Daily Inspiration: Meet Maddie Wagg

Today we’d like to introduce you to Maddie Wagg.

Hi Maddie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I grew up on a sheep farm in country Victoria, Australia. Surrounded by nature, lakes and bushland, motorbikes and horses – it was a very fun and adventurous childhood. I loved to draw and found a lot of inspiration from the beautiful landscape that surrounded me. I’d spend a day out in the bush adventuring and then a day in my room drawing my adventures. I started off making little comic books of farm girls or native animals going on adventures and escaping dangers.

I’m so grateful for my childhood, such ability to explore helps fuel a free spirit! Though I will say, it was hard to see how I could have a career in art. The world I knew was filled with traditional jobs (farmers, doctors, trades) and I didn’t know anyone who worked in a creative field – or if that type of work even existed. But I knew what I loved and I was committed to figuring out how to turn creative endeavors into a career.

I was about 12 when my art teacher told me I had a skill that should be honed outside of a typical art class. With my parent’s permission, I signed up for a Further Education night course in life drawing, me and all the adults drawing nudes was how I spent many evenings as a teenager and I loved it. At this time I thought my only option was to become an artist, a painter or a drawer, and I hoped to be good enough to be able to make it work.

Going to boarding school was a major eye-opener for me. I was suddenly exposed to a lot more of the world, with people there from all walks of life and countries. The curriculum was a lot broader and I was able to take a design class. I didn’t really know what design meant but it sounded creative and so I had to try it. I got a MacBook, downloaded photoshop and that was it, I was blown away with what could be created with these two tools and realized there was an entire industry out there where you could design as a career. The world opened up. I asked my design teacher which Australian university has the best design course and spent the next three years working as hard as I could to ensure I got in.

I was accepted into my dream course (Communication Design at RMIT) and deferred for a year as many Aussies do, to spend a year working at a school in England. My duties were teaching art to primary school students and coaching rowing (next to art, rowing was my second love). So this was a pretty magical year for me, teaching my two favorite things and saving all the pennies to spend on shoestring holidays in Europe.

Then came University in Melbourne (the big smoke). In my final year of University, I went to a conference and heard a talk from an amazingly talented South African illustrator/animator, Ree Treweek. She would draw the most beautiful illustrations and bring them to life with animation. This is the first time I started to understand how animation could be relevant to me – and I was so interested to learn more. It’s so much more engaging seeing still art start to move!

My first job was at a major television network in Australia called Network Ten. I was in the promotions department and hired as a motion designer. At this stage, I had no animation skills whatsoever but for some reason, they saw promise in my design eye they sought to teach me after effects and C4D on the job. This was incredibly lucky for me, as I spent months and months just learning animation software – working on the easier jobs that came in. It took me about a year to feel like I had a solid grasp on the software needed to animate and I could finally take my designs to the next level of motion. From here my responsibilities grew quickly to designing the logos and looks for the biggest shows on Australian TV.

Once I started to understand motion graphics and the industry I realized LA was where I wanted to be. So many fun jobs and opportunities in Hollywood! A far cry from farm life, I set off to LA with aspirations to network and find a company to sponsor a visa… simple 😉 I had 5 days to potter around LA and meet with as many people who would answer my cold call emails. I had the most luck with Australian creatives, I guess they were more empathetic toward my situation and understanding towards my out-of-the-blue emails. To my great surprise my all-time industry idol, Patrick Clair, an Australian Creative Director at Elastic TV and in my opinion the most talented motion designer in the world – answered my email in a mere 15 minutes. I fell out of my chair. In no relation to the chair incident, I somehow managed to fracture both of my feet the day before our meeting at Elastic and have since learnt not to make friends with people in the circus. Nevertheless, I rocked up to the meeting with crutchers in moonboots and he gave me some very sound advice. The main thing I took away from this meeting was that great relationships with people (fellow artists and clients alike) were going to be the key to a happy, successful, fulfilled career.

I went back to Australia with some leads and great new relationships but no official job offer. To gain more experience in the meantime, I decided to leave my much-loved job at Network Ten and move back to Melbourne for a motion design role at Fox Sports. I had met the head of graphics at a conference and he offered me the position soon after – very serendipitous! And a really fun experience. It was a treat being back in Melbourne, closer to family and lots of friends but the plan of getting to LA was still in action… I continued the relationships I’d created on my trip and a whole year later I was finally offered a dream position; to start a motion graphics and VFX department at an already established post-production house in Los Angeles, Burnish Creative, known for working on America’s biggest reality TV shows and documentaries.

So I packed up my life and moved to Beverly Hills, feeling every bit the Beverly Hillbilly.

At Burnish I built a department I’m very proud of. I worked with some of the most talented, driven and wonderful people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Special shout out to Thomas Choi who was my first hire and of whom I could not be prouder. Over my five years as head of department and creative director at Burnish, we made the identity, graphics and vfx for shows that hit a global audience. America’s Got Talent, Masked Singer, Brittany Murphy, Dating Around, I Can See Your Voice, Rhythm & Flow – to name some. Our work is littered across Netflix, HBO, Peacock and major American Networks.

After 5 years that familiar itch for a new challenge and gear shift crept in and I was soon building a new company, Moonwalkers Motion. Moonwalkers is currently in its infancy, a little under a year old. This year we’ve created the motion graphics / visual effects for shows on Netflix, HBO, NBC and Amazon, to name a handful. I’ve had the good fortune to connect and work with some of the most talented artists in the industry on a global scale. This network is only growing and I’m so excited about the work we’ll be able to achieve together in the future!!

My home and office are both now based in Venice Beach – I’ve embraced the Southern Californian lifestyle of outdoor activities, making the most of its perfect weather. I’ll start the day with a surf, yoga or boardwalk rollerblade. It’s hard not to have a great day when it starts this way!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Leaving my family is the constant and biggest struggle. I’ve always had dreams to fly further afield, to all corners of the earth leaving no stone unturned, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to be away from my family. Video calls are the savior, I don’t know how anyone managed to live internationally before that technology.

Career-wise – it has felt like a natural evolution. I’ve always had really clear goals but am aware that the most important thing is enjoying the process of reaching them. I’m just trying to enjoy the journey. It’s inevitable that work life can get stressful and hard, when this happens I try to balance it with other things that bring joy, like hobbies (surfing, paddle tennis, anything outside really…) for me that seems to be the key!

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a creative director specializing in motion design and visual effects. Moonwalkers Motion was built to service these areas, predominantly in TV and movies but we also branch out into music videos and branded content. We just want to work on fun creative challenges!

Projects over the years I’m proud of… let’s see. I think I’m most proud of what I’d say was my ‘big break’ in the industry. Designing my very first TV show graphics package. I was working in the promotions department at an Australian TV network, creating the graphics for promotions of already existing movies and shows. I really wanted to be the artist that actually created the visuals and brand for the show itself but that wasn’t part of the playbook. When the network I was employed at decided to commission the very first Australian Survivor, it was going to have it’s own creative & branding, and so I pleaded with my boss to allow me to at least pitch my ideas for the logo and graphics package to the showrunners. If I won the work, she would need to give me the time in work hours to complete it. Somehow she agreed, I won the project and was very proud of the final product. Seeing my designs for shows on billboards in Australia and now in LA never gets old.

As a creative director, I have the pleasure of being the one that gets to speak directly to our clients as we discover together the best visual solution for their content. Over the years this role has gained me not just great working relationships but also wonderful friendships with executive producers, showrunners, post-production supervisors and artists alike.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Throw everything at the wall and have a red hot crack 😉 Resilience and not allowing fear to affect decisions I think is the secret sauce. Everyone fails, from large to tiny failures, you won’t be able to escape them, so I guess my advice is be the person who learns from it and comes back stronger. Never let failure or fear of failure interfere with your dreams.

Contact Info:

• Website: maddiewagg.com
• Instagram: maddiewagg
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10420088/

Image Credits
Paul Brooke