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Cream Studios: Taking Stage Fright To The MAX
Impostor syndrome, fear of the blank page, and the rush of adrenaline (and fear) that comes with stage fright?
Amanda Russell and Ruth Newberry of Cream Studios have been there, done that.
Amanda unpacks her struggle with imposter syndrome and the anxiety of public speaking, while Ruth talks about being her behind-the-scenes support system. In this candid conversation, they reveal how even the most confident artists can find public speaking daunting, and the triumph of overcoming such fears.
Amanda and Ruth are not just about creating beautiful things for incredible clients.
They are pioneers, fostering a stronger sense of community and transparency in the industry. Their new initiatives - the Creative Codex, is aimed at fostering meaningful conversations about the very words we use to define the motion design business.
Take a look at Amanda's Adobe MAX 2024 talk here.
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I didn't listen to the imposter syndrome that was, you know, telling me like this is stupid, nobody's going to connect with this. It was that was present, you know, days before I was. Like you know, maybe I should just rewrite it again.
Speaker 2:All right, I want you all to close your eyes and imagine your worst fear. As a working artist, you thinking about it, you wouldn't be alone if what came to mind was having to walk onto a stage and stand in front of a couple hundred strangers to give a talk for the very first time. There's something about public speaking that puts fear into even the most confident of artists, but that's just what today's guests did, and the results of that talk are still reverberating. Take a listen as we chat with Amanda Russell and Ruth Newberry of Cream Studios as they talk about how and why Amanda agreed to get in on stage at Adobe Max this year. We've added a link to the show notes to Amanda's talk at Max.
Speaker 2:If you take the time to watch it, you'll witness someone demonstrating some deep vulnerability or giving some insights on a particular career that isn't heard from that often. Join me as we check in with Amanda and Ruth to find out if they could find the fun in talking to a couple hundred complete strangers. Let's not just say speaking. You were a luminary speaker, amanda. Very fancy, which is more than just given on stage. Was this the first Adobe Max for the two of you going, or have you represented Cream before as a studio?
Speaker 1:No, we've never gone.
Speaker 3:This is our first time at Adobe. Altogether, we're LA, oh really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was both of our. Yeah, it was our first time. I feel like we've been so many places together, so that was unusual to actually have a new place like LA to experience together. And my husband, adam, even said that's so cool that you and Ruth could do that like as a team.
Speaker 2:So it was really neat.
Speaker 1:And we really liked LA. It was a different kind of place but it was fun and, as far as Adobe Max goes, never been. It was amazing and, yeah, had no idea what to expect. It was wild.
Speaker 2:Ruth, what was your expectation going in, having never been there? It's 10,000 other artists, creatives, people working in our industry related industries. What did you expect?
Speaker 3:I think I expected just the big like Dash Bash or like Blend Fest or something like that, with other industries involved. It wasn't like that at all, but it was still enjoyable. I think I'd like to go back when Amanda's not speaking, so that we don't have that pressure and we can just kind of go and be one of the people to enjoy it.
Speaker 2:It's amazing to me that you said you want to go a time when Amanda's not speaking, because it sounds like the two of you were almost on stage together In terms of the amount of work. I think Ruth was in the front row because I remember you calling out to her while you're on stage. Talk a little bit about just that experience. When did you get the call, how did you start prepping and what was your headspace right before you get on stage like that?
Speaker 1:So I keep a red like rotary phone by my bed and it's the Adobe Max phone. And they called and it was amazing. No, it was not like that at all.
Speaker 3:Like a bat signal, but for Adobe.
Speaker 1:It was actually it was the beginning of this year and it was a friend of a friend who connected me with Adobe Max and right out of the gate they just said, hey, we want you to be a luminary speaker. And that was like it. And I was like, I mean, the email that I wrote back to that mutual friend, can I cuss on this show? Okay, it said, holy, the email back To the mutual friend. It was just a big surprise. And then I said, yes, because it's just been a goal of mine to get better at this thing. I think that and I talked about it in my speech but I really feel like everybody should get better at this level of communication because we all have a message to spread. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to commit to this.
Speaker 1:Then I immediately started freaking out. I had, I think, maybe like eight months to prep and I rewrote it I think five or six times at least, redid my keynote at least five or six times, including two nights before my speech. I completely redesigned everything and this is an hour long speech with a very heavy keynote slide. So Ruth was there while I was freaking out. It's just my process of doing revisions and freaking out and not believing in myself and then finally pulling through. But I will say this I did not expect to need help like assistance, but I did. And Ruth this is why she is just my ride or die Like she, without asking, without anything. Every morning she's like I'm going to go downstairs, I'm going to get you coffee, I'm going to grab pastries or whatever. She literally helped. She would carry things for me. I felt like I needed to pay her. It was the sweetest, most genuine. I would not have been able to do that without her. I know it so thank you, honey.
Speaker 3:I really appreciate it. I was just stage-mombing her hard because I don't have kids, so like this is my chance to care for someone else. Also, I just I love to travel so much and meet new people that she has all of these opportunities. So I feel extremely lucky to be able to be the tag along and be shaking your head and rolling her eyes. But you know, I do what I can, I guess, but also I'm very proud of her. Like she's doing stuff that I don't really want to do. I don't want to be up on a stage in front of people, so she can do that for me. I'll talk to her about the things. I'll just mention, if you can say the words.
Speaker 2:I think that's what's so fascinating, though, about Cream the fact that you have a kind of like a three headed creative director slash owner leadership model. Even when I finally met the two of you for the first time in New York, I thought it was so fascinating that, ruth, you came along and it was almost like Cream was getting double the experience with the same amount of time, because you were going off and on your own little missions of getting like inspiration and checking out bookstores which we'll talk a little bit more about later and see museums, and I feel like the two of you are almost like joined at the hip but then at the same time going off and like kind of collecting all of this energy and inspiration and experience. And that all comes right back to Cream. And it feels so cool that, even like in building the speech and presenting the speech, this feels like a totally different way of setting up a studio creatively.
Speaker 1:Well, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to everyone because it works really well for us and it just I think we know we got lucky in that. Yeah, we're very aware, but we're all friends, we hang out. You know we don't get to hang out as much as we want to, but Ruth and I travel more than any other friend of mine. You know, like we like each other genuinely and we laugh and we have weird sense of humor and so like we crack each other up and get gross and it's fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you have to do that when you're in a hotel room together the whole time like very close quarters, especially at Adobe Math.
Speaker 1:Right, so it's just fun for us.
Speaker 3:Let's be clear, though like she did the bulk of the work on the speech, like I was just the support system, I was the pastry getter, and but I mean this woman, she was. Yes, she tried to redo it the whole thing two days beforehand, which I would never have gone, for if I were actually the one in it, I would have geared her into like going let's use the things that we've already been working on for the past nine months, but I would wake up when we were sharing a hotel room, so, like she was on the other bed, I would wake up in the middle of the night and just kind of see the glow of the laptop from the other side of the room, and I would. Part of me was like, okay, I should tell her to get some sleep, because that's not going to be good. The other part of me was just like, okay, just pretend you're asleep and don't interrupt her, just let her keep going. And that's what I did.
Speaker 2:I feel like if you care about what you're saying, not just for yourself, but what the audience is going to take from something this is the way it goes. You obsess about it, you question it and at any given point, somewhere between two months to two days, before you throw it all away because everything getting that point that fear, that trepidation, that imposter syndrome it all adds up to the. There's a revelation of like. This is what it's about. My favorite thing about the whole speech when you watch it is pay attention to the camera person following you, and it was so much fun to just be like the camera person is, like here and here and here, because there's so much energy. I felt like all that energy and that frustration or fear or whatever was bottled up and it was literally coming out as you're talking. But it came out in a really unique way that I really appreciate. Like I felt like you were searching for people to be speaking to individual faces, looking for head nods or laughs while you were talking.
Speaker 1:Totally so. Yes to all of that. I have terrible presentation anxiety, just terrible anxiety overall, and I talk about that in my speech, and so this is a hurdle that I never thought. First of all, I didn't think anybody would give me this opportunity Like why? But also it was an opportunity for me to grow Like that's what I wanted and I, at the same time, I have valuable information that I'm just starting to realize can help so many people, and I think I withheld that for a long time because I didn't know my own value period. You know, you just kind of like think oh well, everybody else knows this. Actually they don't. Once I spoke at Camp MoGraph, I had a lot of people just kind of talking to me and having a lot of revelations Like what I need to say is actually going to directly affect someone else. So that empowered me to actually step foot on that stage.
Speaker 2:If it was all about me.
Speaker 1:If I had to just give my origin story or just talk about the studio, I probably wouldn't have done it at that time, because it's too much about me. I wanted to help people there and I was so rewarded by the conversations afterwards, so many amazing people that came up to me after the talk and said hey, I connected with you on this thing and I connected with you on that thing, so I couldn't have asked for a better outcome. You know, I know I have to get better at preparation 100%. But I'm so glad that I did it because now I can focus on that. Before it was just all about the nerves and everything. So I'm going to say a couple things about my process and yes, I did the revision thing over and over again. No-transcript. I had a message I knew I wanted to say, but I didn't really come up with a game concept. I converted my journey into a game. I didn't come up with that until three weeks before I stepped on stage. I had eight months.
Speaker 2:I was hoping you weren't going to say two days before. That was. My question was did the game concept come up two days before? And that's why you had to stay up so late.
Speaker 1:No, I really wanted to redesign everything, though Then I needed to reformat it. It's a lot, way more than I thought. I wanted to pack in as much as I could. I didn't pack in as much as I wanted, but that's the break. I'm going to shout out to Noel Honig because he said he told me just rest assured that a keynote is never done, it's just due.
Speaker 1:I was like I think I love that because it takes a little bit of the heat off. It doesn't have to be perfect For what we create. We usually aim for perfection. All the revisions and deadlines and all that. It was like okay, no, I can have a conversation with the audience and look at them directly. If I need to make an excuse and tell them the truth about why my keynote isn't fully finished, then I can just do that. Live, they're people. It did not occur to me ever that I did not have to be perfect on stage until then. It felt so good to not be perfect and just expose myself to everyone with my clothes on and just be real. I think everyone responded to that in a positive way. I hope I gave permission to other people to just be themselves.
Speaker 2:I feel like that was the biggest takeaway I took from your talk was you allowed not only yourself to talk about what it's like to look in the mirror. You also allowed the audience to look at themselves too, because to me, I think this is a pro tip anybody who ever has to talk on stage and they don't know what to talk about, do a speech, about doing a speech, because I think everyone in that audience will feel this immediate empathy of like, oh my god, I don't want to ever have to do this. I think it's one of the best ways to start thinking about how to get on stage and talk with other people.
Speaker 1:Well, let me just talk about the irony here, because this was my second speaking engagement ever like a live situation like that, and so I had this idea and I'm like so many times I would go why am I choosing this? As if I know what the hell I'm talking about, but then I kept referencing myself. I don't have to be the speaker coach. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not giving speaker tips. I'm not saying you know, keep your voice up, or what. It's not about that. It's about having the confidence and it's finding yourself and having the confidence to first of all say yes and to be interesting enough, genuinely, authentically, because you're putting yourself out there into the world, and then those opportunities come to you. So it's not you kind of trying to hustle and like find these things, it's really all about just like putting your true self out there for everyone else to accept or reject, whatever it is, and then from there you're going to see how things change dramatically for the better.
Speaker 3:It's about finding your people by putting your true self out there. It's funny because on our website we've always had this quote, since day one. It's about finding your tribe, and that's how Dave, amanda and I felt when we first met.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like we're very lucky as artists when we can find those people that every time I talk to you, I get more excited about what I have to do. Yeah, or, every time I talk to you, I feel like I have more energy than when I came into the conversation and I really do feel like the ripples of like when you talk, you can stand back a couple of steps and observe it. You did a talk that was probably uncomfortable and scary and fearful. You're literally seeing the immediate effects of it, which is, I think you know it's so rewarding, but it also I don't know how you feel, how both of you feel, but it makes you want to do it more. It makes you want to find other people that you can lift up to then do it as well, which is kind of why we're doing the podcast.
Speaker 3:One thing that I'd like to share, which I don't think Amanda even knows this. So after after his speech was done, we went back to the hotel and we were just kind of sitting in the lounge area with a friend and she was getting all of these messages telling her how the speech had affected people, or like from people, how the speech had affected them, and one of them, I believe, was from Casey, from Mothers of MoGraph, and Amanda burst out crying like didn't tell me what anything was, and I grabbed my camera. She didn't see it. I was kind of like I put my hand on the table with the camera on and got her reaction to reading this, this email from Casey, from Mothers of MoGraph, and she's trying not to cry, but it was the most adorable thing ever.
Speaker 1:OK, well, I'm going to try to talk now, but I'm going to get through it. So something that nobody knows, really, besides the people that were in the deck. No one knew that I was going to be talking about them in the ways that I did, but with some of the more personal stories with Joey Kornman School of Motion podcast, mothers of MoGraph, they had no idea that I would be pulling them in with such vulnerable stories. So when I got off that stage, the reactions were amazing. Sorry, I'm going to try not to cry, but that was it. It was so sweet.
Speaker 2:No, it's okay. This is why we do this stuff right. You don't ever get a chance to measure did I do good? Did I move somebody? That's our goal, that I think most people would consider themselves like an artist for a career, you want to do something that connects and moves and changes people, so I think it's fine to cry when you find out that you did it right. You actually accomplished it.
Speaker 1:So many emotions, so much support and love that it just reaffirmed everything that I said in my talk. It was exactly. I was so worried about that specific message, but then, once everything had revealed itself, I realized okay, that is exactly what everybody wanted to hear and what they needed to hear. I'm so glad that I stuck to that and I didn't listen to the imposter syndrome that was telling me this is stupid, nobody's going to connect with this, because that was present days before. I was like maybe I should just rewrite it again.
Speaker 1:But you're right, having those layers of feedback happen again and again, with people that experienced it in the room, people that watched it live, that I knew and were surprised, and then strangers that have reached out since to let me know how it's affected them, it has blown my mind and it has motivated me even more to push out the same message, because I feel like it's needed and it's impactful. Gosh, it just makes me feel great. It just makes me feel like I'm doing something that is way bigger than a commercial or an ad for someone else. I feel like I'm making an impact in our community.
Speaker 2:So you get off stage? Did you feel more exhausted or more excited the moment your feet come off the stage? You're not checking your phone, I was, excited.
Speaker 1:I was so excited. I was relieved. Ruth was relieved. I thought Ruth was going to pass out. She was like it's all over Because she was right up front, her and Ricardo.
Speaker 3:She got off on stage and my stomach dropped. Yeah, like I think I grabbed Ricardo's arm. I was like uh-oh. I was like there's no part of me that wants to be up there right now. I'm like thank God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like taking off and up playing for the first time. You're like I have no idea how I'm going to land this, but I'm up in the air. I got to keep going.
Speaker 1:Right, the weird thing and I want to call this out because this might happen to some other people if it's their first time doing a speech I did not expect this and this didn't really happen with Camp Mograph, but it happened with this huge speech. I was nervous for like eight months of my life, like barely slept and like had panic attacks and all the normal stuff for me. But then when we got to LA, after we did the AV check the day before, something happened inside of me and everything, all of the fear, went away. So even when I got on stage now I will say there I had there's a little bit of a last minute tweak that I wanted to make before I got on stage and I didn't have time to make it. So that was fun and that made Ruth want to kill me, sorry, but it all worked out.
Speaker 1:But I was not afraid to get on stage. Instead, I actually looked forward to kind of getting it over with. But I wanted to look at all of the faces in that room and see them and to talk to them. That was really it. It just made me so much more confident in the fact that this is not a big old presentation where I'm supposed to just talk to a blank wall of no faces. It's people right there. There is just having this amazing conversation, where people are choosing to come and listen to you, and that is an amazing feeling and it's super humbling.
Speaker 2:So you get off stage, you're excited, you're getting a flood of messages the next however many days. What's the rest of that experience like? What was the rest of the experience of being at that conference 10,000 creative people, all kinds of new announcements, just like a general level of buzz? What was the rest of that experience like?
Speaker 1:Ruth, you want to go ahead and take this one.
Speaker 3:We have a series of pictures that are quite ridiculous, but I think on my Instagram story there's actually that one where it's like I love this woman or whatever, because we're just sitting on her bed and giggling over everything. I mean, that's kind of something that we do anyway. When we go to these conferences in the middle of the night, after getting done with whatever social thing we're doing that day, we tend to get some junk food and sit up and talk about all the stupid things we said and laugh at ourselves. It kind of helps with not overthinking how stupid you've been that day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we talk each other down. We're like no, no, no, you're fine. You didn't say that Everything was cool.
Speaker 2:No one heard this, no one saw that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's totally normal.
Speaker 1:I think that, yeah, we did the pizza thing and we considered going out that night, but the whole conference is just really. It's the biggest conference I've ever been, to 10,000 people, and it's a different kind of conference and I wasn't fully aware of what that meant until I got there. You really kind of have to just experience it. But I think it's more for those who are kind of getting into motion design or getting into their career and they're wanting to learn as much as possible, and so there's labs where you can learn, like after effects tricks, all these things in that moment. And so I just didn't expect what it was. It was just massive. By the way, a closing party which we have to talk about. Oh my God, it was the biggest outdoor party I've ever seen, and was it? Run DMC Was the DJ and I'm and like I ate so much food I almost got sick. There's art installations everywhere. It was wild and it was. It was fun. We had a really good time. It was. So thank you, adobe Max. Let me do it again.
Speaker 2:I think it's so cool that you, you were able to have an experience of being able to do something like Camp MoGraph and speak at that, and then contrast it to something like Adobe Max, because it's still artists, but it's a totally different, a just different energy, different amount of people, different space, you know contained inside rooms and you know like conference halls versus just being out in nature and again like people looking for a different experience. You said LA, right. So I have to hear. I felt like I was living vicariously through all this, like afterwards you get to go and explore LA. What did you do outside of the conference that you got to enjoy your first time? I just selfishly, I want to hear, like, what were your highlights of being around LA?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, you need to come next time so that we can go with more places, and then you can be our Sherpa. Take us to all the great places.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes so there's a lot of tacos and udon and sushi and whatever else happens after that, it's good.
Speaker 3:Well, I think one of my favorite places now is the last bookstore, which. I don't know the story behind it, but it's this new bookstore. That's humongous and it's still almost like an art installation in and of itself. It's like a labyrinth of books and I kind of got lost in there for I don't know four or five hours and spent way too much money, but that was definitely one of the highlights. It's also got like some gallery spaces with some kitschy artists. I love it. I will definitely be going back there.
Speaker 1:We went to the Getty Museum as well, which I highly recommend. We had lunch on the patio and just got to see like illuminated manuscripts of every shape and size and they were so beautiful. And then we just went down to the gardens, which are also so beautiful. Everything was just like kind of surreal and perfect. The weather is perfect, people are perfect. Everybody is nice too. I was really surprised about how nice people in LA are. So, thanks to the people of LA, like literally everyone we encountered that was working was the best service that we've ever had. So it was like damn, this place is amazing, so we'll be back for sure.
Speaker 2:I tell people who have never been to LA but have a lot of preconceptions of what it could or might be, that no matter what you've heard about LA, it's not true. And you haven't heard the other story, because LA is basically three to four totally different cities that happen to all be sitting next to each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we went to the last day. We went to the beach, we went to Venice Beach, we went to Santa Monica and kind of walked through there. And I will say that I agree with you because you can have any kind of experience there. There's potentially dangerous experiences and potentially amazing experiences. You just kind of have to like be aware of that. But the beach itself was incredible. I grew up in Virginia Beach. I'm really used to the East Coast and Ruth is from Maryland, so you know, going there it was like the Zorro world in a lot of ways. But it was so cool that we just had, I'm going to say, like one of the best days ever, like travel days on that last day where we could just chill and just do whatever we wanted to do. We actually had a couple of like client meetings in between because everybody's out in LA anyway, so it was really great to just kind of tap into all that's there while we were there and also have like a ton of fun. It was great always.
Speaker 2:So the last thing I just wanted to ask you about because you did a great job, just like dropping a little hint to it, but part of your speech and something that you and I have had like some really long discussions before it ever even turned into anything and now it's taken a crazy life of its own Can you just give us an elevator pitch of what Creative Codex is and why people should be interested in it?
Speaker 1:So the Creative Codex? It was born from the frustration of having these terms that are like overlapping terms from one creative industry to another and now they don't really make any sense. There's a lot of frustration around that because we need to be able to communicate quickly. When we're starting a project, or even through a project, whether it's with an artist or whether it's with a client, you have to know what you're talking about, and the Creative Codex aims to fix that. It's going to be the gold standard for not just motion design terminology but creative industry terminology and beyond.
Speaker 1:So right now we're working through kind of creating this dictionary, this like lexicon of terms that fits within motion design, but eventually it's going to offer more of an encyclopedia approach, like if you want to do this, then here's how you do it, and here are some visual references for what is storyboard versus an animatic and so on and so on, and there's a ton of studios involved in the committee, which is what we're kind of like voting on things right now, but at some point very soon, everyone really in the industry can contribute to this If you have a term that is not in the Creative Codex, or if there's a term in the Creative Codex that you would like to see modified. There's going to be a website where you can submit a modification form or just submission form for those terms and you'll get credit. You'll have your name listed as a credit so that it's kind of like your contribution. I believe this will be a legacy for those in motion design.
Speaker 2:I love it because I've always been frustrated that there's never been a coalesced democratic voice that puts a flag in the sand and says for motion design, here's at least the base level of knowledge that we all accept to be true. You can modify that and you can change it, but when I talk to an artist or a producer and say animatic versus previous, it'd be great to have at least a place to point to that says we're all coming from a common starting point, because I can't tell you how many times I tell an artist we're going to assign you the animatic and tell the producer the same thing. Then the producer tells the client with a different terminology or different expectation. None of those three are actually aligned to what, as a creative director, I have in my head. Of the way I see it. It's like there's a bunch of people thinking about this and it gives you a starting point, but we want you to tell us when we're wrong and add to that voice.
Speaker 1:That's so powerful, I think. So Hung Lee approached me. He's one of the owners of BN and he approached me because he saw that, something that I said on LinkedIn. He was like, hey, we want to do this, we want to make this real, because there had been some attempts before but it never really came to fruition and now this is actually happening. So it's very complicated. The more that we dive in, I think we all realize, okay, now we got to figure this thing out. We got to figure this thing out, but eventually it's going to be a tangible, real, practical guide to terminology and best practices, all of those things to really help someone reference if they need a gut check. We're also reaching out to universities that specialize in motion design and they're all very interested in partnering with us. So it's a big deal and it's very exciting For all the listeners. Please get involved once it launches.
Speaker 2:We talked about it and you said motion design has a marketing problem Because it is, in my mind, the umbrella over a lot of creative industries and borrows and morphs things from feature animation and VFX and sound design and writing and filmmaking and photography. It is very easy to get confused and very easy to get lost in the shuffle of what is motion design. I think this is a great first step towards the industry taking on its own shoulders of like this is who we are and how we like to talk about ourselves. It's not locked in but at least gives a common kind of understanding. I think it's a huge mission that I think a lot of people have never been able to put a name to that. It's amazing that now we do have one, we can say oh, check the codex, go over there, talk to these people to kind of get started.
Speaker 1:And I think, just to put an exclamation point on what you just said, it's a starting point for even bigger initiatives that could involve everyone in this industry and how no one's ever done anything like that to where everyone is included and involved and valued. And so you know, even if that means you know we have certain standards that we really want to push out into the world for employment or whatever, you know, these are conversations that can happen now that we've created a community, and so we can kind of listen in and say what's important to us right now, what do we want to achieve? Ok, let's do that together. So it's very exciting and I'm so grateful to be a part of it.
Speaker 2:And we're so grateful that Amanda and Ruth of Cream Studios joined us on the show today, because, while they're really great at finding the fun and getting work done, they also found a way to get up on stage and talk to hundreds of complete strangers about the industry, their difficulties and their successes, and that's really what the show is about as well. You know, I think, that there's a handful of studios out there alongside Cream the end Newfangled Studios that really, besides just working on beautiful things for amazing clients, they also find time to focus on the humanity of this industry. There's a growing need for a bigger sense of community and transparency, and between things like getting on stage or the creative codex or doing open office hours, I really love that Cream Studios puts the people in this business first, and those people are you, which is why I'm so glad we're having this conversation. So until next show, seize the play.
