Life, Values & Legacy: Our Chat with Tim Eldred of North Hollywood

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Tim Eldred. Check out our conversation below.

Good morning Tim, it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? What makes you lose track of time—and find yourself again?
That’s an easy one; for my entire life, the thing I’ve most wanted to do was write and draw graphic novels. For me, it’s like channeling a radio signal from the universe that uses me as its medium. I’m in collaboration with it, sometimes making decisions based on my intuition, sometimes trusting it to take me somewhere I wouldn’t go on my own. It feels like a dialogue with an invisible partner, and inevitably when I extract myself from it to do other things more time has passed than I thought. And I want nothing more than to lose myself in that creative bubble again.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’ve been writing and drawing stories for as long as I can remember, starting with comics and eventually transporting those skills into TV animation as a storyboard artist, then a director, then a supervising director. There were other stops along the way; I had to work for several years as a graphic artist in print media before I could land enough work in comics to make a living. That experience continues to inform me in valuable ways, giving me more insight into overall design and presentation. These days I’m finding myself in more mentorship roles, helping newcomers in the animation field to broaden their context in terms of work flow and awareness of what happens across an entire production. It’s rewarding in ways solo work is not.

Okay, so here’s a deep one: What was your earliest memory of feeling powerful?
As a kid, I wasn’t tall or tough and had no interest in physical competition. Instead, my ability was drawing. When I realized that my mind could work through my hand to put something on paper that got a reaction from other kids, whether it was to make them laugh or be surprised, it showed me that physical power wasn’t something I needed to aspire to. In fact, this ability had an even greater impact because it had the power to make a lasting impression. I felt the same power working on me when I read a story I liked, and it helped me to realize that it came with an unwritten responsibility. If you can make an impact on people, it makes you responsible to your craft. Responsible to develop it, and responsible to communicate ethically with it.

If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
The solitude and loneliness will all be worth it in the end.

For most of my young life, that “invisible partner” I collaborated with was the only one I could find. Being the only kid around who wrote and drew stories (living in a rural area) set me apart from everyone else. I was creating my stories for me alone. I always dreamed of finding an actual creative partner with similar sensibilities who could join me on the path. I had a little bit of luck as a teenager, but it didn’t last.

In the end, however, building myself up one project at a time gave me a sense of discipline that I found to be in rare supply once I entered the professional adult world. If the solitude and loneliness were the price of earning that discipline, it was worth it.

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What’s a belief you used to hold tightly but now think was naive or wrong?
There was a stretch of time in my career when many unlikely things happened, all things I had wished for. One by one, they came to pass as if I willed them into life. I started to think I had some form of karma that made my wishes come true. As more time passed and I gained additional perspective, it turned out to be instead a patch of probability. The way those events were concentrated blinded me to the truth.

It dissuaded me from believing that we have any control over our fate, especially when the actions of others are required to reach a desired result. It taught me that embracing the universe as it is, chaos and all, removes a lot of useless clutter from our worldview.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
Figuring out what you were born to do shouldn’t be difficult. Whatever it is that (A) fosters discipline, (B) requires skill and/or experience, and (C) makes you feel fulfilled — is what you were born to do. It may have nothing to do with work. The discipline, skill, and experience may be invisible to you, but may loom large to those who observe you. To you, they’re just a means to an end.

Every time I sink into a creative project, especially one that I’m producing myself, I know that it’s what I was born to do. I know in my core that no one else could produce it. That’s not a value judgment, just a simple observation that we all have a unique skill set informed by our personal experience and emotional outlook. The things we create are as individual as our fingerprints. Nobody has to tell us to create those things, we do them because we were born to.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://timeldred.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tim.eldred/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-eldred-1a171515a/
• Twitter: https://x.com/TimJEldred
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tim.eldred.9/

Image Credits
Photo of me was taken by Kelly Anderson