You came all the way from South Africa to Dubai where you founded an animation studio… This is atypical! What led to that decision?

Mia: Jason, Marc and I had worked together for a few years at a VFX studio in Cape Town and although we loved what we were doing, we had aspirations to do something more. We were not entirely sure what until Jason came back from a business trip to Dubai in 2004. He told tales of a wide open market, appreciative of good quality animation. The studio we were with was not really interested in pursuing it, so we thought: what the hell – Dubai needed a new animation studio and we needed a new start! So with a little lump of savings ($20,000!) and an abundance of youthful enthusiasm, we jumped on a plane and left South Africa for the bright lights of Dubai.

Jason: In the beginning it was pretty tough as we all lived together and worked on two small machines – in the same room! From those humble beginnings we moved into a small villa where we continued to work from home. Things were still pretty difficult as cash was very tight. We had black plastic bags on the windows for curtains and slept on a mattress on the floor – can't remember all the details as therapy has blanked out most of those experiences! :)

Marc: It was a huge step for us when we took a lease on our very first office space – we nearly fainted when we had to pay out the first six months rent! But as always we knew we could trust in each other and our abilities and after a few months of hard work we finally employed our very first animator: it was actually happening, we were finally becoming a real company. Today we are proud to say we have 10 people in our company all with similar goals to our own – being the best. We’re on the move to new offices and hopefully our good fortune and great friends/clients will continue to support us on our little rampage :)

What’s your animation background ?

Mia: Jason and I got into 3D a little late in life, we were in our mid 20s when we put ourselves through college to learn Max & Maya. We went on to get work at the studio where we met Marc and there we started using Lightwave, making the transition on the job. Jason continued as a LW animator, specialising in modeling and texturing and I went on to do compositing work in Combustion.

Marc: I had always been interested in CG, but only started getting into it in 2003. I managed to get a job at an animation company working as the Network Administrator, because I had previously studied IT. But I really just saw it as a stepping stone to finally be able to learn some 3D. Whenever my shift finished, I would stay after hours to learn from the guys who were putting in extra hours on the job, and that's pretty much how I got into the industry. From there they started trusting me with projects, and I slowly managed to build on my experience, and here we are 6 years later.

How did things go from the start with the company? What was the first project you signed for with ClockworkVFX (www.clockworf.com)?

We still believe that had we been any other combination of people, Clockwork may never have gotten off the ground. As a creative team, we were 2 animators and 1 compositor, as individuals we brought other vital experience to the table – IT, business, marketing, admin. All the things we needed to be completely self contained.

However, if we had known better, we would have been a lot more terrified at what we were doing! The first few months were somewhat hand to mouth - so as soon as a bit of money came in, we would buy another computer, etc. Our first job was an animation promoting an award ceremony. We were paid the princely sum of $1,360 for the 10 second tag.

We quickly developed a good relationship with a local production house who were happy to use us because their alternative was sending the work overseas. We proved we could get the job done quickly and done well. From there we grew steadily, picking up more work from recommendations and introductions.

The company got bigger as time went by: how many people total were recruited? Are your employees coming from abroad too, or some of them grew up in Dubai?

In our first year we worked remotely with freelance guys from South Africa that we knew from the Lightwave community. In the second year, we branched out and advertised for permanent animators and to be honest, it was a bit hit and miss. We were still learning about how to identify the right people, we had little experience in hiring and firing and let's face it – Dubai is not for everyone! We had one guy from Paris, who lasted 2 days :) Having said that, Dubai is a multicultural city, with expats from every corner of the globe working and living here. We have had people from France, Spain, Serbia, Syria, South Africa and Iran. At the moment, we have a compliment of 10 people – half South African and half Iranian. The group dynamic is really good, we all get along well and working as a team is very easy. But it took 5 years to get to this place :)

Why choosing LightWave 3D® mostly?

Marc: With the turnaround time which we have on projects, I honestly believe that Lightwave is the only software which can do this type of work, this quickly. We have seen various other applications, but the setup time and tweaking required to get a nice look is way too long. So I would say it's definitely the speed.

Jason: Ditto