Juicy Studios Q & A

...an edited interview with Scott Carlton, Soren Johnstone, Jeremy Kenning and Mike Babiarz.

1. Who are you guys?

Scotty: We were four to start with and now we are seven. The original team is myself, the company president, Scott Carlton, 26; Soren, 24, who does our videos, Jeremy, 24, who I met at the Selkirk multimedia program along with Mike, 22, who is from the lower mainland via Australia. Boots, and Justin have joined us recently.

2. Is it tough to have a business like yours in the Kootenays?

Jeremy: It's easier to get the work done here, but it's harder to get the work.

Scotty: Not as many people, not as many jobs. Not as many contracts which makes it really hard. In a big centre there are contracts everywhere. There are requests for proposals in every newspaper and tons of people in the same industry, so you can go to network sessions and meetings. Here you network through your own ability to network.

3. Tell us more about your new offices?

Scotty: We moved in the fall. We call the new space an Institute of Advanced Creativity. It's an environment that you would expect in the most creative firms in bigger cities. We are in a big old loft (above the Rossland Post office). We have pool tables and video games and nurf guns.

4. How do you keep harmony in a team of four partners?

Scotty: Respect. We have to respect what each other does 100 percent. That's what keeps me super stoked. If we didn't believe in each other none of us would be here. We'd be chasing our tails, spinning in circles.

Jeremy: All the business people said, all partnerships fail. You'll just end up bickering, especially with a partnership of four. But it's worked. We put things on the table, discuss them, and everything is usually unanimous.

5. Did the company grow as quickly as you hoped it would?

Jeremy: At the end of school we did this business plan that was pretty ambitious. We looked back a year and a half later and it was really shocking to see that we actually did a lot of the stuff we dreamed of doing that year.

6. There must be strong competition?

Scotty: Sure, but ultimately customers pay us for our crazy ideas. We have our own style. We hit a demographic that's younger and we're really open, easy people to work with.

Jeremy: People think there are so many companies around doing similar stuff. But we've never really had to compete with many of them because they're doing different stuff. I think there's a lot of room in this industry; more than people realize.

7. Do you worry about copyright, about people stealing your stuff?

Scotty: No we use each other's stuff anyway, the industry is like that. There's an old saying, "Good art is great, great art is to steal." Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

8. What are your ultimate goals?

Scotty: Soren wants to make Hollywood movies. Mike is a wicked graphic designer and he wants to make huge, really cool art. Jeremy wants to make 3D effects for movies, and I just want to own it all! Ultimately, we want to be the biggest media company in Canada.

9. Starting up, did you find any roadblocks along the way?

Scotty: This industry came from a period where the Internet just exploded. Internet was everywhere and everybody's cousins, nephews and younger brother was building websites. The whole industry was flooded, and it was so cheap. We had to educate our clients so now they see the quality they are getting and they're open to paying what we ask.

Jeremy: Sometimes it's awesome and we're living pretty good, and sometimes it's peanut butter. But it gradually gets better and better. It keeps us on our toes for sure.

Scotty: We need way better Internet here. I'd like to see fibre optics or broadband Internet. Working in the Kootenays we are isolated, so getting to that huge corporation down at the coast takes more work.

10. Has the community benefited from your business?

Scotty: We've done a lot of logo design, print ads and promo videos that are on a really high level that people got for a pretty reasonable price in a town that's not used to seeing that quality of stuff.

Jeremy: We brought dollars into the area from outside. We get a lot of corporate stuff from Nokia and Whistler and that's money coming into this town. And if we need some music, we'll contract out the guy down the street who makes music. Or the music guy needs some web work; we'll do his web work.

Soren: One less empty building in Rossland.

11. How did you attract a big company like Nokia?

Jeremy: We worked really hard for five months on the first contract. It looked good, but we heard some criticism. We thought, this is our first one; we have to get this one right. If we don't get this one right we're not going to go on. So we dismantled the whole thing and started from concept to finish again.

Scotty: We asked for an extension and rebuilt the site. The second one did work better, it was smoother and it was a way better site. That was a turning point. It showed them we were really serious. Now big companies are sourcing us out.

12. If you could do it again would you do it differently?

Soren: I wouldn't change a thing. The biggest lesson I have learned is to always be open-minded. Experiment. Before I came into this group I had a hard time learning how to collaborate, and it's still hard. But because we are all artists and we all have different tastes, in the end it comes together for the company.

Scotty: I'd do it again for sure. Everybody gave everything they had. We all started with nothing, zero, we had multimedia diplomas and Soren had a computer and video camera. Maybe in the beginning it would be useful to get a really solid accountant and a mentor, someone that can tell you do this or you are going to fail. We had people looking out for us and we made it through, but I see a lot of people failing. Getting your accounting and having a plan, and maybe have an overdraft to get you through those tough times.

13. What key lessons have you learned?

Jeremy: 100 years ago it was all commodities, then it turned into manufacturing and now it's technology. Twenty years from now our economy is not going to be based on resource extraction but entertainment. It's an entertainment driven culture and we want to ride on that.

Scotty: We're young, we aren't businessmen, we're just four young guys who grew up in the Kootenays and decided to do this. We're working with these huge companies that respect us and treat us really well, and even local companies respect what we do. We have fun. The ground rules are just to have fun. If you don't come in and love what you do, it won't work.