Meet Tony Copolillo of SioPio in Encino

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tony Copolillo.

Tony, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
As a young child, I wanted to be an architect. This came from endlessly watching The Brady Bunch after school every day, where the patriarch character Mike Brady was successfully raising a house full of kids and dogs and housekeepers by drawing pictures of buildings. Throughout high school, I took drafting classes, and post-graduation I earned an Associate of Arts degree in architectural drafting before landing a position with a civil engineering firm in Southern California — creating plans for parking lots, sewer systems and storm drains. This was the dawn of CAD (Computer Aided Design) and instead of working in just two dimensions hand-drawn on paper, we were now designing on a computer in three-dimensional space. But, I found this work to be too structured for the artist inside, and regret had begun to set in for not pursuing graphic design instead. I also realized that basing my entire career on a character from a TV show probably wasn’t the smartest idea (laughs).

Around that time, I was inspired by a commercial Pixar had created for Listerine, featuring a bottle of mouthwash swinging on jungle vines. I was blown away by this new form of animation is done with computers, and made the connection that I was already on the right path having worked with the CAD software. So I began getting my hands on every graphic design program I could find and learn — when my lifelong friend Dan Reiter invited me to join him up in San Francisco at SIGGRAPH, a trade show for the digital print industry. I instantly fell in love with the city and moved there jobless on a wing and a prayer.

It was a complete struggle. I was doing odd office jobs just to make ends meet and wondered if I’d made a huge mistake. I wanted to become a graphic designer but had a degree in architectural drafting so finding a job wasn’t easy. Then I got two successive jobs in printing — one as manager at a Kinkos-ish place running the desktop publishing department… and another as the head of the graphics division at a photo lab where they specialized in large format photo printing.

At that time, Dan came back up to San Francisco with his business partner Michael McMurtrey, and Michael offered me a job working on advertisements for feature films in Los Angeles. So, I made the move back south and was able to take another step closer to fulfilling my dream of working on movies (even if it was just the ads and not the films themselves).

I began working at Applied Graphics Technologies in L.A. with Dan and Michael (before they left to start their own design company). I wasn’t creating the movie art yet, but repurposing it to print in newspaper campaigns. That’s when a big turning point happened for me: a fully hand-illustrated poster for a Disney animated feature came into my department. It was a montage of every character in the film and I was awed by the amount of detail and quality. Instantly I knew I needed to create at this level one day and set out to find the artist. Shortly after, I discovered it was created by Daniel Clark, and one day, I got really brave and called him to introduce myself. Although he was cordial and nice, I don’t think he was too enthusiastic since I wasn’t known as an artist yet. But a couple of years later, I began freelancing and by chance one of my pieces of art landed at his studio and I was offered to come work with him directly.

Daniel Clark & Associates (now Daniel Clark Creative) is a small design studio owned and operated by husband and wife team Daniel and Deborah Clark along with brother Jason Clark. I worked there as a Senior Artist and Art Director for thirteen years, and we kicked complete ass during that time, and they continue to do so. When I first joined the company, every week was a different project and a different challenge and we constantly taught ourselves and each other new tricks along the way — always staying grounded, no egos — just humble and grateful fast-paced problem-solving. Often in those ten-plus years when working on a huge blockbuster title we’d look at each other and say “Can you believe we’re doing this? Can you believe someone is actually paying us to work on this?” (laughs) Every once in a while I’d just stop and take my own pulse and ask “How did I get here?”

Over the years, however,  studio expectations had risen while budgets plummeted. We were creating fewer and fewer movie posters and more boilerplate content to market these films with zero creative challenge… and I lost the passion — I lost the love for it. The projects were a lot less fun for me and I was running on fumes by now. It was time for a break and I chose to leave. It felt like losing a family member. I still consider them all dear, close family.

With encouragement from my girlfriend and family, I took six months off to unwind and recharge. In that downtime, I began brushing up on my 3D modeling and animation skills and started recording several online tutorials to teach other people how to use the same software. Although this was building an online presence and audience, it wasn’t generating any substantial income.

So, I decided to meet with three different design shops one afternoon and remember having this kind of resigned acceptance — I didn’t want to give up my freedom, but I had this sense of dread this was my only option… then, the phone rang. It was a former client of mine calling to see if I was available to work on a project. Now, word had spread to a handful of creative geniuses around town that I respect and admire and I began to take on the occasional project with each of them. By this time my instructional videos caught the attention of a large online VFX training facility, where I was hired to teach a ten-week course in 3D procedural texturing and shading. And that’s when I realized it was time to set up shop in my home studio and I started my own company.

And then, a second opportunity to change careers… a year later, I was approached by filmmaker friend, Kyle Rankin. He asked if I’d like to be involved with a Kickstarter campaign he was about to launch to raise funds to produce his new feature film NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEB. He sent along his script for the pitch video, and what I loved was that it was a short film instead of the “artist pleads for money” standard. I ended up shooting, editing and designing sound, as well as creating several visual effects for the video and had a blast. We made a hilarious six-minute mini-movie that netted the project six-figures in under a month and became an in-house favorite at Kickstarter Headquarters that season. We had so much fun that when the campaign ended Kyle invited me to join him for the feature film production as well. We shot in Maine for a month in the spring of 2014 and then spent one full year in editing and post-production. I refer to the time making DEB as my film school—as I learned so much sitting with the footage and piecing it together and creating hundreds of visual effects as well. It was so much work, but also a lot of laughs and I thoroughly enjoyed Kyle’s esoteric style and helping him make a fun little movie we can both be proud of.

Through word-of-mouth and the indie-filmmaker friend network, I’ve since worked on five feature films and several television shows with various levels of involvement from VFX artist and supervisor to editing and producing, and now I’m currently in post-production with director Eric Hurt on his fantasy adventure film THE MACHINERY OF DREAMS. I’ve collaborated enough with people that now they value my input throughout the process and it’s an honor to be asked to help shape the idea of something even if I’m not involved in it fully hands-on, you know? I’m delighted to know I can help bring someone else’s vision to life since I’m just a self-taught guy.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I tell people I went to sleep at 29 and woke up at 40 with no memory in-between because I was so focused on becoming the best in my field. And that comes with its own set of problems; constantly disappointing friends and family, canceling plans all the time — and divorce. And I’m not the smartest when it comes to taking care of myself. Physically. I’ve had a few health scares due to exhaustion. I sit at my desk too much. I forget to stand up and stretch or drink water. I’ll often see the sun coming up through the windows in the morning. I take on projects that should have two or three artists on them… but it’s just me — and I’m not just the creative person anymore, but also the production manager and bookkeeper.

But I also choose to embrace the fear. Life is not a straight line — there are many turns, and the more we learn to lean into them, the better. A friend once told me don’t be scared to jump off the cliff and build an airplane on the way down. That’s the best advice ever. In my experience, it’s been hands-on over education. It’s rolling up your sleeves and diving in head-first and staying motivated by the fear of failure and using it to keep learning and succeeding. I believe if you aren’t challenging yourself every day, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

SioPio – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
When I went rogue, I searched for a good company name and realized I was always spelling my last name out for people… C-O-P-O, etcetera, so phonetically I came up with SioPio. Turns out it’s a similar spelling to a Southeast Asian pastry so when you Google my name you get photos of dumplings, which is unfortunate (laughs), but I was just going for a fun, easy-to-remember name.

I’m known for creating artwork for movie posters, motion graphics, visual effects, teaching 3D and now, editing— and my eye for detail. I’ve created marketing campaigns and artwork for blockbuster studio films from Disney, Fox, and Universal as well as hit TV shows for HBO and Netflix. I set high standards for myself and believe the more thought put into something at first — the more work you do up front and don’t give clients anything to change because you’ve thought it all through already —the more they’ll keep coming back. I am my own client first before they are, so if I find fault in something I create, no one is allowed to see it until I am okay with it.

The joy I get out of it is the end product. I think it’s being proud of something I work on because, over a 20-plus year career, not every piece of art is going to be something you’re excited to work on. Sometimes you just have to pay the mortgage. But there are those projects that stand out that I am super proud of and I try to stay humble and try to remember it’s a collaborative effort and I am not the sole reason this piece succeeded—that I’m just one cog in the machine that helped build the final product, but hopefully my contribution made it better than it would have been otherwise. You can teach anyone to push buttons or move layers around, but you can’t teach someone to be artistic. If you don’t have the eye for something… I personally believe you have to be born with that.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
My grandfather worked as a typesetter for R.R. Donnelley & Sons in Chicago. He only had an eighth-grade education, but he was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known because he typeset articles for TIME and LIFE magazines during the Depression and all through World War II. I love that he was an autodidact, and admire that whenever he was faced with a problem, he tried to figure it out himself so he’d own that knowledge.

Today, as you ask me about my life, I feel successful… because I only take in the projects I want to work on. I still find myself working seven days a week and until five in the morning, but now it’s my choice — I’m the person who agreed to the terms. I decide to make the sacrifice or not… and that’s a huge difference. I think that’s success.

I often say I’m very fortunate to have found my calling — that realization that there is something I can do in my sleep and do better than anything else in my life and make a living doing it. It’s in my DNA. But I no longer want it to consume my life like it once did, so that’s something I am currently working on. My ultimate goal is to achieve the perfect work/life balance and I am much closer to that goal than ever before.

 

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