Today we’d like to introduce you to Maggie McPheeters.
Hi Maggie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by telling us a little bit about how you got to where you are today.
Of course! My earliest memories of animation were at my grandparent’s Nebraskan farmhouse, where they had every Disney film on VHS neatly stacked into a bookcase. I would watch them endlessly throughout the summer, but it wasn’t until I was well through high school that I realized I wanted to be an artist at all, let alone in animation! I had always assumed I was a hobbyist, but my binder full of printed-out DeviantArt drawing tutorials should have been an indicator that I was always going to fall headfirst into art.
I grew up in Alabama, so there wasn’t as much of a focus around the entertainment industry. I couldn’t afford to go to a private art school, so I found one of the few public universities in the Southeast with an animation program. Of course, about halfway through my major, I realized that storyboarding was my true calling! I finished out as a 3-D Generalist but scoured the internet for any resources I could use to teach myself about boarding.
By the time I had recovered from senior film burnout and was ready to start applying for jobs, the pandemic hit and threw everything to a grinding halt. I kept putting out work but felt increasingly disheartened because I was worried no one would want to take a chance on an artist who was so far removed from the industry and aging out of the “recent grad” space. One day when I was feeling particularly down, I got a message on my Instagram from someone in Outreach at Netflix, asking if I wanted to grab a virtual coffee! I was stoked, and she told me that she just wanted to let me know she had noticed how hard I was working and that I was on the right path. It lit a new fire in me, and about two weeks later, I got an e-mail about participating in their Story Trainee program. I ended up getting the job and made the jump to Los Angeles about two months later!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not always. The same day that I signed my lease in Los Angeles, I got a call saying that the show I was a trainee on had been canceled. I was shopping for apartment furnishings, and I felt my heart drop into my shoes. Maybe below my shoes, like deep into the plumbing of Target. I ended up transferring shows and graduating out of the program a couple of months before that one was canceled as well. I was navigating the unemployment process for the first time, I had no work that I could showcase, I was rapidly burning through savings, and every appliance in my apartment was breaking. I was buying ice to keep our busted fridge cold in the heat of July, and I just wondered if I was cut out for LA or storyboarding in general.
I had a Friday starred on my calendar for when I would need to start looking for non-animation jobs to keep afloat, and that same Friday, I got a job offer off a friend’s recommendation. One of the toughest things to explain to others looking to enter the industry is that so much of my success, even with all the hard work I put in, was pure luck! Getting to know the whims of the industry has definitely been an interesting experience.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do? What are you proud of, and what do you feel sets you apart?
Recently, I’ve been storyboarding for adult animation, and it’s been a blast! But I feel like my favorite type of content to create is where fantasy meets slice-of-life. I’m probably most known for my comedic sensibilities and little acting moments–being able to balance big laughs with genuine emotion is really important to me. I love a good character arc, and showcasing that range is a passion of mine.
Even though it’s super old now, I’m probably most proud of my personal sequence, “Late”. It was the first sequence where I was being mentored by someone in the industry, so I got tons of quality feedback from the writing stage through to the cleans. Being able to pitch something that came solely from your own brain and that represents your own interests is really satisfying, especially when you can tell you’re hitting your emotional points with the audience. It was definitely a turning point for me where I felt like I was making the jump to being a professional story artist!
Beyond my boards, I work really hard to create an easy and fun environment, no matter where I am. I believe a show is only as good as its crew and its culture, and that can start with just one person! I pride myself on being persistent, and sometimes that’s as little as making someone laugh every day. It sounds corny, but I think it’s true!
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
I think it really ties back to what I said earlier, which is that creating a good culture is paramount. When everyone is separated, it’s easy to fall into isolation. Because that impacts us as humans, it impacts our art. I joined the industry during the pandemic, so it was really important to feel included, despite the distance. All my teams worked hard to still have online spaces for everyone to hang out and work in, and that made such a huge difference in my work ethic because I could feel what I was working for! Without a focus on the team, I think I would’ve learned way less and my boards would have suffered.
In retrospect, I I owe some of my success to the pandemic; I feel like it was easier to break in from the East Coast because there was no pressure about being able to come into the office. I really loved seeing the industry start to spread out a bit more!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mkmcpheeters.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doodlesanddaffodils/?hl=en
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggie-mcpheeters/
