Gene Goldstein - Creators First Spotlight
From running an indie animation studio to front-manning a punk band, Gene does this all and more! In this interview, Gene tells about his animation journey and how he ended up as a Line Producer at Glitch!
Back in my college years, I remember Gene's "Planet Panic" pilot making the rounds in the animation lab. I'm a sucker for the "grumpy mentor / optimistic mentee" duo, and his take on this classic was so uniquely bold and energetic, I was immediately hooked. Fast forward years later, I've had the pleasure to get to know Gene as a friend and colleague, and my admiration for him and his work has only grown. He's just a great guy on so many levels!
Gene shows up time and time again for the art and community of animation — if one door closes, he installs a newer and better one in its place, and always finds a way to make it work. He is making some very exciting moves in the animation space, not only with his own indie studio, Jellybox, but also extending his reach to others at Glitch, and more. He's firing on all cylinders with all burners blazing, and whatever he's cooking up next is bound to blow everyone's socks off.
Why are you a storyteller?
I feel like I've had it in me since I was a little kid. It's just always called to me. Something I've realized as an adult, is that I process a lot of things through my consumption of media. It's rare for me to feel strong emotions in real life, but good media can make me cry. I’m pretty sure I’m on the spectrum, which I think adds to this, but it’s just how I’ve always viewed things!
When I was six, I moved to America from Ukraine and I was obsessed with Toy Story. I watched that tape to death and I still love that movie!
I think storytelling is a way for me to understand my own emotions, and a way for me to connect with people. It’s also a way for me to find purpose in life, I believe that’s the biggest thing. I’m really grateful for it too, because I feel like so many people have never quite figured that out for themselves, and yet I've always had it.
I took it for granted for a long time, but now that I'm older, I think it’s a blessing. Even though it can be hard to live this “gig-to-gig” lifestyle and to be obsessed with the craft, it gives me purpose and I always feel fulfilled.
You’ve got a lot of projects going on, how do you manage all your different creative pursuits?
You know, it's taken me a long time to get to this point. I think back on the days where I thought I was busy and I laugh to myself.
Creativity and productivity are muscles.The more you work, the easier it gets. You start to learn really good time management. You learn focus, you learn delegation. Those are skills that I have acquired over the years.
With all my projects, I basically don't do it if I don't have somebody that I can do it with. Collaboration has become very important for me. All of my most successful projects usually have somebody else that I share the load with. We break it up, we complete each other's flaws and weaknesses, and it turns out better for it.
So for my band Qbomb, my writing partner, Rem Ropp, and I share the writing. We pass it back and forth and it keeps the momentum going. He handles more of the music side while I handle the lyrics. I’m also the front man because he’s more shy and I’m the braggadocious one, when I’m in that mode.
For Jellybox, I have Sean Aitchison helping out. He basically runs all the operations and production stuff so I can focus on more of the creative. I get to lead the studio direction and hiring, things that are more fun for me - and that I think I’m stronger at.
For any project, it's just setting up the pieces, knowing people's strengths, knowing how to build out these teams and then at a certain point, just letting them cook. I don't like micromanaging. I try to get out of the way and remove myself from things as fast as I can. Once the toolbox is there and the parameters are set for whatever it is, everyone can get to work on what their part is.
That's the only way I've been able to do these things. I am very busy, but there's days where I don't have anything to do. I actually have to always convince myself that it's okay that I have nothing to do sometimes.
What inspired you to make your own indie studio?
Necessity, to a degree. In 2023, I got laid off from my last job.
I was already working on NOXP, a series of shorts, because I had time on my hands. I felt the urge to make something, as I often do. Pretty quickly I started getting help from Laura Serrano Miralles - who’s now our animation director for JellyBox. She was actually the first employee that we had.
So yeah, I got laid off and like I said, I don’t like to sit still. I’ve been told that people have different reactions, like fight or freeze or flee - and I think that I fight. I can never just let something happen to me, I have to immediately figure out the solution. So that week I was laid off, I was basically like “Well this sucks and the industry is clearly not moving in a good direction - so what are my options?” I knew I had to start building something because it would take time for it to grow to a point where it could be self-sustaining and actually make me money.
Everyone says businesses don't start making money for the owner until two years in, so I was like, “I gotta start now”. That same month I registered the business and within that month we had our first client. I was like “Okay, maybe I can actually make something of this.”
Now the projects just keep coming to us! They’re always something that I want to do, which has been really cool. We’ve tried doing direct outreach with clients but it never works. But because we're consistent with our output and we're putting in the effort to make everything the best it can be, we keep getting interesting clients!
We haven't even released some of the crazy stuff that we're cooking up. It's all NDA. But I feel like the future is pretty bright. We had a really good year last year with the AWI shorts that blew up and really put us on the map.
I think that it also helped me find purpose - again. So much of the industry was burning down and still is in a way. Being able to have a little bit of control over something in my career, my projects and my output has been super helpful. I was unemployed for almost two years and it didn’t feel like that. I didn’t wake up stressed, because I was doing something. I was doing as much as I could to get myself out of that.
Honestly, having Jellybox is what led me to getting the job as Line Producer at Glitch. Kevin Lerdwichagul saw what I was doing and was like, “Hey, we need somebody who's doing basically what you're doing, for this new team here.” That has happened so many times in my life that I've learned that I got to just follow my gut. Start the next thing, do another project, and I know I’ll land on my feet by the end of it.
Has being an artist helped you as a producer?
I've kind of realized that I've always been more of a producer than an artist. I’m very Type-A and I think things through very logically. I like efficiency, and so I’ve always leaned in that direction.
I actually had a conversation with Eric Robles years ago, when I was a little adrift. My show Planet Panic had just been passed on by Nickelodeon and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself. The whole pitching thing seemed a little exhausting to continue down. He told me “You should start thinking of yourself as a producer. That’s what you are and you should follow that path. You’re good at getting things done and that’s what a producer does.”
It took me a while to understand what he meant. I didn’t know what a producer was - like what does that mean? Then I watched The Offer, which is about the making of The Godfather, and it was all about the producer of that movie. That show was really eye opening to me because I was like “Oh, he’s just the guy who goes around and tells people to keep doing their jobs. He solves problems and makes it happen. He leaves room for everyone that’s involved to do their jobs, but he has to make it happen - that is his job. Sometimes that means making hard choices or compromises. It means you have to be really confident, almost arrogant at times, to convince people that what you’re doing is worth doing.”
I realized that I have been doing that with all my projects and it has led me down this path. I think it's a strength that I’ve done the creative work, because I understand how the other side things. I know how to work with artists and not against them. Whereas a lot of people who work in production, if they haven't done any kind of creative work, they just see people as resources sometimes. They just see deadlines and dates and forget that people, especially artists, are not factories.
That has always been something that has been helpful for me and I always keep that previous creative life in the back of my mind. I have to make sure that people have the time they need. I don’t always get it right but people always say you figure out how to make a thing right as you're finishing it. It’s been like that for basically all our projects but things are going well. I contribute that to the combination that I’ve had of knowing what good creative looks like, but also what an efficient production looks like.
Where do you see the future of animation going?
I actually made a whole video about it. I think that it's inevitable that indie is going to start to dominate the mainstream animation scene. The larger studios have collapsed under their own weight and you get places like Titmouse that used to be smaller and are now feeling like the big studio - which is crazy. They're actually still making things there. They're still growing. They had their 25th anniversary party recently and I saw so many people that I've known over the years coalesce in this one location. Multiple people I had conversations with were all like ‘we haven’t had a party like this in a long time’ and that was kind of sad. But it's great to see Titmouse is holding that flag still.
Then you get the Glitches and the Flying Barks and all these studios that are still making stuff in both 2D and 3D animation. I think that this younger generation of business owners and creators are going to lead the charge and cut out the middleman quite a bit. I think the larger studios are bloated with overhead and shareholders and whatever. But there is still a hungry audience that wants content. It’s just figuring out what they want, how to monetize it and how to make it a sustainable business for everybody.
It's exciting to be at the forefront of it. I genuinely feel like I am right at the front lines of this movement between Jellybox and working as a line producer for Glitch. I think it will be exciting for everybody once the dust starts to settle too.
How has your experience been working as a Line Producer at Glitch?
I’ll share what I can. I’m the Line Producer of the GO Plus Team (GO is Glitch Online). We are the team that handles a lot of the promotional materials. We work on the small projects that are attached to the big productions, but aren’t the actual production of the show. Things like trailers, music videos, anything like that.
We help with overflow too. If an episode gets too long, we jump in to help out on those sequences. I have a small team in the Western Hemisphere, some in America, some in Canada, one guy is in Brazil - all a really talented group. It's been nice to build the thing from scratch and know that it’s only going to grow bigger. It’s guaranteed to get bigger because Glitch is getting bigger.
I’m one of three producers, there is a 2D LP, a 3D LP, and me. It all feels like the logical next step for me and where everything I’ve been doing is coalescing. Kevin and I have joked that it’s like my team is an indie studio inside of an indie studio. And I think he hired me for that.
When we were first talking, he mentioned that he sees what I’m doing at Jellybox and needed someone who can be flexible and quick at figuring things out in creative ways. We still use a lot of the resources that the other teams have because our team is just animation and lighting generalists for 3D. I have to be really good at using minimal resources to create something that is larger than the sum of its parts, which is all I’ve ever done.
It makes sense for my career right now and it feels good.
What advice would you give to young creatives right now?
The same advice I’ve been giving for many years, you’ve just got to make things. And you’ve got to make a lot of things.
I recently spoke to a college class of animation students and it bummed me out a little bit to see how little work they had to show in their portfolios. This is something that I would see even when I was in college myself. A lot of students don't realize how competitive and brutal this industry is. Everyone has a different degree to which they're willing to commit themselves and how much they're willing to sacrifice and that’s up to them. I am not going to judge that, but if you want to work in any position, you need to put in the work and have a big portfolio.
I have seen a lot of portfolios that are just the work they did for class, or it doesn’t feel like their best - and you just can’t do that. I’ve been that person, so I get it, but you also don’t realize how much free time you have when you have it. I know that the people who put in the most hours are the ones to get noticed. They stay up late working on personal projects, or webcomics or shorts, and those are the ones who make a career out of it. The ones who phone it in, or do the minimum amount of work, they might get a lucky break but they won’t be able to sustain themselves for long. They are going to miss out on opportunities.
People notice the artists that are always creating because it’s hard to ignore.
At FredFilms our motto is Creators First, Original Always - is there a creator or original you’ve been into recently?
I recently replayed Outer Wilds, which is a phenomenal game but really it’s just a work of art. Essentially it’s an archeology simulator in space. Without spoiling anything, the game is just about uncovering this secret tiny solar system and there is no combat.
There is some action but you’re not out to hurt anything. You are there to learn and explore. Technically you can beat the game at any time, you just don’t know how - you have to learn how. The ending is heart wrenching but in a good way. When I first played it, it genuinely changed me a little bit. I replayed it with someone and they were crying at the end, it's just amazing.
I think that games get a bad rap a lot of the time, which always annoys me because there hasn't been a mainstream breakthrough like there is with Ghibli where they are like “oh yeah this is art.” And I hope that happens. There are so many examples of games that are life changing for people that aren’t just shooters. Yet there are so many people who think of it that way, which bums me out. Anyways, that studio is Mobius Digital and I’m really excited for what they do next because that game rules.
Creators First: Spotlights is an interview series in which we interview creators about their lives, their work, and what they love! Stay tuned for more from artists, writers, musicians, comics creators, executives, and other friends of FredFilms!
