Meet Steve Petersen of Big Machine in Burbank

Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Petersen.

Steve, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
A little over 15 years ago, I found myself competing for design and production jobs in LA against a super talented artist named Ken Carlson. We randomly ended up working on the same TV show together, doing different jobs, and became fast friends.

A big freelance project came my way to make a snazzy launch tape for a new network and I asked Ken if he wanted to tackle it with me. He said yes so we got an office space in Hollywood to work out of since we lived on opposite ends of the city. We had the space for 6 months and while we were doing that job, I asked my girlfriend if she would help call some of our contacts and see if we could rustle up extra work to do together. She did and that got the ball rolling. 15 years later we’re still together, we’ve grown as a company, and are still having a great time making awesome content.

We started doing motion graphics for TV promos and broadcast spots. The broadcast design world back then was vastly different and more lucrative. As we grew and evolved as artists we evolved as a company and started doing more VFX type work and ultimately focused on becoming great at what our passion had been all along – creating content.

So as we’ve grown into a production company with amazing in-house VFX capabilities, we’ve always help visual design as a core strength and bring that to everything we do.

Even if the job is straight live-action without VFX or animation – strong visual design always plays a vital role in the way we approach the project. But we know that great visuals mean nothing without reaching the audience emotionally so conveying a moving narrative is just as important.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
For studios like ours, if the founders came from the ad agency world the studio would probably find themselves doing mainly agency work. If the founders initially came from the movie studio world, the studio would probably be doing work for studios. If the founders came from print, they’d be doing print. All great industries then and now. But Ken and I came from broadcast cable. And staying alive relying on the evolution of that industry has not been easy.

In the early 2000’s networks would outsource all of their graphic needs and a lot of their promo editorial and had healthy budgets. It was a great time be a small, talented and diverse shop like ours. But as time went on and networks looked for efficiencies, budgets shrank and they brought a lot of the work they were outsourcing in-house.

Cut to today, 2017, and most networks have in-house graphic capabilities with no need to outsource. They have in-house promo departments that handle the lion’s share of the promo work. And the biggest budgets available, the unicorn of all jobs, is a network rebrand with a healthy budget. Even those have become hard to make a profit on because of the size of the job vs the actual budget.

So where does that leave a shop like ours with talented designers, producers, filmmakers, writers and storytellers? Diversification! We’re evolving into more of an agency model going direct to brands and developing creative campaigns from the ground up. The difference between us and an agency is because they’ve hired us to make their TV commercials, brand films, social media campaigns, VR experiences and print ads – we’re a true 1-stop shop.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Big Machine – what should we know?
BIG MACHINE was founded in 2003 by former rivals Steve Petersen and Ken Carlson. After joining forces their studio has grown into a creative agency featuring an in-house production company with expertise from concept to delivery.

BIG MACHINE is an Emmy Award winning creative agency that combines live-action storytelling with design and technology to produce unforgettable content direct to Brands, Agencies and the Entertainment Industry.

Our in-house design and VFX capabilities allow us to bring innovative experience to our clients far beyond what traditional production companies can offer. We specialize in motion graphics, animation, and design for TV, film, and commercials. We handle graphics packages for TV shows, advertising, promos, and award shows. We also do work as a production company, producing content (in addition to animation/graphics) like our 2015 Emmy Award-Winning show for National Geographic, “Future Cats.”

Contact Info:

• Address: 201 N. Hollywood Way,
  Suite 212
  Burbank, CA 91505
• Website: www.bigmachine.tv
• Phone: 818.841.2226
• Email: info@bigmachine.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigmachine_tv/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bigmachinedesign/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
• Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/1995910/

Image Credit:
Steve Petersen

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