We continue our artist chat series with the master of shiny keyframes, Austin Bauwens of Ravie.co. Austin's playful vibe and approach to animation inspires State and we love spreading it forward.

How did Ravie begin?

Ravie started in the middle of COVID in August of 2020, and we were all online. I think we still are as a studio, all eight of us now. And it was really just Noah and I working out of the same house when we were roommates for a couple of years up until we started bringing more people onto the team.

What does the future of motion design look like to you?

The race towards the pinnacle of motion design is certainly something that a lot of studios will go after. But what we're doing is really starting to try and understand how we can just become better strategic partners to our clients. And I don't mean that in the traditional "we want to add more value". I really mean working with a small group of clientele that we can get to know personally and better understand how we can Raviefy their brands. In the same way that we just get to play around and do what we think is fun.

Taking some of that whimsy and being able to bring that into clients rather than just the same prescribed explainer video over and over again is something that I think will really help push brands forward and make them more personable, in a way that people are definitely craving right now.

How do you crossover storyrelling and technique to translate brand messages into shapes?

We'll often either get a script or some set of audio or just listen to that over and over and over again. With the amount of time that we have in the industry now, even just a couple of years, we can just close our eyes and sit there waving our hands around and really just start to see the form and impression of the movement in a way that isn't nearly as technical as we thought it would be. Rather than thinking of things as objects or "hey, we need some scene to represent transportation, so let's add a car or a bike". We'll try and just dissect like what does that look like? If we were to just completely blur our eyes out and get the impression of that movement instead? I think it's just much more abstract.

What inspired your 10 hours long YouTube videos?

Even though it took me 10 hours to make some of them, it was easier in my head than thinking I was going to have to edit and write script and cut down a tutorial. So instead I was like, Well, I'm already going to make these anyway, so why not livestream? Then I also was able to give people a peek behind the curtain without having to worry about like potentially censoring any useful information that they might need.

What can we apply from the gaming world to motion graphics?

Any sort of gamification is good in my book. Community Challenges, where we come up with a theme and then do a multiple tournament round like it's Mario Kart or something just to help people practice their craft. To me it's much easier to engage with something like that. Then of course, that I have to pull myself through when I know there's some competition involved that can just help give me the extra push I need to get things done. 

We took some cooking shows that we liked and are doing After Effects auction instead, where the players can only use the MOVE tool if they buy it on the auction block and then every time they use it they lose money from their total points, for example. Everybody eats food, but not everybody is a chef, yet you'll still watch cooking shows, you know? So I'm taking some of those formats and find ways to gamify what people already know and use that in our own craft, make things more approachable and take the veil off of our shrouded industry a bit. 

Are you scared AI will steal our jobs?

I would be if I were purely focused on making the same type of videos over and over again. But we would get bored and our company probably wouldn't exist in a couple of years anyway. What we rely on more is just being fuun, goofy and silly, as much as that can translate into client work anyway. I think that human element alone may turn into a USDA certified organic motion design, and then you'd have an expanded Fiverr division that's using AI.

What do you love most about what you do?

That there's really a job where I get to just make content and pretty pictures and still feel so incredibly fulfiled.