← Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary)
Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary)
Dare to challenge the status quo with joy - PJ Richardson (Live from OFFF 2026)
00:47:23
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- [00:15]
A
Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast. I mean, it's a live conversation from a festival, but Daring Creativity is a podcast about show to dare forever explore creativity that isn't about shining perfection. It's about shaving up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. It's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Malinic. I'm a designer, author, and eternally curious human being. I'm talking to a broad range of guests. Some of them actually might be in the room. Hello. I'm talking to a broad range of guests who share the story of small actions that spark lifelong discoveries. Taking one step towards what makes them feel alive. This show reaches 161 countries, getting quarter of a million downloads in the last two years. And this is my very first live episode. And I can't be any more happier to do it here at of 2026, by the way. No, we're gonna do this again. It's of 2026.
- [01:18]
B
Hey. Right.
- [01:22]
A
As I said, it's the first episode, first live episode. And I could not be more privileged and joyed to welcome my friend, PJ Richardson to share the stage with me for the first episode, the life episode.
- [01:33]
B
Thank you, my friend.
- [01:34]
A
Nice one.
- [01:36]
B
Thank you.
- [01:38]
A
So, pj, welcome to Daring Creativity, a festival.
- [01:42]
B
Thank you.
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A
We are equipped with two clickers.
- [01:44]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
So. So I normally say the scratch phrase on my podcast and say, for those who may have not heard of PJ Richardson, how would you introduce yourself?
- [01:52]
B
Just by my name. I'm PJ Person.
- [01:56]
A
I always find it quite interesting when people say that people have a very broad and beautiful output and say, how would you introduce yourself? How would you introduce yourself? And they say, I don't really know. And I'm like, I can see all your work. I can see everything that you do. But sometimes is it hard to give it title, give it a name?
- [02:12]
B
No, I think it's it. I've seen this. I've seen this. This question comes up a lot, right? And I've seen it happen, unfold, where everybody defines themselves by what they do. But we do a lot of things and that's not who we are. So what does my name.
- [02:26]
A
Sorry for interruption. What is the name on your business card? What does it say?
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B
ECD and co founder of Laundry Motion design studio in LA and San Francisco. We do this stuff, we make colorful things and we attempt to make people happy with what we do and just keep trying to do more of it and stay curious and have some fun.
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A
How long have you been in the industry so far? How long have you been working?
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B
Oh, 25 years.
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A
25.
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B
So it's pretty much like the day we started laundry, 20 years ago this year. So, yeah. Thank you.
- [03:00]
A
I mean, we met a year ago at Paradiso in Mexico and we were talking about what you do and you said, I'm just working with these people. It's a bit chaotic. I'm just doing stuff that I'm not really used to about. I'd like to have more sort of rigidity in the structure. And you were working with Linkin park creating their visuals, and I'm thinking it's Linkin Park. Come on, tell me more about it. But yeah, we are here to celebrate the titles of 2026. PJ, I've got a question for you. What does Daring Forever mean to you?
- [03:31]
B
Oh, man, so many things. I mean, like, it's the key to staying inspired and to keep going creatively is because, you know, creativity stays the same, we get older. But I think the temptation is to, you know, sometimes, especially in this day and age, to give up and to just sort of call it and fall on our heels, especially with AI and uncertainty. Right. Like, but like, ultimately the reason we got into this was the, the courage and the risk taking and the experimentation and kind of all the crazy chaos of being creative. And so I think it's just the mindset of just keep being that 17 year old self that I think got all of us into being creative in some form. Right.
- [04:13]
A
That's an amazing answer. The reason why I ask this, because show your hands. Have you got one of these? If you not, did you get through the back door? So I'm sure you've opened this. There's a card inside. So we've got audience participation. What I want you to do what me and PJ want you to do. There's a card which is a square. There's a reason why there's a pencil. And there's a question. What does Daring Forever mean to you? You don't have to write it straight away, but we want you to write your first answer for now. What does Daring Forever mean to you? And once you think about it, we're going to carry on. So, pj, you and I did a podcast episode about nine months ago. Yeah. And you asked you about your background and you said you come from the graffiti scene.
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B
That's right.
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A
And when the pennies dropped, I was like, there it is. It's a digital graffiti. It's a 21st century graffiti.
- [05:09]
B
100%.
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A
Yeah. So who's seen the titles yesterday? Have you guys seen them? Yeah.
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B
I mean, awesome. Thank you.
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A
I mean, I think they're better than that.
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B
Come on, we can watch again tonight.
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A
I mean, it's an incredible piece of work because, I mean, you've tackled something that hasn't been done before.
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B
Right?
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A
It's totally new. I mean, Pep is so excited that this happened. I was lucky to see the process from start to finish. And I'm excited to share this with you because our conversation is very much about the titles and what goes behind the scenes and all this stuff, but what does it feel like for you when you actually seen all of this finally on the side of a building, which is. I mean, bigger than anything I've ever seen?
- [05:51]
B
Oh, man. It's emotional. Like, it's. It's. It's still. I get. I get chills even just looking at it now. I think it's the, like, we're. We're all together here creatively, all, you know, with a shared love for. For. For what we do in design and all the different sort of subcategories it falls into, where we're all together most time, most of us in a faraway place that. With the intention of being in some inspired. And then there's just the added layer of, like, doing something gigantic in front of all of my peers, and the joy and the pressure of that, and then purely the technical miscalculation, quite frankly, of something so enormous than being like, holy fuck, that actually worked. Which is kind of a theme in what we do at laundry. We say, yes, and then kind of figure it out later and then pray to God that works.
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A
Like you say, the gigantic miscalculations. Because some of the projections that were crowdsourced and submitted were, like, five, ten seconds.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I. When I spoke to you when you guys were working on this, I was thinking, like, three minutes to two and a half minutes. And then I've seen the final piece. It was like nine and a half minutes.
- [07:00]
B
Yeah. All right, I'll tell you the full story. I don't know if this is the right point, but I'll tell it to you. So the way that this unfolded is a, you know, being on the other in the. In the room, looking out and seeing all these wonderful titles by some of all of our heroes over the years. Right. I was like, man, I want to do that. I really, like, that would be cool. So I emailed Pep for probably three years in a row asking. And timing wasn't right. And this year, as luck would have it. Timing was right. It was maybe January, like early January. He said, you know what? Yeah, let's do it. And so I agreed, thinking that it would just be 69 minute video on routes and, you know, usual thing. Committed. And then got the. He's like, oh, we're projection mapping. I'm like, okay, cool, this is not the plan. But sounds rad. And then got the technical specs and was like, holy shit. Like it was a lot bigger. And then it just kept getting trickier. He's like. I was like, well, how long do you want that? Like one minute, two minutes? He's like, well, there's 55 to 75 names in there. And you're like three seconds apiece. To be fair, that's how we do titles. And you're like. So suddenly they the calculator out and
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A
was like, shit, we'll definitely get through absolutely. The process. Because you've got to. You've taken my question out of my mouth, really where it all started. And I like that you said you've been emailing Pep for three years.
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B
Yeah.
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A
I'm a big believer in making future happen. Inventing your future ask.
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B
It's like. And James from Future Deluxe. And I heard having a conversation even about clients and like, just reach out, share, ask anything. And most times people don't answer, but they see it and then they don't, you know, something doesn't get answered until it does.
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A
Truth to be told. We sit in. We're sitting here because we asked.
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B
Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly like I, you know, truth. Thank you. Because I sort of passed on a conversation about the titles. I just honestly couldn't see technically or creatively how to look at process stuff for 55 minutes, as good or bad as it might be, without boring everybody. And then you have this idea of this conversation and asked and got us here. So it's, you know, so I've actually
- [09:06]
A
advanced us to the inspiration. Let me see if I can go back on this. Yeah. Because you guys, obviously every single year gets a bit of a branding system by an agency that says a theme. And this year the theme was created by Uncommon. I didn't know that Uncommon were swabbing people for their DNA and their germs at their mixes. I was in one of them in London and I couldn't really put one and one together of like, what does it all mean? Like, I've seen the shell. I was like, what's this? But you had a bit of an insight.
- [09:34]
B
Yeah. You made it sound darker than it really was, but I mean, no. So the idea that they came up with that I thought was absolutely incredible, was that the community off is made of the community of people, the attendees that are here. Right. It's each in our own individual way, but we all come together as one and still one ecosystem that makes this community that tear it off. And they. They got to this mold idea as a representation of that as something, you know, however you want to decide what mold means to you as something ugly or beautiful or individual or what have you, and came up with this brilliant identity of literally making it, growing it, and having it become the community coming together and having that literally be what the identity is for. Off it was. And I was like. I was like, well, I'm definitely not that smart, but that's really cool and I want to be a part of that.
- [10:25]
A
What did it feel like to see the theme which is. I mean, it's not standard. I mean, seeing sort of germs and sort of. What would you call it, like, penicillin kind of thing out of camera molds? Did it feel like. What was the first reaction to it? Like, this is not the regular thing we're working with here. And normally there's a photography and type
- [10:41]
B
and design system really, really sound and fascinating concept and beautiful to look at. And so my very first instinct was, hey, there's no good or bad way to do anything creative in what we do, certainly at a conference. But my first instinct was like, hey, why don't we make the titles tie in with the branding? That was my first thought, like, let's make some make it. And started pulling reference that you guys are seeing here of all these cool, like, trippy mold things from Pinterest, and with every idea and intentionality of starting there and ending there with the. The visual look of this. And that was a jumping off point. Very quickly I realized that both because of time and skill set, we were not going to pull this off, to literally grow our own mold for the titles or to create it in Houdini or any other tools. I just didn't have the. Those moons were not aligning to create a direction for this, but we were trying What.
- [11:39]
A
I liked what you did. You seen the visual stuff. You kind of, like, try to dissect it. How can you potentially recreate it in 3D? But when we spoke about it, when you were working on this at the beginning, you actually made a statement. You actually made a statement piece where you wanted to summarize the amendment of cultured audience, like how we all to hear together and how we sort of work together. And this was your statement piece. How did you unlock it?
- [12:05]
B
Yeah, like, I think one of the biggest things that thinking about the audience here and ignoring a second, like the style of what we make, I think the commonality between all of us here at OFF is that we challenge the status quo of creativity in some way or another. And you can call it a rebel, you can call it whatever you want. It's not about being rebellious necessarily. But we're here because, like, discussion. We ask, what if we all pull, like, the amount of people you meet every single year that come here that are like, I couldn't afford this, or I'm from a far away place, or I was in a different place and I maxed out my credit cards to go to off to get inspired. And I did the same thing early on. And I was like, man, that's what this is all about. That's where we all are at some point and start and certainly begin at because of this passion to get to where we want to go. Because it's just such a cool, privileged, awesome, humbling experience to be able to be as creative as we all get to be and be around each other. And so that theme of challenging the status quo, and then I think the one little check mark I added to it was with joy. Because, look, creativity is so subjective and it is so hard. And especially in this day and age, there's so much pressure with world chaos. There's this whole AI thing. And so it was just like, okay, how do we challenge all of that with joy? And that was the theme that came out of this, to try to put something on this idea of community that the Uncommon team had formulated so well with this identity.
- [13:44]
A
I mean, it's a big statement. Let's challenge the status quo with joy. Because obviously you got a hard part and then you try to make it fun. Like, let's do it, let's enjoy it. I remember telling you that ever since we were talking about this conversation prior for the last few weeks, I started to see the word joy everywhere. And I opened the Roller magazine, which is a cycling magazine, and there was something like an article about Spanish gravel rider. And she was like, I'm done chasing the titles. I'm now going to go and chase the joy of cycling. And I'm like, but you've been doing the thing. But the joy thing. Like, the joy is not always present. So I like that you sort of challenge this challenge. The statement say, let's not only challenge the status Quo. But do it whilst enjoying it.
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B
Yeah. It's an intentionality. Some people are just happy and things fall into place and things are out. But like, a lot of the time you kind of have to force yourself there, given any number of different reasons.
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A
You've put this slide in here, which I again, I think it's a big, big question. What is creativity?
- [14:44]
B
Yeah. So here's the big challenge that I ran into with this, With. With this beautiful mold idea. And even this challenging the status quo with joy is like, what do you do for at least four to five minutes of titles? And how do you add any rationale or any meaning or any purpose or any. Like, literally, how do you make something and like. And give it a reason? And so I asked this big question is, what is creativity? And where I got to with it is, you know, even the next slide is what is community? And ultimately I broke that down and took this really postmodern approach to this, where the process and the journey is the art. Like, that is the. In this case, that is the titles is. And so what is the journey? But the journey is us coming here, is us doing work, is us doing work to get to the end. It's the same way that it is us coming, coming here from wherever we're coming from, for whatever we're going through to become the community together at one place. Which is off.
- [15:49]
A
Yeah. Because I like what you put together. You put joy, creativity, community together, put it on a basis and put it on a journey. And you say the journey is the joy and struggle.
- [15:59]
B
Yeah. Because it's easy to make these slides with these big one statements. But ultimately the messy reality is that it's a mix of everything. It's joy if you decide it to be. But it's also struggle, no matter what you decide, because sometimes things are hard and it's in a case like. And I think in the journey of creativity. I'm not speaking for anybody else, but it's a roller coaster. It's up and down and up and down and back and forth. And I think that's the comment that I wanted to make with a piece like this.
- [16:29]
A
No, I'm looking forward to getting to the roller coaster as soon as we get into the technical slides. The second question, as Vijay has now been talking about joy, he suggested a question. What gives you joy? So you've got this card and a few more minutes to actually write what gives you joy? So if you have a think about it and fill that in, there's a conclusion to. There's a reason why you're doing the homework and not sitting just quietly. Pj, in your process slides in your deck and your frame board, you had these three stages of creativeness. You got anticipation, process and celebration. Do you want to tell us what it means?
- [17:05]
B
Yeah. Yeah. That's the journey. That's the creative journey. And that's how I wanted to break up in chapter in the titles into three chapters that are here. I think the anticipation, let's say we get a project or decide to make a project. The anticipation and excitement and sometimes the stress. Because I think as creatives, it's our passion is to challenge ourselves. We get pretty bored pretty easily doing the same thing. So we're like, well, let's do something new. And that gets us a surge of joy and excitement. But also you're like, holy shit, how do I do that? Right? And then the process is something that I think, at least in my world, clients have been really, really putting the really cramping into and saying, we need it now, we need it tomorrow, get it on the first try. And so we the idea of play and experiment and just trying to see what can be discovered by making a ton of different things. And then I touched on the celebration is that's when it all comes together. That's getting to the end. That's aiming for the end. That's getting to the happy place, if you will.
- [18:09]
A
What were the failures? What ifs? What was there? Because I have to say, from running my own creative studio for nearly 20 years, we would normally start with a frame board and a mood board and start with something and get to a completely different place. Whereas your mood boards were actually pretty close to what you suggested to do to actually find a product. How rigid was it? What were the failures and what were the what ifs?
- [18:34]
B
Well, the reason I have this slide is that I've learned from many talks that I've seen here that it's one thing to have an idea, but to experiment and play and to just make a bunch of stuff. No matter, because I've done and this happened a million times on this. I had tons of ideas I thought were great and as soon as I started it, they were total garbage. And so the idea here is we just. For no good reason except that I like doing 3D, I worked in Cinema 4D and Maxon. Shout out to the Maxon team here. This is my Maxon. Let's just UI slides here and viewport stuff and just started making a ton of stuff. Just experiments to see what was like viscerally Cool. And from there, just see what could kind of formulate itself from. From it so that. And not overthink it. And they were all failures, per se. But you also helped me learn something from it and helped me be like, okay, well, this little unmemorable thing became this, became this, became this. And suddenly you have piles of a thousand. It's sort of like, like, you know, it's like the reverse social media. You know how we see all those one posts of amazingness and they're secretly something like one of a thousand bad days for a particular artist. This was like a thousand shitty ones to get to the one day, one little snippet of an idea. So that's. That's the whole, like, failure what if thing.
- [19:55]
A
It's really interesting because how annoying. I mean, how annoying. That's the wrong voice, wrong words to choose. What was the challenge about getting to the shape of the building because it's not a standard format. Like, did you already started thinking, like, there's certain limitations in the shape, or did you actually take it on thinking, we got a challenge, like, we've not done that level before?
- [20:14]
B
Yeah. So Pep, to his credit was like, hey, this is a screen for off. This is a screen for Barcelona. This is a screen for people walking by that don't know anything about creativity. So how can we do something that warps their perception of even an abnormal screen to begin with? And so it was a lot of thinking about how to use that as a box, as a screen, as a surface, you know, and so it was definitely like, how this is not how we normally. How do we do something with that? But I kept coming back to, how can I get this identity, this beautiful mold idea from Uncommon? And we're still trying to give it a good old college try with some of our 3D experiments. And it looks like little kids toys to the beauty of what they're making, but we're still trying at the same time.
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A
What are we looking at on the right hand side? So on the left hand side is the off identity. And this is what did you grow it in.
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B
The left side is from the Uncommon team that literally grew that with. With real mold, a real mould artist and all of its beauty. And the me is on the right with the team trying to recreate it in 3D to, you know, just because we wanted the control and sort of line it up, but it just wasn't good enough, so.
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A
And then it's moved on from kind of almost like semi park. The idea that the mold is going to be the main character, main hero. And you've taken on those three stages that's going to almost create like a three chapters. So where did the inspiration come from that just flashed up like, where did you collect it from?
- [21:38]
B
So we started to respect the. Let me see if I can explain this the right way. We started to respect that this was really ambitious and got a little scared. So we were like. And then also. But it also kind of lined up with this idea anticipation. So we're like, okay, the first chapter. Let's test out technically what our systems can even do. So we started to explore this cube voxel world because we're like, okay, this is going to be a lot lighter on our CG and see what cool stuff we can do. But it also became this really interesting aesthetic that represented the early idea that hasn't formed yet, the anticipation and excitement, but this very basic thing that is very analog and. And frankly, like, imperfect. But at the same time, I also started to see, like, hey, this is our first status quo breaking moment of using flat bricks on the wall of the front and starting to warp those with field effectors and stuff in 3D that makes. It kind of breaks your perception of what a flat surface is. And then from there, as you're going through it, it's really messy, but you start to be like, well, what about this idea? And so we're doing experiments, experiments like this that seem really great one afternoon, and you put it in and you're like, this is total garbage. And you get that out of the way.
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A
I absolutely love it.
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B
No. Yeah. But it just didn't. I don't know, it didn't feel like it had enough going on. But it became, again, it's the what ifs from the quote unquote failures and became something else. And then the process became the art on this because it led us to this very sort of like, amorphous, moldy, like, coagulating, like a bunch of no ideas coming into one idea aesthetic with this thing. Of course, we had to do the AI thing, run it through AI to see what it would look like. And it looked like we had nachos and bubblegum and it didn't digest very well. And it was AI and we were like, let's. I don't know, we didn't like it. It felt a little too, frankly, like AI slop. So we ruled it out, got it out of there. No AI in the final piece. And I actually like AI stuff. We just couldn't get it anymore where we liked. And it didn't serve our purpose.
- [23:50]
A
I like what you said. It was a bunch of new ideas coming into one big idea. It's like, like the process of curation. I mean, for example, the piece that I liked, you were like, no, didn't work. I mean, yeah, the fuzzy AI stuff, I mean, but especially the beginning. The solid shapes were really good. But what was the process of curation like? Did you work on it yourself? Did you say, I'm directing this or was it an input from other.
- [24:12]
B
Well, no, I was directing this. I was directing this with my inner voice that was. Or voices that were complete chaos. And like, like, some days I liked it, some days I was like, this is shit.
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A
And so I've got a question for you, because I know you and I talk quite a bit, and sometimes in one of our conversations, it once came up that it was the element of trust, that sometimes you don't feel like you are fully behind something. That you feel like maybe, am I making the wrong choice? What was the element of trust in here?
- [24:39]
B
I think it was the discomfort of not knowing if it was good or good enough or would hold up and just keep grinding through it in spite of the inner tension. And then eventually something came that you're like, oh, yeah. But it's not like there's no logical thing here to it. It was just one little motion test and texture thing. And you're like, yeah, that's it.
- [25:04]
A
So I've got us to a process stage. So that's when things become to be a bit more juicier. Waiting for the thing to show up. Let's go. Here we go. Color and texture. So in the process, originally the plan was to create color coded stages and all of that stuff. How quickly did you. Because I know that most of what's in there is quite close to what you had originally planned. But how did you travel with the idea? Because this process section is, by the way, for anyone who is into soft bodies and particles, is gonna enjoy the next 10 minutes because it's gonna be a blizzard of 3D thrown into the shape of building. But you touched on in the process, obviously in the beginning, in the process, you touched on the fact that this is about creative community, it's about friendship, it's about how we come together and how we celebrate our sort of own shared creativity. The people that you worked on with them, how did it come about? Like what? Who was the sort of deciding factor?
- [26:04]
B
It's the plot twist. So this is me working on this for a long time for not for a Long time for like maybe a month and being like, okay, this is way more than I can handle. But at the same time, I knew about this. I got to this process section and I knew that like, look for all the like Houdini and C40 artists that are into this stuff, like myself, it's so fun to just experiment with different techniques and so created this category to be able to find these experiments to find, you know, do stuff to try, you know, soft bodies. All the stuff, all the fun, all the fun 3D shit. And then. But I. But at the same time I was like, I am out of my element here. Like time wise. Like, I need to ask for help. And I suck at asking for help. But my friend Alex Liu, amazing, amazing Houdini artist. I've done tons of titles with him and just hit him up and was like, as if he wouldn't, as if he wouldn't say yes. But I was like, I need help. And he's like, dude, we always do this stuff together. But what was really interesting and cool about this process was that it was not like, hey, you must do this. I had all of these categories of things we could explore. And you know, and I like sort of the simplicity of some of it. Like the Man V Nike reference that, you know, now is kind of retro and dated. But there was this element of speed and excitement, of just cool little experiments with some art directed color. And it wasn't like, do that. But I was like, alex, just play with stuff you wanted to play with. What if, you know, he was human and he's been doing some. I don't even remember how he described it. And so he just started making his own stuff for this process section and just let the cook cook.
- [27:39]
A
And what was the process of you letting go and actually giving him the trust? Because are we looking at some early development stages? What was that?
- [27:46]
B
Well, you know, everybody works differently. Like, I like to be kind of more emotional and stressy and, and existential with my inner chaos. And what does this all mean? Alex is completely different. He's just much more technical as an artist. And he just was like. I was like, yeah, we'll just use their color palette. Throw it on at the end. Here's a lighting setup that's consistent. Now. Do what you want to do and see what you can do and find. And he started making piles and piles of stuff. And the real life considerations came up like, is it quick enough? Is it long enough? Is it, you know, that kind of a thing? And. But it was, it was, it Became very sort of methodical with his side of the things. And, yeah, we just started kind of pecking away.
- [28:29]
A
That's really interesting when you said, is it quick enough? Is it long enough? Like, because did you have a. From almost like you have a spreadsheet with all the names on it and go like, this is this person. This is the section they get? Or was it more?
- [28:40]
B
No, I didn't. You know, I don't mean this in a. In a disrespectful way to the names of the titles. I knew what they were going to be and where they're going to sit, but I was much more in consideration of the audience standing in the room or standing outside and how they would take it in. And also the scale, you know, how this plays in a little quick time on your computer versus how we're all looking at it out in the outside was like, hey, let it play out, but let it not be so fast or so slow that it puts you to sleep or makes you, you know, throw up or something. So it was trying to just be delightful in just the right cadence.
- [29:21]
A
I mean, the titles are. I mean, always beautifully incredibly designed and executed by so many amazing studios. And sometimes you try to find, like, the way of, like, how far did you go with this? Like, what did you create it and why? And, like, how did you get done meaning into this and in your way? We were talking about the fact that is there a way to challenge the status quo and introduce the organisms, the molds and that kind of stuff and then introduce everyone as a character or as a sort of end credits? But that idea kind of floated for
- [29:51]
B
a while, but then, yeah, I think we just. I think we just went with our heart and who we are as artists and our passions and kind of just made the stuff we wanted to make and just break the rules of, like, brand consistency. I sound disappointed, dismissive of uncommon. That's not the case at all. It was just. We wanted to make a bunch of crazy stuff and also make it change enough to keep the audience, ourselves as part of that, entertained by constantly trying different things and letting the, like, chaos and mismatching and the sort of postmodern processes art lead it and just let it be this just very experimental thing and. And back to the friendships thing. It started to invite other people in, like our friend Alejandro, who's this amazing, amazing CG artist in Columbia. I think he might be here, at least around here. We called him and was like, hey, we want to do this hand reaching out thing because we want to try to trip people out and again, break this perception of what it is to have a surface. And so he got in there, started making a bunch of stuff and experimenting with stuff, and we got this cool life. So it was, again, just little micro ideas to try to be different and I don't know. And experiment and then pulling in different friends along the way.
- [31:05]
A
This is an interesting one because I saw Alejandro yesterday at dinner, and he was like, PJ called me, and I had to be involved. Like, I had to be part of it, like this. He couldn't miss out. I wanted to do it, even though he was busy. Like, I want to do something, but it's really interesting to see, like, how everyone's got slightly different style to this. Like, how everyone's already sort of bringing something different to each chapter, I think,
- [31:25]
B
again, you know, bringing it back to the beginning, like, when we're all here, or at least when I'm making stuff for a conference like this with my peers. I respect this audience so much, and I've stood on every side of this, and it's the social pressure of, like, man, I want to be as cool enough or as creative enough or whatever. And then the whole thing just became about tearing that skin off, away and just being who we are deep down and making the stuff we like to make and letting it just kind of. Kind of come out however it does, you know? And it was kind of a shedding of pressure in a way, as we went on.
- [31:59]
A
What was interesting, you said just a minute ago, you said you're quite an emotional creative. Stressy. How much stress was this incredible.
- [32:07]
B
Like, it's like an emotional pendulum of inner chaos all the time. Just because it's, you know, all the imposter syndrome stuff. Even though on paper, I have nothing to do with, at this point to be impostery about, but it's still. Still there because it's. The dance partner would challenge yourself to do something different. Like, that's the. It. The We. We challenge ourselves as creatives to do something different, but it's wildly uncomfortable and. But at the same time, that's when we get into to. You know, especially when things as technical as this or not don't go swimmingly well, like, you're like. Or do. You're still like, ah, it's an interesting
- [32:44]
A
one because we always say that. I always imagine creativity from the outside to be this calm lake with no ripples and the sunset in the background. Right. You know, that's what creativity is. We sit at home and create this beautiful work, but the reality is completely different. It's a wipeout, it's storms, it's near drowning situation. Sometimes, sometimes.
- [33:03]
B
Until you get to this last chapter and you call my friend Josh Pierce, who's an amazing, amazing, amazing C4D and octane artists and literally bases this beautiful work on meditation and creating environments and creating landscapes and. Oh, yeah, well, actually, no, I'm lying. First I was like. I was like, yeah, let's make some CG landscapes. And then I was like, well, let's take this surface and make it a room and make it basically a neon nightclub. And I was like, let's make people dance and party outside. Off at the end. And. And then some whatever reason, we changed our mind. And I didn't feel like doing that. And then I still was like, well, I don't know how. I don't have time to do any of this. And then we called Josh Pierce.
- [33:44]
A
Then you called Josh Pierce.
- [33:46]
B
Josh Pierce is amazing, amazing artist that bases a lot of his work around meditation and landscape and the sense of, like, I don't know, calm and serenity. He does these really beautiful worlds and. And center on shapes and neon. I've been a BIN fan. We're very, very close friends, and I, like, very, like meekly over lunch was like, did you help? And he's like, dude, of course. And so he went to work and started making his worlds. But we, you know, o for off. I wish he was a bit more clever than that, but we started with that as sort of the end goal, the end place of the journey. And he started experimenting and making this stuff and basically taking these worlds that he built and creating these growing things that lead us that kind of represent all of us coming to off and all of us getting to the end of the creative journey and is sort of the rationale and motif for some of this early stuff. And then we kept at it, and then eventually we figured out that the circle represents all of creativity, all of us, all of off. It's the person, it's the artist, and it's the. You know, it's easy because it's like olive off. But it became kind of our, you know, it starts with a cube clay, you know, forms itself, sculpts itself into the circle. And that becomes when creativity sort of shapes. And that became our little. Our little motif to carry through so
- [35:24]
A
much going on in this. So we are at these three stages again, process. So anticipation, process, and celebration. Did you celebrate when you finished it? Did you have a sigh of relief going? It's done
- [35:43]
B
I celebrated.
- [35:44]
A
Is it done? Could you still go? Can you still work on it?
- [35:48]
B
Yeah, no, it's done when it plays. There's some technical stuff that just has kept sort of. You know, when it was done in my heart was when I stood outside with everybody else last night and kind of watched this play and just sort of felt the moment, which I think is. Is what this all is. And all this comes to, like, we're still tweaking stuff because there's, you know, there's always something. But, yeah, that was the moment of, like, standing with everybody last night and. And again tonight. That's. That's when it sort of finished.
- [36:16]
A
One thing that really got me was, like, how it was cohesive from start to finish. Like, how did you blend it one bit after another? And it was just going, going, going.
- [36:25]
B
I was like, well, shout out to Adobe. That's when we threw it into After Effects and started tweaking all the colors and trying to get it to match up, because it wasn't. There was all of our, like, even on some of the Cube stuff, and some of the sections were like, this is great. And then you look at it and you're like, wow, this really sucks when it's all put together. So we. We just. We use comping to colorize and get everything to feel like it was a little bit more as one. And then just kind of drilled at that. And yeah, I think that was the. And then there was just an acceptance of, like, we have to finish or there's nothing to experience. And just, you know, and then you kind of. It sounds so cynical because it is. I'm really proud of it. And it was really just a beautiful experience, especially with friends. But there is. There's always a kind of a learn to love it moment. And that's when you're like, oh, yeah, you see it for the great. For the joy of it, you know, and so it was cool.
- [37:19]
A
Was it? I mean, what was the feeling seeing it with your friends just on this incredible canvas?
- [37:23]
B
I mean, beyond. Yeah, there's no words like it's. It's in the same way that I see my friends standing on stage, like Ross earlier and showing his work, or, you know, Miguel earlier and just seeing all that same. It's just like. You're just like, ah, hell yeah. Like, just the incredible.
- [37:40]
A
I mean, well done. I mean, such an amazing piece. The reason why we got permission, acceptance, curiosity, and gratitude on the screen is because we were talking about how we perceive our creative processes. And I believe that permission is something that we, you know, you look at the now versus how, but, you know, I want to do something. I've got no idea what. What it really entails. I really shouldn't know how difficult it could be. And then you go down the journey. So for your now versus how was like, hey, Pep, can we do the titles? And he said, yes, that was your now. We're like, how do I make it now? And then you go into state of acceptance going, okay, well, if I accept the skill set of the constraints, everything, then that will give me a chance to create the work. And then we go into a place of curiosity going, what can I do with this? Because I know that I've got find to foundation sorted. And we go, actually, now, what you kind of, I think quite clearly displayed is the place of gratitude, of having the ability to share this with the world, both with the audience here, like, share it and actually be able to do this. Because I feel these, like, sort of are mirrors of how we see the processes that being able to do what we do. I mean, how lucky are we that we can sit in this room, talk about creativity and celebrate creativity at this festival? I mean, that's, for me, it's always a place of deep gratitude, being able to do this because it's something that other people potentially can't do.
- [38:58]
B
I mean, I feel with a vengeance so strongly about this and how it represents off and I think represents everybody that's here and everybody I've been inspired by. Because I think alone, especially when we're younger artists, we ask for permission to be creative or to be a part of things. But then you have people like Seth Epstein from Los New York. He didn't talk about this, but he was my very first boss. And he was.
- [39:24]
A
He.
- [39:25]
B
Yeah, yeah. And he created this culture to not only not ask for permission, but to bring your courage and audacity and just shoot for the moon. It was the culture he created creatively that set the course of my entire career to just go as boldly as I possibly could. And then I think just all the rest of them, curiosity and acceptance and gratitude. Curiosity and acceptance particularly, is from friends. I think the biggest thing that I come, when I stand here at OFF and look at these talks, you're like, there's no magic button that cures all of the challenges, but you're like, holy shit. That person's going through the same thing. And that person too, and your heroes. And you're like, man, it's very, very cathartic to go home being like, okay, other People are too. That gives me fuel to like, keep just grinding through and making rad shit.
- [40:19]
A
And.
- [40:20]
B
And then the gratitude is just being here together with friends of every shape and seeing everybody both delighted and inspired and shining on the stage, it's just like, man, that's all like, this is why. This is this. And it's awesome.
- [40:35]
A
You know, I'm going to confuse the audience with another three words, but yeah, yeah. Because I call this the three stages of a creative career or creative life or just life. And the invert stage is the egocentric us. Like when you. Everyone can remember when they started in the industry, it was like, I know the best I can do what I love. We want to do it my way. Because I have been here for five minutes. I don't know anything. You know, you kind of. You go there with that sort of your own permission from naivety, and you want your credit on everything. You want to be celebrated. And then you realize, actually, if I let go a little bit, I can do stuff for other people. What am I here for the good of the project? What can I deliver? How can I let go and actually go work with the team and be less of a dick to try to project every single idea into this? Then I feel like where you are in your stage of your career now is the forward stage, which is the we. What can you do for everyone? How can I give away the time, the creativity, the skill set? Because what you created ultimately is very generous piece that pushed you to places that, you know, you don't. You don't. You don't choose to go voluntarily, to say, I want to be stressed, I want to do this. But you've chosen to create something that celebrates this community, this friendship that it's no other.
- [41:50]
B
Yeah, Like, I'm just. I'm the biggest cheerleader of everybody I possibly can. And I'm not that. I'm not afraid to be a fanboy and I try to help as much as I can because, like, it's like stuff. I mean, how many times there's things where you're like, oh, yeah, that's easy. We just do it this way. And it like, lights someone up that might not know. And if I can find, like a cheat code to help anybody to get through and get to the fun part faster and more like, man, like, that's, that's, that's, that's what I would want on the other side of that equation. And so it's, it's like, let's do it. And I think so much of it Just kind of comes down to friendship in the end. And like, that's. That's like the. Like. Like, think about this, like when. Like, think about the. Some of the most fun moments of creativity. And I think about it in a studio session, like, especially early on at a studio, it's like five of us in a room late at night, grinding, like, you know, we're the underdogs, but it's like in some deadline, whatever, and like, it's the time of your life. Like, you like time. If it's creative flow, things flow by, even though it's crazy. And it's just like. Like, that's the. Let's box that up and like, have that be life. And that's the friendship and the community, and that's. It's. It's cool.
- [42:56]
A
I think there's one word that came to me from what you just said, and that's the word joy.
- [43:00]
B
Yeah.
- [43:00]
A
Yeah. Because the endless hours, as long as they might be, like, they're still joining, because if you didn't enjoy it, why would you be there?
- [43:06]
B
Well, that's. The whole thing is just like, clearing out all the noise to find the joy. And, like, there's always going to be some reason not to, but, you know, so.
- [43:16]
A
So I hope you've done your homework because we'll try to do an experiment. Should I get you to advise our audience what to do next?
- [43:24]
B
Yeah, yeah. So what we're going to do is we're going to take out that card. You might have to close your eyes because I don't want anybody to poke their eye out. But you're going to take the card and I'm going to. I'm going to record this. And on the count of three, could
- [43:33]
A
we have the house lights on by the chance?
- [43:37]
B
Here's why you're going to do this. At the count of three, we're going to throw it out in the air, and someone else is going to find your reason for joy.
- [43:43]
A
I. Ideally, maybe you want to stand up. So you're gonna stand up. If you can stand up. If you don't want to stand, I'm not sure why, but if you stand up, if you've got one of these, if you filled it in, I mean, if it's empty, you might want to keep it. But what we wanted to do, we wanted you to throw the card in the air. Wherever it lands, if it lands on your head, I'm sorry, but it's the reason why we wanted to do it. So we shared a reason what daring forever means. To you what gives you joy. So if somebody else finds. Finds it, do good. Your opinion, right? Does it make sense?
- [44:12]
B
We want you to create joy for somebody else. This is our little game.
- [44:16]
A
All right.
- [44:17]
B
Do you want to count them off?
- [44:18]
A
Should we go? Three, two, one, go. Yep.
- [44:21]
B
Yeah.
- [44:21]
A
Three, two, one, go.
- [44:25]
B
Yeah. All right, now find some joy. Let's see how this works. Let's see if this actually works for you guys. Thank you.
- [44:36]
A
Well, that turned out better than I thought.
- [44:37]
B
I think the cleaning people are going to be pissed at us, but it's fine.
- [44:42]
A
We'll do Search party just in a second. Whoa, that was a good one.
- [44:48]
B
That's a good shot. Let me see.
- [44:50]
A
All right, Burton, you're going to be on the spot now. Excuse me. So, our little experiment. Thank you for taking part. What did he say? Ah, Burton, we got you. Can you read it?
- [45:08]
B
Nothing. Because today I haven't. I heard about it for the very first time. That's all right.
- [45:15]
A
He needs more time.
- [45:16]
B
He needs more time. That's okay.
- [45:18]
A
P.J. what would you say about. How would you summarize the process of making titles? How would you say in one couple of sentences what the process was about and how many emails you're gonna send next to ask for more title work and other stuff like this? Because it clearly pushed you in a new direction. It pushed you into places that made you stress, made you emotional. But ultimately, celebrating what you've created is, I think it's incredible piece of work that you're afraid to. Because when, as I said, when I seen it for the first time, it was nine minutes, I'm like, oh, my God, that was a lot of work.
- [45:48]
B
I think it's just like you said, just asking and keep asking, and eventually something will. Will stick. And then, you know, I think just owning the truth of the journey as the. As the art, because for good and for bad and easy and for hard, and just try to, like, lead with your real experience.
- [46:10]
A
I want to thank you for everything that you've created. I think you're an incredible creative creating work that moves people, color joy, full of gratitude, full of amazing work. I mean, you work with someone so many different sectors, create an amazing visual storytelling, and you are one of the most humble people in the industry. So thank you.
- [46:28]
B
Thank you. But thank you, guys. This is the inspiration here.
- [46:32]
A
Thank you. Daring Creativity Podcast is going to be a book. It's going to be a book in January 2027, and all the conversations from the podcast will be in there. I got a book called Daring Forever, which is coming out in October. There's a little card that you can pre order the book if you want a limited edition, but the link is not up yet to do it tomorrow. And I wanted just to give it up for pj. Make a lot of noise because you are incredible.
- [47:07]
B
Thank you guys so much.
- [47:12]
A
Thank you.
- [47:12]
B
Tell me what you want, wanna hop
- [47:16]
A
on it I wanna be down I
- [47:20]
B
say you wanna be what you.