Rising Stars: Meet JoAnne Daniels of PLAYA DEL REY, CA

Today we’d like to introduce you to JoAnne Daniels.

Hi JoAnne, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Well, I am an animator with an economics degree that I don’t use. Like most kids out of high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but my parents had one requirement for supporting me through college, and that was to keep up my math and science, despite being rather creative minded. But they are aerospace engineers, so go figure. I ended up majoring in Global Economics so I could take advantage of the language requirement and focus more on excelling in the French classes while passing the Economics part of my degree. I started piecing together that I wanted something to do with Festival Design & Production after going to my first festival, Nocturnal Wonderland (America’s longest running Rave) in 2018. It was the first time I really saw just how big stage production can get, and I wanted to be apart of it. I graduated college early in 2019 and found a job quickly as an executive assistant to the CEO of an Investment company that had ventures in multiple industries, none of them having anything to do with festival production. A pretty far cry from what I wanted to be doing. It became clear that that job was not a good fit, but it made me resolute in my desire to do literally anything else. At that time, with no idea how to break into production with no experience, I started going to small shows in Los Angeles and looking for who was running the light, the lasers, and the LED Walls. At one of those shows, I was able to meet the people running the show, Redhouse Productions. They gave me my first shot working as crew on their next show. I was so excited to start, but the universe had other plans and the stay at home order was issued as the pandemic began. After a month, I got a call from Redhouse, telling me that they had started a livestream and they were wondering if I would be interested in running the LED walls. The only caveat, was that everyone was going to be working for free. That didn’t matter to me at the time, it was a huge opportunity to learn and I took it. I taught myself the software to run the LED wall, got a lot of help along the way, but show by show I got better, gained confidence, and the live stream grew too. Social Sanctuary started gaining traction. People were taking notice of the stage we built in a warehouse and bigger and bigger names started coming to us to livestream their events while concerts and festivals were still not allowed. We hosted Space Yacht, Virtual Burning Man, Rampage Belgium, Alone Together, Big Bootie Mix and so many more its hard to keep track! Some clients would ask I could animate logos or create a specific aesthetic for their shows. In my free time, I started learning After Effects, then moving to 3D animating software like blender, then Cinema 4D, and eventually Unreal Engine, gaining skills by doing personal projects and eventually getting commissions. After the pandemic ended, shows started opening and Social Sanctuary was no longer needed. That was the first big project that I had helped build from the ground up, and it was very sad to see it end. Through Redhouse, I started helping run the video for CAGES, an avant garde holographic musical that played four nights a week in Los Angeles warehouse district until 2022. I was able to travel across the pond to London to help that show go up at the Riverside Theater. After helping CAGES London Debut, I came home and got a puppy. Which led to me rethinking the kind of work I wanted to focus on. I really wanted to Animate full time. Running the show is great, but what I really loved was creating visuals and seeing the reaction. At the beginning of 2023 I started working with Nightride Visuals, who I originally met at Social Sanctuary. But it took a couple years of learning to be able to work as a professional animator. Then last year, I started making projectable video backgrounds for Musicals, I started with The Little Mermaid and now I’m just about to finish Alice in Wonderland. I’ve also decided to start taking classes. I’ve gotten myself pretty far with youtube university, but I’m starting to think about where I see myself in the next five years. I would like to be working in features. So now, I’m still freelance animating, taking class, and working part time to try and make that dream a reality. Where I am today, is where I think so many of us are in life right now. I am figuring out how to be where I want to be. If I had any advise, I would say put yourself out there and take the leap. They worst anyone can say is No. Even then, you can ask why they say no, and then you can do what it takes to turn that no into a yes.

Alright, 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?
Oh god no. The pandemic really put a wrench in things for a bit, but I was able to adapt and found myself in a very lucky situation. I had to learn a lot very quickly and learn how to handle myself in a male dominated industry as a young woman. Production, especially freelance production can be very labor intensive and there is strain that happens on your body. You can also live in a world of feast or famine, there is not always work or sometimes so much that you don’t get a free day for a month, but you have to plan for when there isn’t work, so you do as much as you can.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am an animator. I specialize in 3D animation for concerts/festivals. I think I am most proud of the work I did on John Summit’s BMO show. I was part of a 5 person team that created all of the visuals for that show. I also got to see it live at BMO Stadium and hear his song “Shiver” for the first time alongside visuals I created. It was a really magical experience that absolutely brought me to tears. I think what sets me apart from others is that… Im not sure , I feel like all creatives bring something special. But in the art I make that’s just for me, I like to take something I’ve struggled with and create a visual metaphor for it.

What are your plans for the future?
I’m currently taking classes so I can get more into feature animation, but I am exploring different paths along the way.
I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it is that I’d love to do, but life is a never ending journey of evolving into the next project and I’m here for the ride!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hippieinblack.org
• Instagram: hippieinblvck