about. It made all the difference on the project and for the client, and hopefully that's what this podcast is doing for you too.

Ryan Summers:

If you want to find the fun in getting work done, I really hope that you continue along this journey with us and be part of the creative conversation for all things animation and motion design. Until the next time, go out there and seize the play. Seize the play is a spilt studio podcast. If you have an idea of someone you'd like us to talk to or a topic you'd like to hear more about, drop us a line at play at spiltcom. That's S-P-I-L-L-T dot com, and if you like what you hear, subscribe.

Samantha Mireles:

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