Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Egiziano and Kay Arutyunyan.
Andrew and Kay, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I started at Disney Animation in the 90’s as a PA of Animation on Tarzan. I started as Story APM of Wild Life before Roy Disney Jr. canceled the movie and started the collapse of the Secret lab project.
That turned into a blessing as I started my Producer journey working on projects in succession 8 Crazy Nights, Scooby Doo the movie, SpongeBob, the Movie, Barnyard, The Movie (my first as a line producer), Seth Macfarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy and a couple of episodes of Family Guy. I was mentored by some of the greatest minds in the business as I learned everything about CG and 2D animated pipelines.
In 2009, the entertainment world stalled with the economy at the same time I met my future business partner Kay Arutyunyan. We ran the production team for Image Metrics learning everything about the facial animation and rigging world and its application to building photo real digital doubles and animating facial involute for movies, TV and AAA games.
Kay and I started CounterPunch Studios in 2011. We learned many painful lessons in our first couple of years but started to accelerate in year 3, turning the company into an industry leading facial animation, rigging and photo real digital double building juggernaut. One of the coolest parts of our workflow is it fit right in with building digital doubles for Bollywood. A truly unique experience working from half a world away, like your just next door. We are now working in the “Unreal” space, working on VR and real-time rendering projects.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, nothing is smooth when you own a company in California. L.A. is filled with talent and innovation but is also one of the highest tax states in the nation, combined with tax challenges overall. However, we were able to buy 3 buildings in L.A., so we get to realize the growth and handle the ramp up and down of busy cycles.
We do our modeling, rigging and animation work in-house so we really don’t benefit from outsourcing, so we have to compete internationally, operating out of L.A. We don’t use professional salespeople (working from referrals only) so we realized early on, our only advantage was delivering high-end assets. We have little room for error.
The other lesson we learned was to follow our intuition. There are the three bubbles in business, fast, great and cheap production. As a vendor, you can only allow clients to pick 2 of the bubbles, or a project will go over budget. We have to deliver great assets, so that only allows for one other choice. Whenever we have tried to do all 3, we have lost significant money.
Please tell us about CounterPunch Studios.
We specialize in modeling, rigging and animation and we are one of the best companies in the world. We operate clean and transparent, no black box or tricks. Clients often work in-house directly with our teams if the projects are moving fast.
We have very little turnover and we want to lead the industry and innovate but need to make sure our clients are happy first.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Tough one, there are several. The most remarkable was at the age of 4, I had a 106-degree temperature at Christmas. I was unconscious as my parents, terrified drove to 2 different hospitals trying to find a doctor who could break the fever.
The only thing I remember was after the fever broke and I was waking up, a presence standing next to me, clearly told me, don’t worry, I was here the whole time. I always wondered who it was but it was not of this world.
Contact Info:
- Address: 3780 Selby Ave, L.A. 90034
- Website: http://counterpunchstudios.com
- Phone: 310-656-6592
- Email: [email protected]
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