The GDAD Interview series aims to explore the award-winning graphic design and advertising faculty. Each interview reveals the history of the teacher, the classes they teach, if they're working on any special projects, and their perspective on creativity, learning, and art.
Graham Elliott runs eyegasm.tv, a multimedia production company based in DUMBO New York, and has produced projects across the world, from music videos in Japan, travel commercials in Trinidad to TV travel shows in Mexico and Morocco. Joey Cofone, a junior in the graphic design program, spoke with Graham about flying airplanes, switching to art and how he ended up exploring motion graphics and making a documentary.
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Joey Cofone: Hi, Graham.
Graham Elliott: Hi.
Joey Cofone: Let’s jump right in. According to your website, eyegasm.tv, you were training to be a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force, but then you switched to art. What made you decide to make that change?
GE: From when I was about 13 years old I was completely in love with airplanes and aviation. The smell of the kerosene, it just did my head in—it meant adventure. I didn’t come from a rich family, I’d never been abroad, so this was my way of traveling, in a sense. I got to watch the planes coming in and out of the airport. So I decided I wanted to learn to fly. Everybody thought I was insane. I joined the Air Cadets, it’s like the Boy Scouts for flying, and went through the ranks.
I found out there was a flying scholarship with the Air Force. I did all the tests, I went down to London, and there were 120 kids from all over the country. The first day was all physical examinations. I wore glasses, and at the time if you wore glasses that was it, you were kicked out straight away. So I took the eye test without my glasses, I don’t know how I did it, but I got through along with 12 other kids. I was flying solo in less than a week.
So I’m 17, I got my wings, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to join the Air Force. It seemed a bit stifling. The whole time I’m good at art—my mother was an artist—and I thought I just wanted to try this art thing out. Again, everyone said no, my dad went crazy. I signed up for a foundation course and I just loved it. I decided to go with art.
JC: Why graphic design instead of, say, illustration?
GE: I was going to do photography, and then I realized with graphic design I could incorporate other stuff. I really liked coming up with projects. When I graduated, for some reason, I wasn’t that keen on the design world. I drifted around a bit doing more fine arts stuff and illustration, which was more enjoyable.
I moved to London and went to the Royal College of Art for an Illustration Masters. I teamed up with one of my classmates, we called ourselves the Thunderjockeys. We became this crazy design anarchist duo. For our first assignment we made a video for Swatch called 'Time Travel'.
JC: So this was your first introduction to motion?
GE: Yeah. It was a combination of graphic design and video, it felt very natural. When we graduated we had a show at the school. I built a skyscraper with a TV set in it showing our Time Travel film. Edward Booth Clibborn was the head of American Illustration and he liked it. He asked us to come to America to do a presentation.
We did our presentation at FIT with this crazy suitcase sculpture. Steve Byram, the art director at CBS/Sony Records was there and he invited us to meet up at the record company. About 6 months later I got a phone call and he says that Vernon Reid from Living Color wanted us to do their new album sleeve. So we did it, along with the next two albums and the video for the song Glamour Boys.
JC: That’s fantastic. How did you make the segue from music videos to commercials?
GE: We went to see the boss at Saatchi & Saatchi Ad. agency and asked for a job. He said no. We said that we were the Thunderjockeys, we could do anything. We put together a portfolio and went back and, I don’t know why, but we decided to dress up as women and brought a goat and a dalmatian along with our portfolio. The animals didn’t work as well as we planned and he kicked us out. Six months later we went back with a lot more work. We put thunderflashes in the portfolio as a surprise, but we didn’t get the mixture right and, when he opened the portfolio, it set the fire alarm and the sprinklers off. It was a mess, people were running around. We got kicked out again. We went back a month later, no tricks, and showed our portfolio. He gave us a job and we started writing and directing commercials.
JC: Fast forward, you’ve been working on all these videos during your career thus far. Your latest project is a documentary on the motion graphics industry in New York, appropriately titled New York In Motion. How did this project come about?
GE: I’d been guest lecturing at SVA for 10 years. Then Richard Wilde asked me to teach a music video class. I tried it and absolutely loved it. Soon after, a motion graphics class came up and I started teaching that. Students were asking me what motion graphics really is, it’s such an ambiguous term, and I thought maybe we should make a film about it and ask the industry itself.
We chose the top motion graphic studios, freelancers, and networks in NYC and we went all around and started interviewing people. It was originally going to be a 15 minute piece, but I realized it had the breadth to be a real documentary. It turned out that the industry is actually booming in New York ironically helped by the recession.
Madison Avenue and all the advertising is based here. They used to go do all the commercials in LA, but because of the economy they didn’t have the money to go all the way to California, so they decided to do them all here. That sparked a big change. Companies here in NYC that used to do the end tags for commercials started getting entire commercials. All these small companies started to get big jobs and were able to grow.
The film is about the creative process, how studios make these videos, how they started off, about the industry booming, and the ubiquity of motion in our daily lives.
JC: How can people watch the documentary—is it online?
GE: Not currently, we’re working on different distribution methods. You can check out the trailer at nyinmotionmovie.com and find out how and where you can see it. We’ve been showing it at festivals around the world and have had so much positive feedback. It’s really exciting.
Starting in September my motion graphics class is going to be New York In Motion–The Portfolio Course and we’re going to have people come in from the industry and set projects. It’s going to be very much a course derived from the industry itself. It will be great for students to have an introduction into the market before they even graduate.
JC: That sounds exciting. Thank you for sharing, I look forward to seeing the documentary.
GE: Thank you.
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