A monster start up – meet Studio Goblin

MA Moving Image & Sound graduates Fraser Brown and Luke Green, are setting up their new animation company Studio Goblin in the university’s start-up incubation centre – The Ideas FactoryNUA.

Studio Goblin Showreel

Both graduates have completed their BA Animation and MA Moving Image and Sound degree courses here at Norwich University of the Arts and are now about to start their journey in the world of business. Starting your own business immediately after finishing university can be a rewarding yet daunting task. We caught up with Fraser and Luke to find out what has inspired them to take the leap.

Congratulations to you both on completing your MA in Moving Image & Sound degrees, how does it feel to have finished your studies?

Both of us have spent a great deal of time at NUA, spending both our undergrad and postgrad time here. It’s interesting, as even though our studies have ended, we still have this firm link with the university. We’re still experimenting and learning but in a professional context, the restrictions and motivations have changed so everything right now is very exciting.

Why have you decided to team up with each other to start your own animation company?

Having only met on the MA, as prior to this we studied at different times, we became firm friends due to our mutual interest in hand drawn animation. Overtime it became clear that our sensibilities and workflow were very similar, but we had the benefit of tackling animation from very different directions giving us a great complimentary dynamic.

What made you chose the Ideas FactoryNUA as a location to start your business?

The location, atmosphere and facilities are excellent. Realistically, what’s provided here is beyond what many if not all start-ups could hope to experience in their first few months or years. The biggest draws would no doubt be the close connection to the university and fantastic value. It was simply a case of too good of an opportunity to miss out on.

What advice would you give to other creatives who are starting up their own business?

We’re not sure that we are qualified to be dishing out advice so early on, but we have developed a few internal golden rules:

• It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be finished.
• Don’t be afraid to laugh and find humour in anything and everything.
• Murder your darlings: you will spend a lot of time going back to the drawing board, so learn to let go of progress made.

Your Degree Shows received lots of positive feedback, as well as Luke receiving a commendation from the Vice-Chancellor; did you enjoy being part of the show?

Truth be told, even though we used the Degree Show to showcase our work to potential clients, it’s difficult to tell if new work has come as a direct response from the Degree Show. It was nice as a bookend to an important year.

We have put in huge amounts of time and effort to secure client work which has come from knocking on a lot of doors, and the connections we’ve made in our independent freelance careers.

What projects are you working on at the moment?

Largely our work at the moment consists of branding, idents and segments for YouTube channels. But we’re also currently negotiating with indie game studios and a client looking to adapt their IP into an animated pilot.