Click on any phrase to play the video from that point.
[CS6]
My name is Jeff Linnell, and I am a director and creative director here at Autofuss
and know a little too much about robots.
What does Autofuss do? It's a challenging question I'm asked all the time.
This week Autofuss is a manufacturing company that does a lot of laser cutting,
but next week Autofuss is a robotics engineering firm,
and last week we were shooting a traditional commercial.
Randall and myself both want to do something different with Autofuss
and create a playground.
My name is Randall Stowell.
I am a partner and creative director at Autofuss
and an overthinker.
Autofuss wouldn't exist without the space.
I think if Autofuss was just in a room it wouldn't be Autofuss,
and that's hard for people to understand until they come and see what we're doing,
see the machines, see all the gear, see the volume of the space,
see the reality of an idea
turning itself into a physical object.
[Jeff Linnell] We agreed that we would buy an industrial robot.
I was able to get it if Randy was able to name it.
That was the arrangement, so we bought our first robot.
It's named Puck, and I think about a week and a half later we had 2 more.
[♪ Music ♪]
[Randall Stowell] The culture of Autofuss is about making and expressing yourself
creatively through the technology in your hands.
[Jeff Linnell] My dad is an engineer.
I'm a design and film guy, but I grew up with a big science background
with a relatively sophisticated shop in my house.
I had access to tools.
I don't know that 9-year-olds have passions.
If they did, I guess mine was building things.
I have been around After Effects for 15 years.
It's been the place that I can certainly be most effective.
Whatever it is that we're interested in technically
sort of finds itself working its way into the work.
Oftentimes we'll be tinkering with something--I don't know--
brushless servo motors or laser cutting, and the next thing you know
the phone call comes in saying we need something to happen,
so, yeah, we could do that, but why aren't you using a laser cutter for this?
Somehow people say yes, and the next thing you know we're
spending the next 6 weeks looking at a laser cutter cut things out.
[Randall Stowell] I'm a little more on the conceptual side of things.
Jeff does things, so I think with the combo of
sort of the pragmatic how-to-get-it-done combined with these bigger ideas
that defines our aesthetic.
[Jeff Linnell] Autofuss gets excited about projects that
I want to say are relatively open-ended, and I think that's where we excel.
When Adobe approached us, it's one of those things where
it's the kind of project that doesn't come around very often,
so Randy and I were in complete agreement that we had to pursue this
no matter what the ramifications might be or feasibility or
any of the constraints that would normally be on a project.
It was a non-issue. We needed to embrace it.
[Randall Stowell] I swear this happens in every project.
We start with great, lofty ambitions, and we try and regulate ourselves
from a business standpoint and say, "Okay, we're not going to spend money."
But like this project, you know what?
We get the project, and suddenly we're buying an entire array.
We're buying 26 cameras, lenses, the technology to set it up.
We have to build a ring.
There's no other way of doing it.
[Jeff Linnell] It's hard to do something that is so wide open
with two very strong creatives.
[Randall Stowell] The dark side of it is that Jeff and I, we have disagreements all the time,
but the conflicts internally in the studio are rarely creative.
They're typically process oriented, and I hope that
contrary nature is what fuels something interesting here at Autofuss.
[♪ Music ♪]
[Jeff Linnell] I think that I found my work to be far stronger
after working with Randy.
Even though it's sometimes very difficult for us to work together
he pushes me in a way that I wouldn't push myself.
[Randall Stowell] That can go awry, and it does sometimes,
but hopefully that friction generates
the intensity that does end up as great creative.
[Jeff Linnell] I think that if we weren't working together
Randy would probably be on another continent somewhere
tango dancing, and I'd probably be building
some sort of steam engine in a shed on some mountaintop.
[Laughs]
[Adobe]
