TIM JACOBSEN - FUSEFX

"When I see that end visual effects shot that just jumps out from the screen, there's a lot of pride." Tim Jacobsen, co-founder of FuseFX

CLICK HERE TO WATCH FULL INTERVIEW

ABOUT FUSEFX:

Tim Jacobsen is the co-founder and chief development officer at FuseFX. After getting his start in visual effects on blockbusters like Armageddon and The Devil's Advocate, Tim helped start FuseFX, which now has over 600 employees and creates many of the stunning visual special effects found on television today. He joins the podcast to talk about creating effects for The Orville, The Tick, Marvel's Agent's of SHIELD and American Horror Story, and breaks down what its like to work in such an innovative industry.

TRANSCRIPT:

Jeff: ... off, I kind of want to know from someone in your position, you are the co-founder of FuseFX.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: Also Chief Design Officer, did I get that right?

Tim Jacobsen: Chief Development.

Jeff: Development, Development Officer.

Tim Jacobsen: Design sounds cooler but it's Development, which is a little more boring. It's business specific. But it's more client relations.

Jeff: I want to know though because it seems like special effects, especially visual effects, is an ever changing industry.

Tim Jacobsen: It is.

Jeff: How did you get into this industry? What got you on the path to being like, "This is what I want to do."

Tim Jacobsen: Well, you know, it's weird. You know, kids nowadays like visual effects are such a big thing that people probably go, "Ah, I want to go into visual effects. So I'm going to go to school. I'm going to learn software."

Tim Jacobsen: For me ... you know, I'm going to date myself but who cares ... you know, I graduate college in 89. So visual effects didn't really exist, you know. Star Wars was in the 70s. But, you know, there weren't big visual effects shows at that point. So I just knew that I loved media. I loved kind of television news. And so, when I graduated I just went from television station to television station in the Minneapolis, St. Paul area.

Tim Jacobsen: Somebody hired me called CONUS Communications, it was a satellite news. So basically I would figure out what all the big sports stories were of the day. I would call up the news stations all around the country. And then I would edit them together and then do a satellite feed out to the rest of the news stations.

Jeff: Wow.

Tim Jacobsen: So in that process I was like, "Wow. It's kind of cool to edit together and, wow, this could be a real job."

Jeff: Wow.

Tim Jacobsen: So, two years later, my twin brother and my sister were out in Los Angeles and they were like, "You should come out to Los Angeles. This is where you could really do this kind of stuff full-time." And I was like, "Nothing holding me back in Minneapolis, though I love it." I packed up a truck with my best friend and we drove out.

Tim Jacobsen: And I started at a place called Celluloid. And it mainly did music videos. So we were doing music videos for like Lindsey Buckingham, and we did some for Michael Jackson, and we did some for Barbara Streisand. So they would stroll in and Donny Wilson was the editor at the time and I just started sitting down and sort of figuring out how to do editing.

Tim Jacobsen: And part of the editing was using this little tool called, I think, ADO. Or it was called Kaleidoscope where you could actually do this little effects. You know, like the page turns, it flips on and off. And I was like, "Yeah, this is kind of cool." And I was like, "I wonder if this could actually be something that I could do as a career."

Tim Jacobsen: So for a while I was editing together music videos and I did one for 4 Non Blondes. I worked on a couple of other small ones. But kind of decided like the whole editing part wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. Celluloid closes down, I move onto the next business. They put me into computers and sort of supporting more of the full fledged visual effects artist on a box called Flame Inferno.

Tim Jacobsen: So that's when I really got into visual effects. And I worked on features like Armageddon, Pleasantville, the Devil's Advocate. And I was doing a lot of like clean up work. But at that point I was kind of like, ""Maybe I don't really love sitting at a computer all day staring at a screen. And maybe my strengths are elsewhere." And I kind of got into the producing side of things.

Tim Jacobsen: But all of this experience helped me sort of understand the process. So it made me a great liaison between the client, myself and the artist. So that's how I kind of grew in my position as an executive producer and producer. And that's where I met my two other partners.

Tim Jacobsen: You know, the main partner is David Altenau. And he was working on a show called Deadwood. And he was working on another show called Carnivale for HBO and so I ended up being his producer and we worked on it together.

Tim Jacobsen: And then the other partner is Jason [Fodder 00:04:15], and he was actually working for me as an artist.

Jeff: Wow.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah. So he ended up doing some of the artist work on Deadwood. And, you know, a couple years later Jason moved on to another company. I was continuing to work at the current place I was working at. And Dave approached the three of us and said, "Hey, you want to start a company together?"

Tim Jacobsen: And at that point, I think I was ready to try something different. And you ask Dave, he asked that for several years until we finally said yes.

Jeff: Wow. Wow, that's quite the story.

Tim Jacobsen: Yep.

Jeff: And now FuseFX is one of the best, if not the best in the business. The stuff you guys create is absolutely incredible. And I want to know kind of like for the layman, how do you go about getting involved with some of these projects? Because now we live in an age where everybody's got visual effects.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: I mean, you're nothing if you don't have a cool visual effects team behind you kind of thing.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: So I'm sure you're vying for that a lot. Is it more often than not where people are coming to you for the job or do you guys have to bid for the job? What is that process like?

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah, so it goes both ways. I mean, one of the great things that we really built on this company is it's all about relationships. So you got to maintain really great relationships with all sorts of clients. They could be show runners, they could be producers, they could be editors, they could be even a colorist.

Tim Jacobsen: So, whoever you meet in the industry you need to try to connect with. So you connect with the person the next project they go onto they'll bring to you. However, there's tons of projects out there where we're looking through the listings of like Production Weekly, et cetera, where we're trying to figure out what shows are going down the pipeline in the future. And who do we know connected with those shows.

Tim Jacobsen: So we're constantly doing reach outs. So if it's a Netflix show, we've got lots of contacts at Netflix. If it's an Amazon show or if it's traditional TV broadcast, we have people to reach out to. But the decision makers are always different in our industry. It is so challenging to figure out who's going to make the decision about which visual effects house to use.

Tim Jacobsen: We've got lots of great visual effects underneath our wings. So we've got some great reels to show. We've got some great artists and great support people here. So we're able to put forward a great team so that helps us in a pitch.

Tim Jacobsen: However when it comes down to it, it really helps when you know somebody in the production or somebody here knows somebody in the production. So you're constantly trying to leverage all those relationships to land the job.

Tim Jacobsen: So the first step is, you make contact. They show an interest that they might want you to work on the show. And then they'll get you a script of a breakdown. We assemble a team. They put together a bid. They send it back to the client and then you start doing the dialogue back and forth, and hopefully have an in-person meeting.

Tim Jacobsen: Because it's really best to do those meetings in person if you can. Over the phone is okay. But you really can sort of slam dunk the deal when you meet the person and connect.

Jeff: Wow. And I'm going to get into some of the properties that you guys have worked on. But what's interesting to me is you have three locations now.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: LA, New York and Vancouver.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: And I was reading that you have over 300 employees at this point, right?

Tim Jacobsen: We do.

Jeff: So how many projects could be happening at one time in this company?

Tim Jacobsen: Well, a lot of times you can have anywhere from 40 to 60 projects going on at once.

Jeff: Wow.

Tim Jacobsen: They can vary from one or two shots to a show that, you know, has 50 to 100 shots on a weekly basis. And then during the whole year, you know, I think we touched almost 120 projects last year.

Tim Jacobsen: So I think as far as episodic television, we're probably touching more projects than any other visual effects company out there right now in the world.

Tim Jacobsen: You know, we created a real efficiency to take projects through our system that a lot of other company's don't have. We created our own software called Nucleus. And basically ... not to get boring.

Jeff: No, this is great.

Tim Jacobsen: It's basically creating a software system that all the way from bidding to delivering to the shot is all included in one inclusive software system.

Tim Jacobsen: So visual effects can be very inefficient. And very inefficient projects lead to basically losing money and also not getting things delivered on time for clients. So we've got a piece of software that helps us keep in line and we make sure that the clients are sort of kept in the loop, and they get everything on time and on budget. So that's really the big goal and that's a huge challenge nowadays in visual effects.

Jeff: And speaking of challenges, you had mentioned earlier you started working kind of in the industry on major motion pictures like Armageddon ...

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: ... which was one of the biggest visual effects movies of the time.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: But now, with FuseFX a lot of what you guys do is episodic television.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: And the turnaround time must be ridiculous. Is that why you developed that software, to help you guys meet these deadlines at a faster pace?

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah, absolutely. When you've got these really tight deadlines, you better be super organized on our part. And you better be tracking exactly how much time you have into every task needed to make that visual effect work.

Tim Jacobsen: So if you're doing ad hoc and you're just, you know, doing spreadsheets that aren't connected to any software system, there's such a much greater chance for something bad to happen along the process. And when I say bad it just means sort of spinning your wheels for a week can really be the difference between delivering and not delivering.

Tim Jacobsen: You know, and we have a lot of people with feature backgrounds here too. And a lot of people sort of kind of evolved into television because, you know, a lot of TV shows now, basically they treat every episode like a small feature.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tim Jacobsen: So, like you said, there's quick turnarounds on a lot of them, especially network TV. But then you get to Netflix and other ones where you might do pre-pro for six episodes. You're pre-pro to the end of when you deliver your last shot might be a whole year for six episodes.

Jeff: Oh wow.

Tim Jacobsen: So to the layman that sounds great. But that actually is a real challenge because you don't have an infinite budget. You have a budget you need to work with and you need to make that work even if it gets spread out through months that you're not expecting to have happen.

Jeff: Wow.

Tim Jacobsen: So that's constant dialogue with the client to make sure we're all on the same page.

Jeff: And I'm sure that's got to be crazy because like I mean ... And again, for some of the stuff that you guys done, I know, just recently actually I saw that incredible sequence you guys did for the Orville.

Tim Jacobsen: Oh yeah.

Jeff: Which is fantasy, you know ...

Tim Jacobsen: Yep.

Jeff: ... Star Wars battles in space kind of thing. Incredible. And then you guys also have a lot more realistic stuff that you do too.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: When you get a job is everybody kind of a jack of all trades or are there specific people like, "Oh okay, we've got a space job and we've got our space team to do that kind of thing?"

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah, I mean basically, you take the job in and you sort of break down the tasks that are needed. So you may have somebody that models, and somebody who lights, and somebody who composites, and somebody who's really good at explosions.

Tim Jacobsen: So, yeah, we always take a look at like, you know, what are the talents of our team? Who does it make most sense to put onto this project? And then we try to assign it. Of course, we've got other projects going as well so we're sharing resources as efficiently as we possibly can. But our number one concern is making sure we've got the right people for the job so it gets done, you know, to the highest of standards.

Tim Jacobsen: You know, we were working with Seth McFarland very closely. And Luke, who is the visual effects supervisor on there. Extremely high standards. So that process starts really early. You're giving this pre-vis. You're figuring out what is this battle scene going to look like? How's this space ship going to fly? How's it going to explode? You know, you saw a couple of those where the camera went like this and it speeds up really quick.

Tim Jacobsen: Those are really fun stuff but you've got to have that all laid out before you're actually working seriously on the shot to make sure that you're not wasting any time in the process.

Jeff: Totally, totally. Another property that I'm such a fan of that I know you guys basically did from the ground up is the Tick. And the amount of visual effects in a show like that because it's basically a comic book coming to life.

Tim Jacobsen: Yep.

Jeff: I mean, you have talking dogs and giant 500 feet men and, you know, like all this other stuff ...

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: ... contained in this one show. We live in this wonderful age now where it seems like anything's game.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: I mean, superheros and horror and everything. Anything from television to movies can be game. When you get a project like that do you ever have to walk that client back? Or do they just kind of come at you with all the ideas and be like, "All right, we got this. We're going to go with it."

Tim Jacobsen: You know, there is some of that and it's funny you mentioned the Tick. Ben Edlund is the creator and so, he worked very closely with our visual effects supervisor. And Ben has all these great ideas, and they're all really cool, and we all wish we could just dive into them. But there is always that sort of net budget concern. And sort of like, "Well, Ben, I know you wanted, you know, like 20 of this but we can only give you five in this scene."

Tim Jacobsen: You know, it's constant conversations and that's where it's really important where our supervisors have a great relationship with the creators, the show runners to actually work through that process. Because the last thing you want to do is get into editorial and they just cut it however they want to and then they get to visual effects and say, "Well, you guys said you could do it for this price but now we've added three times as many shots."

Tim Jacobsen: So it's so important to have those conversations along the way. And make sure you have a great working relationship with everybody on production. And that we're part of the production process because when we're left only in post, that's when I think there's problems in visual effects. We're on set we're part of the conversations, part of the meetings. Everything goes a lot smoother.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah. And another example I wanted to bring up, which I'm sure you guys have been on set since the beginning is Agents of Shield.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: You guys have been a part of that since the pilot episode ...

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: ... every single season. And what is like to work on something like that because that's drawing literally from a cinematic universe.

Tim Jacobsen: It is.

Jeff: So I mean, you guys are creating visual effects that have to go inline with the ...

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: ... big screen visual effects but on an episodic television show. Was that daunting when you guys first started working with that?

Tim Jacobsen: It is daunting. You know, fortunately the visual effects supervisor we work with Mark Kolpack on there really ... you know, he and his producer Sabrina are super organized. So they really sit down and they think about every single shot that's going to happen and they map it out. And then they sit down with our team and we sit down and map it out.

Tim Jacobsen: There's always these like Marvel cinematic world things that we have to match and make sure that it's up to Marvel's standards of what they expect. You know, even though it's on the small screen.

Tim Jacobsen: But sometimes, you know, when that was on a regular schedule on TV, now I think it's going to start showing in May again, we were having to really have these really tight deadlines over a week and a half, two weeks. So had to be super organized and very early conversations about how to accomplish what the script has. And then Mark Kolpack is talking with the writers constantly about what can or can't be done.

Tim Jacobsen: And then there's always the budget. There's always the budget debate which is never the fun thing to do but, you know, it's reality in our business.

Jeff: For sure. And I have to just commend you guys again on that show because you blend the real ... like a lot of the vehicles that are created and completely visual effects like the bus and all that kind of stuff ...

Tim Jacobsen: Oh, yeah.

Jeff: ... look so real world. And you blink an eye and you're like, "Yeah, that exists." And then to juxtapose that with something like Ghost Rider, which I think was one of the greatest television visual effects I've seen. And I'm a big fan of this.

Tim Jacobsen: No, I appreciate that. We thought that too.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tim Jacobsen: We're going to get some traction on awards for that. We got recognition for it. But, you know, that was much harder to pull off than I think a lot of people realize, Ghost Rider.

Tim Jacobsen: You know, a lot of people look at flames and they kind of think that it's not a hard thing like, "Oh, you just shoot an element." But none of this was shot. It was all created by effects. And somebody is walking or talking and flames have to sort of respond in a very real way.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tim Jacobsen: Otherwise, people don't believe it. And even though it's a made up character, Ghost Rider, those flames still have to respond in a realistic way even though it's basically a cartoon character or a character created by the Marvel Universe.

Tim Jacobsen: But that was a lot of fun.

Jeff: It looked like a lot of fun. Because I mean, going on that reality standpoint again, I mean, you know the character of Robbie Reyes is talking, you know, at camera or at another character as his face is breaking apart.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: You know, very subtly with flame and then is engulfed in flame. But it's seamless. It looks like, "Oh, that's something that could happen in reality." And then your brain goes, "No, that's not real."

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah, and I think artists they just love working on stuff like that. Like any of that superhero highly creative stuff is so much fun for them to work on because it's challenging. I mean, like you said, it's like, "Okay, a face breaks off." You don't exactly have any real world thing to look at and say, "Oh, this is how a face breaks off." It's a total conversation about, "Well, I think it's going to kind of look like this flaking or, you know, sort of peeling off." And then you have to bring that to the screen in a realistic way.

Jeff: That's incredible. And then to go the other side of it. Because you were talking about, you know, award recognition. You guys have done a lot in the horror genre as well. The Walking Dead.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: And also won awards for American Horror Story ...

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: ... which well, well deserved on that. Because that almost is real world. Like when you got into like a horror genre you have to be almost real world as possible. And you guys basically created for Freak Show, you created a lot of those characters in camera, right ...

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: ... that are the most famous in American Horror Story now basically. And is that, again, building that relationship with the creators? Or is that you guys kind of running wild within that genre?

Tim Jacobsen: You know, Ryan Murphy was really heavily involved with how he wanted to see, you know, the conjoined twins. So he has a vision and then at some point he sort of lets go. But we had a lot of discussions with that. You kind of shoot both sides of the play and then you meld them together.

Tim Jacobsen: And it's not just stick one plate on here and one right there. It's all the complications of what to do with the chest piece and the neck piece. So when her neck moves it pulls down here in ways. So it's all those really small little intricate things that don't make the viewer question the reality that this person could actually exist.

Tim Jacobsen: And with Ryan, he wants everything sort of grounded in reality even though it's horror and it's unreal.

Jeff: Right.

Tim Jacobsen: He doesn't really care to go down the road of having these fantastical type things that pull people out of the story. So like when somebody gets their head cut off, you want it to look like somebody really getting their head cut off.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tim Jacobsen: And blood spurts have to look real, you know. It all sounds kind of funny but, you know, that kind of stuff can be really fun to do. And surprisingly sometimes more challenging than even the superhero stuff. Because with superhero stuff you can kind of get away with things not looking real because it's grounded in a world that's a little less real.

Tim Jacobsen: But with the horror genre or even the invisible effects, you know, those are effects that kind of go by the viewer ... They might know it's a visual effect but they might not. But it doesn't make them bounce from watching the show or engaging with the show.

Jeff: Right, right. Well, I mean that's what I think is so fascinating for someone like me who's just a fan of all these genres and being able to see it on screen and being able to see these little nuances. And as you talk about how fun it is to cut somebody's head off ...

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: ... or something like that, I'm sure some of your board meetings to figure out some of this stuff must be very fun.

Tim Jacobsen: Oh my gosh. No, it is kind of funny. We'll have production meetings or meetings where you're just talking in circles about, "Yeah, you know, I think that person's arm, you know, when it gets cut off we should see the tendons." And if anybody from the outside world just kind of heard that conversation they'd be like, "What are they talking about?" It's just all like the little stuff you talk about. Or, you know, "That person should bounce up 30 feet, you know. And, you know, that crocodile should, you know, dance in this step." Or whatever.

Tim Jacobsen: It's the absurdity of visual effects that makes it fun and challenging. And you know, like you mentioned, it's like they just keep writing more and more stuff into these scripts and the expectations ... You know, we were nominated, I think, for an Emmy back in 2012 or 13 for water work, for a submarine that went underneath water. And at the time, no TV show was doing water work on a week by week basis like we were doing on a last resort.

Tim Jacobsen: It's come so far in seven years. Like that water work now, if you tried to get an award for it they wouldn't even look at it twice. They'd be like, "Eh, water. Eh, fire. Eh."

Jeff: Right.

Tim Jacobsen: They keep looking to what are they doing in features and how can we do that for, you know, the small screen as well? So, there are no limitations now except for maybe budgets and even those have gone down on a lot of these effects.

Jeff: Yeah. And that kind of leads me to my next question. I noticed that you guys have gotten into the VR game now with FuseVR.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: And where do you think the future of visual effects is going? Is it VR? Is it AR? Are we looking at that kind of thing towards this future?

Tim Jacobsen: Well, I think it probably goes hand-in-hand with visual effects a little bit. I mean, visual effects will always be there on sort of the flat screen.

Tim Jacobsen: As far as like the VR experience, we did the piece with Buzz Aldrin that's now showing in the Smithsonian and it's kind of showing his vision of going to Mars and putting a space station there I believe. But that was really a fun, cool, interactive experience where people put the headset on and they can sort of experience and see everything sort of floating around.

Tim Jacobsen: I do think that visual effects will play a very key part of that new immersive experience, whether it's AR or VR. I think the industry's still trying to figure out how to utilize it or leverage it. I think the idea of people have me to go into a room and I'll put a headset on and sort of independently experience this VR experience is hard for some people to wrap their head around. Because it becomes such an individualistic sort of experience versus a group experience.

Tim Jacobsen: I think when they can start coming up with technology where you get that experience where it's not such a big headset. Maybe it's, you know, just some sort of, you know, eye glasses or some sort of immersive experience that doesn't require all of that, I think it's going to be a much bigger thing I think for everybody.

Tim Jacobsen: Again, with VR I think sometimes people put the headsets on and they get sick. I don't know if you've experienced it yourself but it's not for everybody either. So, again, it's an industry trying to figure out where it really lies in the future, I should say.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tim Jacobsen: It's another big part of what we can be part of and why we're exploring it and why we're putting our feelers out there. But I think there's a great place for VR even in the practical business sense of the world. Whether it be real estate or teaching rock climbing. You know, those kind of things could really be useful. And I think we're just getting the tip of the iceberg on that new technology.

Jeff: Yeah. You know, and it's awesome to hear you talk like that as someone who's in the industry. Because I think VR, there's a lot of applications and implementations that we can do for that. But the one thing I totally agree with you on is that one of my favorite things about visual effects is experiencing it with someone next to me.

Tim Jacobsen: Sure.

Jeff: Whether it's in a movie theater or, you know, in my living room or whatever. Being able to go, "Ah, did you see that? Did you see the guy's head get cut off? That was amazing." That's the experience. And I think you're right. We lose that by putting on like a headset and becoming individualistic with it.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah, and I think maybe at some point, you know, maybe if you go into a room and people do put headsets on but you can see everybody's avatar and there's some sort of weird group experience within AR or VR, maybe. You know, I think those possibilities are out there so we'll see where technology goes.

Jeff: Awesome. The question we get to on this show ...

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: ... and I got to ask you because you started out kind of wanting to do one thing. And then realizing, "You know, I'm going to try something else. And I'm going to try something else." And it's led you down the path to where you are now.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: And I think that's very, very inspiring. Someone who didn't give up, you know ...

Tim Jacobsen: Sure.

Jeff: ... and didn't see the end in the journey in the road, you know. And just kept being like, "Maybe there's another path I can take. Maybe I can get there."

Jeff: What fuels you to keep going? What fuels you to keep wanting to push the boundaries in your industry and also in your company?

Tim Jacobsen: You know, the greatest thing about working in visual effects is seeing the end product. So I get up in all the business part, which I get some of the creative conversation, et cetera. But what really fuels me, you know, it's sort of like we have something called quarterlies where we view all the work that all the artists have been doing for the last quarter. And we have a party and we have beer and we sit down.

Tim Jacobsen: So when I sit down and I see the amazing work by the talented artists that are here at Fuse and probably don't get enough credit for everything they do, that inspires me. I'm like, "Wow, we did that." Because I don't get to see every shot that goes through.

Jeff: Right.

Tim Jacobsen: So when I see that end visual effects shot that just jumps out from the screen, there's a lot of pride. It's like a father being proud of a kid who's accomplished something really cool.

Jeff: That's excellent. And you know, I'm going to put, obviously, all of FuseFX social in this show ...

Tim Jacobsen: Awesome.

Jeff: ... as well as your website because the website is so impressive not only because of being able to see visually all of your body of work, but just the list of everything that you guys have done.

Tim Jacobsen: Awesome.

Jeff: And you know, it's exciting.

Jeff: And that's what's exciting about the entertainment world that we live in now. There's always that argument that there's too much entertainment, you know, with Netflix and Hulu and all the streaming. And I disagree with that.

Jeff: When I was a kid in the 80s, I wished that I could see all of my favorite superheros and all my favorite monsters and everything come to life on the screen. And have so much that I couldn't watch it all in the day. You know?

Tim Jacobsen: That's right. And you know, here's the thing what people forget about is that they drop all the episodes at once. And guess what. People are watching them in one or two days.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tim Jacobsen: So guess what? They want to watch more then. So, you know, there isn't too much content because of that reason. If they were just dropping it one a week, you could see how maybe you would feel like there's too much content out there for people to schedulely watch everything.

Jeff: Yeah.

Tim Jacobsen: But now it's like it drops, people watch it and they're on to the next project. You know, stuff they took a year to make people are going through in 12 hours.

Jeff: It's crazy.

Tim Jacobsen: It's crazy.

Jeff: It's absolutely wonderful though.

Tim Jacobsen: Yeah.

Jeff: And it was really, really great to talk to you about this on the show.

Tim Jacobsen: Oh, it was awesome. No. I really appreciate you taking the time and reaching out. So we love your coffee.

Jeff: Excellent. I love to hear it.

Tim Jacobsen: [crosstalk] so I really appreciate you reaching out and giving me the opportunity to talk about visual effects.

Jeff: Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much.