For over 11 years, Justin Barnes has been the creative lead of Versus, shaping its rise as a sought-after and influential, award-winning creative studio.
Under his leadership, Versus has continually pushed the boundaries of creativity and production, working with today’s most influential brands and agencies.
Justin’s vision for “ownable originality” ensures Versus’ work remains groundbreaking and defines culture, taking inspiration from the brand’s own DNA instead of external trends.
Known for bold and brave creative, and with Emmys, Clios, Lions, and a slew of other industry’s top awards, he has become an industry leader in innovative, visually rich, cross-platform storytelling.
What you will learn
- How AI can amplify creativity when paired with skilled artistry, but risks diluting quality when used carelessly.
- Why mastering AI as a tool rather than letting it lead ensures control over creative vision.
- How combining multiple disciplines under one roof creates cost-effective, bold, and cohesive storytelling.
- How to identify the DNA of a brand and turn it into unique, emotion-driven stories that resonate with audiences.
- Why balancing efficiency with perfection in AI-led workflows can save time without compromising quality.
Transcript
Jeff Bullas
00:00:07 – 00:00:59
Hi, everyone and welcome to the Jeff Bullas Show! Today I have with me.
Now, for over 11 years, Justin Barnes has been the creative lead of Versus, shaping its rise as a sought-after and influential, award-winning creative studio. Under his leadership, Versus has continually pushed the boundaries of creativity and production, working with today’s most influential brands and agencies.
Justin’s vision for “ownable originality” ensures Versus’ work remains groundbreaking and defines culture, taking inspiration from the brand’s own DNA instead of external trends.
Known for bold and brave creative, and with Emmys, Clios, Lions, and a slew of other industry’s top awards, he has become an industry leader in innovative, visually rich, cross-platform storytelling.
Justin, welcome to the show.
Justin Barnes
00:01:00 – 00:01:01
Thank you. Excited to chat.
Jeff Bullas
00:01:02 – 00:01:32
So, Justin, you’re uh what we call a creative and also a content producer. And um but I’m, I’m always intrigued by uh what was the inspiration, you know, when you were younger? And you went and did, you know, a fine arts and design degree at Brooklyn College where was the, where did you start your creative journey? Was there any inspiration that was just there, you know, straight out of the, out of the oven when you were born? Um How did it all start for you?
Justin Barnes
00:01:32 – 00:02:07
Yeah. Um Good question. I, so I know I grew up skateboarding here in New York. Um And that was just my love, my passion. Um And I took it pretty far so I became sponsored by a lot of companies and then basically was paid to just kind of travel around the world skateboarding, which was amazing, great, great way to live with when you’re 18 to 26 or eight. And then at that time, I remember I bought an old super eight camera and I’d start shooting some super eight film. Um and then getting it developed and transferred
Justin Barnes
00:02:07 – 00:02:41
and I taught myself, like imovie would, then I taught myself final cut pro just to sort of put the trips together. Um And I started to like, really fall in love with just editing and then making these short films about like all the trips we were on with all my friends and skateboarding and just telling stories in a unique way. Uh So I, I started to like that more than skateboarding to be honest, like going out and like filming and then like making these videos, then I taught myself after effects because I wanted to learn how to do some titles and do some cleanup work and some visual effects on that.
Justin Barnes
00:02:41 – 00:03:11
Um And then it just took over my life. I, I sort of stopped skateboarding in that way and started just focusing more on just learning design and after effects and editing in 3D, I taught myself Maya and all these other programs just because I was so obsessed with it and loved it so much, um which led to an internship which led to um working at big studios and then opening other studios and then eventually, uh opening up versus 11 years ago.
Jeff Bullas
00:03:11 – 00:03:22
So you went to Brooklyn College? Was that prior to you becoming a skateboarding star traveling the world or when was that?
Justin Barnes
00:03:23 – 00:03:47
It was in the middle of it? So I wanted to go to college. Um, I started taking some art classes at Brooklyn College to get a fine arts degree. I was really studying a lot of things like print making and book binding. Um, I was taking some more digital art classes as well. Um And then just, you know, had a teacher that really inspired me to take that further. So for me, college was just about, you know,
Justin Barnes
00:03:48 – 00:04:13
just going because I had some time I wanted to, I wanted to try and explore it, but it wasn’t a means to sort of get a degree or to get an education and go out and find a job. Um, it was just like a by-product of those things. To be honest, I was doing things my own way at Brooklyn College and studying things I liked and was interested in and making art and studying digital art just alongside skateboarding alongside learning everything else.
Jeff Bullas
00:04:14 – 00:04:16
So, so much more organic rather than formal.
Justin Barnes
00:04:17 – 00:04:33
Yeah, exactly. There’s no, there’s no need for me to ever have gone to college. But I did, I did and I’m sort of grateful for the experience. Probably not so grateful for the student loans. But, um, you know, it’s all part of the story so it got me here. So, no regrets.
Jeff Bullas
00:04:34 – 00:05:11
Yeah, because it’s interesting, isn’t it? That sometimes you start off with a formal degree. I started doing an accounting degree. I hated it but changed after one year and then started a teaching degree and then I’d actually taught for five or six years and realized I hated it. Um, because you don’t know what you don’t know and you don’t know what you’re gonna like until you actually do it. So, but, um, but that degree opened a door and got me hired into the technology industry back in the 19 eighties. So, um, sometimes I think planning’s overrated and, uh, randomness needs to be embraced a lot more in chaos.
Justin Barnes
00:05:11 – 00:05:19
I couldn’t agree more. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a very expensive and inefficient way to figure out what you like. But sometimes you just gotta do it.
Jeff Bullas
00:05:19 – 00:05:59
Yeah, exactly. Sometimes it’s just a ticket. Yeah, it’s an entry ticket. Right. And, uh, and it comes down to your own creativity and what you’re curious about. So, so you, you’ve learned accidentally by actually recording your own skateboarding journeys around the world and, um, then you went and helped agencies. So you’ve been doing, versus now for over 11 years. What, how did that start? Was it, was it something you did together with someone else or just you said I’m gonna do this because I’m fascinated by this particular need for creating, you know, doing creative work for companies. How did versus happen?
Justin Barnes
00:06:00 – 00:06:28
Yeah. So, you know, when moving from an internship, I started working in all the large studios here in New York City and just learning and kind of seeing how the studios worked and just working on really huge projects. I helped launch a studio through an edit house and sort of got a feel for, for what that was like. Um But during the whole time, it just, I, I felt like there was a better way to be doing this. I felt like there’s a smarter way
Justin Barnes
00:06:28 – 00:06:57
to be a creative studio that was really production focused, to work directly with brands, to work with agencies, to work with entertainment partners and to just bring a kind of different way of thinking to it. Um So when I, I, when I left the last place before I was at versus um the, my thinking was, look, I’m gonna start a studio. It’s called versus, because we’re gonna be, versus the traditional model of like a creative studio, production studio. So the name, you know, as we say, a versus like this is a name,
Justin Barnes
00:06:57 – 00:07:25
You know, that we say to ourselves, to our clients and to the work that we’re doing like, we’re, we’re not gonna be in it like traditional, we’re not gonna work in the same way. Um versus was born from that. And I started it with um Samantha Louise, who’s my wife. Um And I met her at a studio that I was um that I was running the creative side of, she was running the business and the operations side of that. And I said, like, look, I have this idea, you can run the business, you run the business side, I’ll run the creative side and we’ll grow from here.
Justin Barnes
00:07:26 – 00:07:49
Um And then we, we grew quickly to be honest and we brought on our um our, our current partner, Rob Meyers, who we have here two years later after we were growing to a scale where we just couldn’t do it ourselves anymore. And then from then it’s been growing exponentially, but, you know, always keeping that sort of core uh idea that we’re just really versus, you know, what everyone else is doing out there.
Jeff Bullas
00:07:50 – 00:08:07
So let’s run back to the reason you said I can do this better. That quite often happens. Once you’re working within a corporation or a business, you look at it and go, I can give us what were the problems you saw that you could do better? What, what did you observe that led to you starting versus?
Justin Barnes
00:08:08 – 00:08:32
Yeah, I, you know, a lot of studios are sort of focused on just maybe one discipline or one medium, like an animation studio. Any idea they have is like, oh, let’s animate it or a live action studio is just gonna rep a bunch of directors and try and just do the live action work. Um or like CG or 3D character studios or just creative studios who don’t have production capabilities will have ideas but no ways to get them done.
Justin Barnes
00:08:33 – 00:08:56
So we were looking at it more holistically, we were gonna focus on the idea rather than sort of the execution and then build all these tools. So we would be amazing at live action, amazing at uh animation, amazing at edit and motion graphics, all of these different things that when you bring them together, they create really unique work, really original work. It’s tough for a lot of studios to pull off because,
Justin Barnes
00:08:56 – 00:09:21
You know, clients want to see something more niche. But for us, what’s niche about us is just original work and original thinking. Uh We have all these tools to bring that together, to make it happen. And that was the vision for the studio from the very beginning and it took a while for people to understand us. Um But, you know, once they did, they, they found that like this is the, the better way and the right way to sort of approach these creative problems to solve,
Jeff Bullas
00:09:21 – 00:10:12
right? So that’s a big challenge actually too, to be all things to all people in terms of the idea is great and the originality is good. Uh But you’re dealing into a whole range of different types of media and um but I love the originality thing. I’m just that I’m thinking, reflecting on that sort of like every carpenter sees every problem as a nail, right? So, so that, yeah, and for me, how did you manage? Did you focus on one thing and then expand in other words, did you create what we’d say in the, you know, one of the key phrases is a minimal viable product or a, a process to how did you go from uh do doing, take an idea to do everything with it, from animation to live action and so on. You must have been quite a challenge.
Justin Barnes
00:10:12 – 00:10:36
It was, you know, we’re, we’re excited about all of it. So it’s exciting for us to bring all that together. But when we’re talking to clients originally, um it, it did feel like there was a need for brands and for agencies and for networks to sort of package things up together. So that helped rather than going to one place for an idea, then another place to sort of get it executed from a live action and to an animation,
Justin Barnes
00:10:36 – 00:10:58
it just felt like the idea was just becoming a little bit watered down kind of for each step. So when we would approach them and say, look, we can do all this, we can bring it all together. There’s obviously cost efficiencies and all these other things. But more importantly, there’s just this communication and transparency of the idea from start to finish, that just grows bigger. It doesn’t become um less
Justin Barnes
00:10:59 – 00:11:26
impactful, I guess throughout the way. So they were excited about that. Of course, you know, brands, agencies, they kind of lead with the budget. So seeing that we can be a little bit more cost-effective was maybe um a little bit higher up on their list and sort of make sure the idea was great. Um But we’d pitch it as both and it, it caught on, it caught on to like, you know, a lot of agencies, a lot of brands. Um and we just started building from there. Um and, you know, we would, we wouldn’t win all the work, but we would win the work. That was right for us,
Jeff Bullas
00:11:26 – 00:11:40
right? So what’s your ideal customer profile in terms of, is it small, medium large enterprise or is it just the type of type of work they want done that is more important?
Justin Barnes
00:11:41 – 00:12:07
II, I think it’s someone looking to do something unique, something original to sort of, you know, challenge themselves, challenge what their brand is or what their brand could be and come to a studio that has everything here and, let us be a good partner and just show them what’s possible. That’s like the ideal client for us. Uh, and then having a ton of money also doesn’t work. That’s always a good thing. Um
Jeff Bullas
00:12:07 – 00:12:11
But, and following that, those that actually pay their bills as well, that’s actually really important.
Justin Barnes
00:12:12 – 00:12:47
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it’s different. Every client, every project, everything is different for us here. And that’s by design. We’re not trying to be this one stop shop for everybody. We’re trying to just work with clients who understand that like this, there’s a, there’s a really powerful creative process at work here and there’s tools that we’ve put together, like from all these execution of tools from animation to live action to everything on the production side that can like contribute to this and just elevate absolutely everything as we go along the process.
Jeff Bullas
00:12:47 – 00:12:57
So from an original idea, it sounds like you’re actually trying to create something that stands out that’s original and also maybe true to the storytelling DNA of the company you’re working for.
Justin Barnes
00:12:58 – 00:13:10
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And then through the lens of versus, right, we’re a very New York City company. Very bold and we’re very just sort of like loud. So, um, we, we wanna bring brands kind of into that, into that world.
Jeff Bullas
00:13:12 – 00:13:22
So, marketing is about standing out and actually word of mouth. Is that more how it works for you? Rather than spending money on Facebook ads or meta ads? Do they call them now?
Justin Barnes
00:13:23 – 00:13:49
Yeah, we, we, we have like a great sales team and business development team but like a, a lot, it’s just building on the reputation that we have and that’s sort of how we get work. And, um, or, you know, we’re not the kind of studio that sits around and just waits for projects to come in. We’re, we’re going out, we’re pitching ideas, we’re making phone calls and saying, look, we’re working with client A and client B, what if we did something together? Um, you know, we’re, we’re chasing work and making the work to go chase as well.
Jeff Bullas
00:13:51 – 00:13:55
So the other question I have, which I think I know the answer for already, but I’m gonna ask it is, uh,
Jeff Bullas
00:13:57 – 00:14:25
going from being an ordinary person working for an ordinary company and crossing the threshold using a hero’s journey analogy. Was that easy for you to cross that threshold? Because a lot of people sort of look, I really have this idea and they go, oh, I don’t want to leave the safe job. And so they approach and they then retreat. How was it for you to do that or to just feel like the right thing and it was just an easy crossing that threshold.
Justin Barnes
00:14:26 – 00:14:50
It, it was, it felt like the right thing. Um, you know, we, we’ve learned a lot along the way, made a lot of mistakes, um, that we’re grateful for, to be honest, you know, you, you get, and you start a creative studio because you wanna just do more creative work and then it turns out you’re just doing business stuff all day long and you’re like, oh, ok. I guess this is not what I had pictured. Um
Justin Barnes
00:14:51 – 00:15:11
Yeah, I mean, it’s been a wild journey. It’s, but I, I think we’ve just, you know, been brave along the whole way like there’s, we’ll never go back. You know, this is especially for me, for Samantha, for Rob, you know, owning a company and, and being in charge of our own sort of destiny and the work that we’re doing is exactly where we want to be and need to be.
Jeff Bullas
00:15:12 – 00:15:35
Yeah. So it sounds to me like you’re just following your bliss really? As Joseph Campbell said, and, um, I, I, I’m really intrigued by, you know, business plans and, um big plans and then, you know, it’s like Mike Tyson said, uh everyone’s got a plan until they get hit in the face. And, um, and did you write a business plan?
Justin Barnes
00:15:35 – 00:16:16
We did. Yeah, we started writing business plans and then changing them and then rewriting them and trying to, like, understand our positioning and, um, you know, questioning a little bit of what we were doing along the way, but never questioning the motives for why we were doing it. I, I, to be honest, I think we’re just, we, we’ll take big swings and we’re not afraid of anything and I think that’s exactly what it takes. Like we have failed and lost millions of dollars and then we’ve won and done the same. Like, you know, so for us it’s, it’s all sort of part of this, this crazy journey and, you know, we’ve learned to love the peaks and the valleys, um, to get,
Justin Barnes
00:16:17 – 00:16:32
yeah, it’s tough to say because, you know, you know, owning a business, running a business, it’s the best day of your life, followed by the worst and just repeating. But when you back up far enough and kind of just look at what you’ve done. Um, you got to kind of keep that perspective as well.
Jeff Bullas
00:16:32 – 00:16:54
Yeah. Yeah, it’s, um, I think we’ve all just got to embrace the fact that it’s going to rise and fall. It’s going to be tough days, bad days, bad weeks, bad months and good ones and uh sort of embrace the pain as well as the joy, I suppose and just accept that it’s the human condition and it
Justin Barnes
00:16:54 – 00:16:55
really
Jeff Bullas
00:16:55 – 00:16:55
is.
Justin Barnes
00:16:55 – 00:17:04
Yeah, I mean, everyone wants stability but that, that stability is what’s holding you back from greatness. So don’t, don’t love stability too much.
Jeff Bullas
00:17:04 – 00:17:22
No. Well, stability can be rather boring frankly. Right. It’s like who, who Wants Groundhog Day? Every day? Right. That’s why we go on holidays and that’s where we start businesses because we need some light and shade. We need some winter and summer and I’m sure you’ve had all of that.
Justin Barnes
00:17:23 – 00:17:25
Yeah. Uh weekly today.
Jeff Bullas
00:17:27 – 00:17:31
So you walk into the office and go, what the fuck is gonna happen today? OK. Oh my God.
Justin Barnes
00:17:31 – 00:17:35
Yeah, it’s just like, oh it’s one of those days. Ok? Let me get ready for that.
Jeff Bullas
00:17:36 – 00:17:42
You put your big boy’s pants on and just walk in and yeah, just deal with it
Justin Barnes
00:17:42 – 00:17:49
and you deal with it and you take it and you trust the people that you’ve hired around you and it’s just, and you move on.
Jeff Bullas
00:17:50 – 00:18:27
So now the elephant in the room which is affecting creativity and productivity and even sometimes seen as an existential threat to humanity is a I. Mhm So I’ve been intrigued by, there’s two elements to it that we had a quick chat about before we hit record here. Number one A I’s impact on creativity and also AI’s impact on productivity. So I’d be really interested in your thoughts and really, I’ve been, when did you start using A I and what has been the impact and uh for you and the business?
Justin Barnes
00:18:29 – 00:19:01
Yeah, I mean, it’s, we’ve been using A I tools if you could call it that for as long as they’ve been around for the last 34 years. Um But this just, this quick explosion of generative A, I, I think it’s just something that II I couldn’t have ever imagined. I don’t think anyone would have to be honest. Um And yeah, it’s, it’s, it is scary for a lot of artists, for a lot of filmmakers, for a lot of creatives. Um And we look at it both ways. We’re, we’re scared of sort of
Justin Barnes
00:19:02 – 00:19:30
what it could do to the industry that we love and that we’ve helped build. But we’re also just excited about just the sheer potential of what it can do for the work that we’re creating. It’s this really interesting place to be, to be like, so scared and so in love with something at the same time. Um because it can, it, it’s gonna go one way or the other, I think, you know, we, I think what we’re, what, what scares us about it is maybe
Justin Barnes
00:19:31 – 00:19:56
less, less degenerative A I itself and more of um brands and commercial, um you know, art for art for commerce, sort of type work just becoming a saying it’s good enough. Like if everyone starts to become complacent and brands are like, you know what I’d rather this is fine. I don’t want to pay any more money for anything, then I think we’re in trouble. Like if we if we all race to the bottom
Justin Barnes
00:19:56 – 00:20:17
and then all, all the work sort of becomes just typing in a prompt, that’s good enough. Let it go and it becomes this, you know, quantity, over quality mindset. Um Then I think just the creative world is in trouble anyway, we’re already sort of steering in that direction even without A I. Um But again, within that there, of course, is like an opportunity to really stand out. And I think that
Justin Barnes
00:20:18 – 00:21:03
in the hands of really experienced artists who understand tools like Photoshop and after effects and flame and 3D and my and all these like really powerful tools that you take the A I and you manipulate it and you cut and sew and you put it back together in your own vision. Then um you’re gonna start to see some really incredible work from the people who just know how to use it in the right way and you’re gonna see terrible work from someone on linkedin who has like, you know, 30 different descriptions of who they are A I enthusiasts. All these crazy, like A I consultants, just typing in prompts and making films that are just garbage and no one cares about, like that the bottom will fall here and the top will rise in the middle is going to be a scary place.
Jeff Bullas
00:21:03 – 00:21:32
Yeah. Yeah, I watched a little bit of your Adobe presentation which was showing you a process in terms of using A I to create like an apple. Uh two hero shots you were talking about now the apple and the tree and then the cut apple for the drink brand that you’re working with. And um you showed some of what I do, which is the fun part of A I and also the bad part of A I. It is basically like a hand coming in and wearing an industrial glove to pick up an apple when you’re trying to sell a, you know, organic drink. And um
Jeff Bullas
00:21:32 – 00:21:52
so we have this like randomness. So the bottleneck and just watching that, that is one of the both the joys and the frustrations of working with A I, isn’t it? So because the bottleneck for you and also the addition, what you bring is professionalism and also uh reviewing because the bottleneck for you is actually reviewing and editing, isn’t it?
Justin Barnes
00:21:53 – 00:22:30
It is. Yeah. A I am insanely unpredictable. It’s terrible. To be honest, everyone’s saying this is amazing and they’re right. This is crazy. This is great. But for a client facing work, unless you’re like someone really skilled to just kind of fix it at every stage along the process, you’re just not gonna get something that’s, that’s great. And more importantly, you’re not gonna get something that’s your vision. Like there’s this point where A I starts to control the vision of where it’s going and then maybe like a bad creative will sit back and just let the A I drive, good creatives are gonna always drive and just force A I like, make a I, your bitch is like what we’ve been saying,
Jeff Bullas
00:22:31 – 00:22:31
I like that.
Justin Barnes
00:22:32 – 00:23:03
So it’s just like, and then that’s exactly how we’re using it. It’s just, it’s this tool, it’s this thing that we’re just like whipping into shape and getting what we want and just moving on and then continually doing the great work that we are. Um But on the bottleneck side, yeah, I mean, it’s awesome for ideation. It’s awesome for just getting ideas out quickly and pitching and showing clients the possibilities of work. Um, on that side it’s amazing. And then as we continue to see it evolve, we’ll see how much it can play a role in actual client facing and consumer facing work.
Jeff Bullas
00:23:04 – 00:23:46
Yeah, you mentioned a couple of things there which I uh love, which is um A I using uh using A I as an ideation tool. And I think the challenge for any creatives is that we all get stuck in our own frameworks and history and we become a little bit calcified over decades as we work and create. And uh what I love about A I is it’ll toss up ideas that you hadn’t even considered or, or it’s the actual mixture of ideas you hadn’t considered because it’s one an idea generated. And also there’s a joy and the randomness of it as well. So do you use it a lot to actually just create ideas?
Justin Barnes
00:23:47 – 00:24:11
We use it a lot to visualize our ideas and then from that, we’ll do something weird and crazy and then we’ll maybe chase that down a rabbit hole. Um But what’s great is in a cost-effective way, like when we’re working on longer form content or these big things, like before we go out and shoot anything, we’re able to like, try and test to see if it’s gonna work. Is it gonna feel? Right? So like the, the fact that we’re able to kind of,
Justin Barnes
00:24:11 – 00:24:46
you know, do all this upfront and then go out and shoot what we want knowing what we’ve already seen. I mean, it’s saving us tons of money, tons of time. Um, and it’s just making the creative process just a little bit more enjoyable rather than just like trying things and fixing it in the back end. We’re like, kind of pushing that to the front now. Um, the process. So it’s cool in that way. And then from that, to be honest, like, you know, I will throw out something a little weird and interesting and you’re like, huh? And it’ll get you thinking in different ways. Um And then you’re able to, to see if this is viable or not.
Jeff Bullas
00:24:47 – 00:24:53
In other words, you can accelerate the draft so you actually can find something, um, some magic amongst all that noise, isn’t it?
Justin Barnes
00:24:54 – 00:25:19
Yeah, exactly. That I mean, look, there’s no one button push to make great creative work. This is more about just ideas and figuring things out, getting it out of your head, showing the client what you’re thinking, which has always been a challenge for and for all this creative industry is like getting the client to see what you’re seeing. Um And then buying into that idea and then letting you take and run with it. So for me, it’s just so helpful for that. I mean, it’s a game changer.
Jeff Bullas
00:25:19 – 00:26:03
Exactly. The other thing I, I, no, I interviewed Nick Bostrom uh the polymath out of Oxford University. He wrote two books, one’s called uh Super Intelligence and also interviewed also, he had recently a new book called Deep Utopia. One’s one’s about the dystopian view and the other one was about the utopian view and um really interesting talking to him in terms of um you know, existential threat to purpose, which is one of the things like you can just, and you mentioned it before in that you can hand the keys to the A I and stand back and let it do all the work, which just means that you’re going, you look at that creation, you’re going, why am I even here as a creator?
Jeff Bullas
00:26:04 – 00:26:28
And so that’s the existential crisis. On the other hand, making a or your bitch, which I love that phrase and I might steal it and use it one day in a, in a blog post um or just use it and apply it across a general idea. Um But the reality is that if you make it, you’ll be actually what’s really cool is that uh it just can amplify your creativity, can’t it?
Justin Barnes
00:26:29 – 00:26:57
Yeah, about 100% and your execution and all. Yeah, all that across the board. Yeah. Again, you’re, you’re right on both counts. Like there’s, there’s the scary part where people are saying like, well, it just can do it for you. And then there’s the creatives who are going to say no, I have a vision and there’s a reason for this, there’s a soul to this idea and the work that we’re gonna create and A I is just gonna be another tool that we use to, to realize that to realize my vision or our collective vision.
Jeff Bullas
00:26:58 – 00:27:50
Yeah. So um yeah, and that comes to the next point is you’re trying to do something original, which is basically, again, trying to DNA and tell the story of the brand you’re working for. In other words, not just following a trend as you mentioned in your intro. And um Yuval Harari, the uh the historian, the Israeli historian who wrote the book SAPIEN, um He’s really worried about a R’s impact on human storytelling and this is part of what I suppose you as a creator are trying to reveal, they’re trying to tell a story. Um And the most powerful marketing quite often is a well told story which is really human and gets to the court and touches hearts. So how do you deal with storytelling? How do you actually unearth that within the brand as part of your process?
Justin Barnes
00:27:52 – 00:27:54
Wow, great question. Um
Justin Barnes
00:27:56 – 00:28:43
Yeah, I mean, it, it, it’s different for sort of the objective if you’re trying to sell a product or you’re trying to create awareness for a company or you’re just trying to um you know, build a brand and just build this, you know, this cultural moment around like a brand for instance. But II, I think that, you know, if, if you try to understand why the brand exists, what their origin story is, why, why they’re out in the market, why are they making a difference? Um And then you just kind of tap into the human emotion, I think of why someone would want to believe in that brand and be a part of it and be a part of their purpose. Um Then you just start to connect the dots in interesting ways, then start bringing in people who align with that thinking
Justin Barnes
00:28:43 – 00:29:20
um be it influencers or celebrities or other brands or just cultural moments and you start looking at things and putting them together in, in, in interesting ways, then I think you can create really amazing stories that are very different. Um It’s, it’s not just about sort of telling why Nike was, you know, developed and then someone made this logo for no money. And like all these it’s more about like, why, why is Nike this huge cultural brand? What do people see in it? How can we extract that? And then how can we tell that story in a different way through a very different lens and then start figuring it there?
Jeff Bullas
00:29:21 – 00:29:37
Yeah, it’s um when you do your last presentation where you do your draft, you, you come in and do a pitch, which is what you do isn’t, you go in and do a pitch. Um And I suppose you go back and you have a look at, you’re trying to unearth the DNA of the brand you’re working for and the product
Jeff Bullas
00:29:39 – 00:29:58
When reflecting on that, your job, I suppose, is to try and get the leader of the project on the client side watching what you’ve done and going Justin you’ve nailed it, you, you know us, is that what you’re aiming for?
Justin Barnes
00:29:59 – 00:30:39
I, I think that you’re Yeah, well, you, you want to show that you know them and you wanna show that you can scare them with ideas that they haven’t thought about at all. At the same time, you want them to feel a little uncomfortable but excited about the possibility. I think you always want a brand to sort of rein you back then you do say push it further. Um You know, you can come in with a safe idea and maybe that’s good alongside something a little bit crazier. Um, and then something just, maybe even more extreme that again, just like, pushes things in a direction they haven’t thought of yet. It can backfire
Jeff Bullas
00:30:39 – 00:31:10
but it can, it can. Exactly. Yeah. Some films boom, you know, some creativity bombs. It’s, you know, sometimes it just takes off and, uh, um, I think the latest movie, was it Metropolis or something? I’m trying to think of the name of it that’s just released. He spent 100 and 20 million on his own dollars. Megalopolis. That’s it. Yeah. Um, I think it’s bombed but sometimes these movies become a cult a year or two later. So, um,
Justin Barnes
00:31:10 – 00:31:26
it, it’s a great point or then you, you take that and compare it to a 20 four’s model of just making these amazing cultural movies for a couple million dollars. It just, they just connect with the audience in this way that they like it, this shows that you don’t need a ton of money to have to do that.
Jeff Bullas
00:31:27 – 00:31:52
No. Well, I’ve seen a lot of start ups raise a billion dollars and then absolutely bomb, you know, or get bought out and then start again. But the staff of Suleiman, OK, just got taken over after $1.6 billion of capital raising and got subsumed back into, I think it’s uh Microsoft. So it’s, it, money does not actually guarantee success. Does it,
Justin Barnes
00:31:53 – 00:32:06
it, it absolutely does. Not um you know, it helps with big ideas but I think um the idea at its core, if it requires millions of dollars, it’s probably not the greatest idea.
Jeff Bullas
00:32:08 – 00:32:27
Alright, let’s lean into the next uh one before we wrap it up and um so A I and creativity, we had a good chat about that and um love uh your phrase. Um and what about A I and productivity? How did it help you actually scale your humanity and creativity?
Justin Barnes
00:32:28 – 00:32:53
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s obviously where A I is shining, it’s just sort of helping us like in that apple example, that’s work that could have taken three days that we did in an afternoon. So obviously, it’s helping become more efficient on that side. Um And that’s done by an artist who would normally also be doing that three days of work. So it’s not replacing anybody. It’s just speeding up the process a little bit.
Justin Barnes
00:32:53 – 00:33:27
Um You know, we’re, we’re finding ways to use it outside of like the generative A I and the creative space to kind of help us on the bookkeeping side and just running a business and, you know, we’re, we’re a smaller, smaller side of the business. So being able to sort of um find efficiencies in that is obviously huge and just saving us money on just the back end of things. Um But there’s a lot of noise out there. I, you know, it’s tough, everyone’s got an A I solution for everything these days. Um So we’re, we’re finding our way just like everyone else to be honest.
Jeff Bullas
00:33:28 – 00:33:53
So how do you, that raises another question? How do you deal with all the complexity and velocity of A I? Because like you said, there’s just so many tools they are all coming on the market. And so how do you keep up with that? Because everyone promises their tools, does it faster? J A um Yeah, to keep up with those trends, the IR trends and tools that you use,
Justin Barnes
00:33:54 – 00:34:17
I think you don’t, I think you step back and understand what we’re here to do and that’s to make great work to, to bring ideas to life. And then when you have that idea, you start looking at what tools could help you do that. I think if you are, if, if you start becoming one of these linkedin A I consultant type people who’s like trying to keep up with every new little thing coming out, it’s like for what’s the purpose of that? Like, are you trying to,
Justin Barnes
00:34:18 – 00:34:53
you know, find the cheapest race to the bottom to get something done or are you just like, are you looking at what you have to do as a creative and as an artist and just maybe saying like I have the tools that I normally use. I could try this on this one, I could try this on that. See what’s working out and just not get overwhelmed and just all the noise and all the hype because it’s just that it’s a lot of hype and to be honest, oh bullshit. A lot of it is just terrible. Um And a few things are good and progressing faster than others. Um And you use it for what you need and then you kind of move on.
Jeff Bullas
00:34:54 – 00:35:08
So the challenge also, you would be OK, I still need to make money. So I, even though I want to make it perfect, the tension between getting stuff done and perfect. How do you manage that?
Justin Barnes
00:35:08 – 00:35:47
Yeah. Great, great question. Um Well, we’ll always go to perfection. So I think we’ll, we will use A I to the point where um where we need it to and then we’ll just do things like we’ve always done on top of that um to make things perfect, you know, for now. Um Yeah, as it evolves, we’ll see if they can start doing things, uh they’re up to our standards, but it’s not right now, at least out of the box. It’s not, I don’t think it ever will be, to be honest, at least for the good studio standards it would be silly to type in a prompt and just think that’s a film in any way.
Jeff Bullas
00:35:48 – 00:35:59
Yeah. So you get to a point where you’re going, this is actually we’ve nailed it is that when you go, we’re going to stop now and show the client is that when did that happen?
Justin Barnes
00:36:00 – 00:36:22
Yeah. Process along the way, showing them work in progress. We love bringing clients to this collaborative process. It’s just that much better for the work. Um So we’ll show them along the way, of course, what we’re doing. But um you know, we’re, we’re trying to do the best work possible at all times and we have the needs and we have the time and hopefully the client has the budget and we’ll, we’ll get there.
Jeff Bullas
00:36:23 – 00:36:52
So one couple of final questions, the last one’s gonna be what brings you deep joy and what would you do for the rest of your life if you actually had all the money in the world, what would you do every day? Um That’s the last question. So I’ll let you, I’ll let you reflect on that. But the other one is, what are some of the big lessons you learn as running a business in a fast moving technology world with high velocity change? What’s um what have been your biggest challenges that you’ve had to deal with along the way in the 11 years you’ve been running a business.
Justin Barnes
00:36:54 – 00:37:25
Yeah, I think just not losing sight of the vision and the reason why you’re here, I think it’s been the most important thing for us and then just building around that and outside of that and bringing in the right people to help you do that one thing that you know, looking back that I wish I had done more of, um, is just starting to bring people on and, you know, and looking to them to do the things that I couldn’t do, um, earlier on in the process when you’re running a business, like, versus, you know, you’re wearing a lot of different hats. You’re trying to do everything yourself. Like Samantha Robin,
Justin Barnes
00:37:25 – 00:37:51
uh, myself, we’re always, you know, moving around trying to kind of do everything ourselves. And a great point in the studio is when we started just like making these really big hires that because we were a large enough studio, we were able to talk to these people who have done this before or who have like, um who, who know things that we don’t bring them on and then just like, look to them to help us take the studio to the next level. And that’s sort of how we’ve been level jumping as a studio growing larger and larger to,
Justin Barnes
00:37:51 – 00:38:16
You know, more and more revenue, more and more IDA, more and more just presence in the industry, all of this. Um It’s because we’ve grown it to a point where we can do it ourselves and brought someone on to grow us to the next level and brought a few people on to grow us to the next level. And that’s just how we grew as a studio. So that’s just the most invaluable advice I think, I wish I knew about the gig we could have done what we’ve done in 11 years and probably five. and a great journey.
Jeff Bullas
00:38:17 – 00:38:30
Yeah. Absolutely. So, really, to sum that up, really, you’ve the importance of finding the right team members to help you take to the next level and building that team is maybe the most important thing you’ve discovered.
Justin Barnes
00:38:30 – 00:39:03
Exactly. And, you can’t just do that as a start up. You can’t say, let me just get the best of the best talent here. You have to build the studio and the story of the studio and the presence and the quality of work so that these other people who are really big out in the industry, like can look at you and say, wow, OK, you’re doing something different and cool here. I want to be a part of that. So you’ve got this gravitational pull for the studio, both for clients, but also for talent. Um And then you have to just grow that and then bring somebody on to grow bigger and bigger and bigger as you go.
Jeff Bullas
00:39:04 – 00:39:11
So the final question, what would you do every day if you had all the money in the world? What would bring you deep joy?
Justin Barnes
00:39:11 – 00:39:45
II, I think I would, I would do this. I know it’s cliche to say that but like I, I love absolutely everything about this. Um All the money in the world. I wouldn’t be afraid to just lose tons of money. Every day. So I would probably take really big chances on ideas that we have here of our own. Um But like, uh we’re all so happy where we are here. To be honest, I like the next 11 years, we’re very optimistic around. Um and excited about it, we see opportunity everywhere. So right now we’re right where we want to be. Maybe I do it from a yacht. I don’t know.
Jeff Bullas
00:39:47 – 00:40:17
Well, as Joseph Campbell said, follow your bliss. It sounds like you’re doing exactly that and you are leaning into what you are most curious about and uh you’re on, on your path, which um is great to hear Justin. And um thank you very much for sharing your insights. It’s been an absolute blast. I’ve enjoyed it, love it. And, you know, I learned so much just by hearing stories, you know, from smart creative people all around the world and thank you very much for sharing your time and insights.
Justin Barnes
00:40:18 – 00:40:20
Of course. Thank you. Yeah, it’s been a great talk.
Jeff Bullas
00:40:20 – 00:40:21
Thank you, Justin.