Behind the Lines | #4 - Yan Aftimus Rosa, CD & Founder of the Prime Motion studio

This one is a little different.

Behind the Lines is usually a conversation with a freelancer – someone navigating the same questions, uncertainty, and creative life you're in. But this time, I flipped it!

Meet Yan Aftimus Rosa, founder and executive creative director of Prime Motion – and one of my own clients. We've worked together a few times now, stayed in touch between projects, and I'll be honest, I've been wanting to have this kind of conversation for a while.

Because there's something uniquely useful about hearing from the other side of the table – a real, current perspective from a studio owner who works with freelancers every week. What he looks for, what makes him come back, and what quietly closes the door.

If you're a junior or mid-level creative trying to figure out how to actually work with studios – this might be very useful.

Grab a coffee ☕ and enjoy!

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– To start off, tell us a bit about yourself, your experience, your field, and what kind of clients and projects you typically work with in your studio?

My name is Yan Aftimus Rosa, I'm the executive creative director and founder of Prime Motion. Our goal is to produce videos that are unforgettable, that make agencies look good in front of their clients and direct brands look good in front of their audiences. We do a mix of post production - editing, colour, finishing - and motion graphics - 2D, 3D, traditional animation, frame by frame, and character animation. So essentially we're a full creative studio that does everything video related. The type of work really varies; we work with everyone from broadcasters to production houses to direct brands. We also do work for live events; that's how I met you Irene.

– We've worked together a couple of times now and still keep in touch about projects in your studio. What's the difference between someone you hire once and someone you keep coming back to? 

One thing that really sets a strong freelancer apart is touching base, ensuring that they stay top of mind even after our initial project together is done. But I think the most important thing is, how was the process of working together? Technical skills aside, regardless of how impressed we were with the final results - none of it matters if there wasn't good communication throughout. This is especially true when it comes to delivering on time, or communicating if there are going to be delays. Particularly when you're a specialist: your process might be different from what we're used to, so you can't assume that we know how long something will take you to complete, for example. Being upfront about timelines, about what you need to execute your part of the project, is crucial, and the best way to ensure good collaboration. If you're waiting on an element to get started, and we don't know, we might set ourselves back right away. Better to over communicate than under communicate.

This is exactly what I keep coming back to – and what a real client just confirmed. The work is rarely the reason someone doesn't get rehired. Communication, timelines, staying in touch after the project ends – that's what actually sticks. It's what I wrote about in my free guide Good Work Isn't Enough, and hearing it straight from a studio owner is the kind of validation I didn't expect to need, but here we are! Grab it free →

– When you're looking at a freelancer's portfolio for the first time, what actually makes you stop and reach out – and what makes you close the tab? 

Often when I'm hiring a freelancer, I'm looking for a specialist in a certain area, that I need for a particular project. We have a roster of freelancers, many that  I've come across over the years but haven't yet reached out to, because I haven't had the right project yet; but I have their style logged, and when the right project comes up, I'll be ready to reach out. So if you're a specialist, make your specialty really clear on your portfolio. That said, there's nothing wrong with being a generalist; I started out as a generalist. But you want to make it clear what you do: so if you're a generalist animator, make it clear that you go all in on animation, and show all those different styles you can do. Ideally, it's obvious what you do by just scrolling along your website, but especially for generalists, I recommend writing it explicitly on your portfolio.

There are a few things that would make me close the tab and move on. The first one is one that I'm guilty of as well: not having updated work. We finally just updated our website after three years. Everything was pretty old there, so clients had to reach out to ask if we had certain capabilities or for other references. That goes for social media, too; it throws me off when I go to someone's Instagram and their last post was from years ago. When your work isn't up to date, I don't know if you're going to respond quickly, if you still do this type of work, if your focus or skills have changed. Again, I get how hard it is to prioritize your own brand when you're busy working on your clients' brands, but even if it is a quick update, a quick post every now and then, it's better than not having anything at all. Good now is better than perfect later. The second red flag on the list is when buttons don't work on your website. Your site is the first impression I'm getting of you; links that go nowhere unfortunately doesn't show promising attention to detail. It doesn't matter how good the work is, if the 'contact me' button is not working, then - clearly - I'm not going to be contacting you. And lastly, I recommend that freelancers be careful about sharing personal work on their professional portfolio sites, particularly if it veers into explicit or NSFW content. I know some people want to show all sides of their skills; but when I'm sharing a shortlist of illustrators, for example, for a client to choose from, I can't risk them encountering anything that isn't brand safe. 

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– What's the most common mistake freelancers make when working with your studio – something they probably don't even realise they're doing?

One mistake that is surprisingly common is not writing down the total amount of the invoice for the project, especially when additionals crop up throughout. The project will end, and freelancers will ask me, "Oh, what was the final price?" Partially, this is another example of a lack of organization; but it's also a huge risk to them, because what if I wasn't tracking their additionals either, and they end up losing out? You have to keep track of what you're charging on every project. For me, this goes back to client management: you, as the freelancer, want me to feel like I'm your only client, even though we of course all work with various clients at any given time. Part of creating that feeling is keeping tabs on changes and costs.

Another mistake that some freelancers make is not showing up with a "go getter" attitude, not taking initiative when the opportunity presents itself. It won't come up every project but sometimes there are problems that arise midway through a project, and what I'm looking for is a freelancer that wants to work with me to come up with solutions, ways to make it work. People who instinctively say no to any changes, they're harder to work with in the long run. Of course, sometimes it's a no, and that's totally okay - but a lot of times, there's a middle ground, or a compromise, or maybe you have another idea that will achieve the client's goal, that's even better than what we're proposing. I want to feel like we're working together to achieve solutions.

– Has a freelancer ever surprised you in a bad way mid-project? What happened and how did you handle it? 

Yes, it is rare, luckily, but sometimes a freelancer's skills don't translate to the actual project. So someone that we hired at a senior rate, or that had a very senior portfolio, once they do the first pass, the work is really far from what we expected. And in those situations, it's still workable, we'll find ways to deliver feedback, or adjust the creative based on what the freelancer is capable of, but unfortunately that's a hard experience to come back from - when you've overpromised and under-delivered. When that happens, we'll often end up taking on more of the fixes with our in-house team, and likely won't rush to hire that freelancer again.

– What's something that happens inside a studio that freelancers never see from the outside – the part that would actually change how they work with you if they knew?

Studios want to produce the best creative; that is the goal. We want everyone to walk away from a project with portfolio material, something that they're proud of, that they can showcase. We want your expertise, we want you to have that creative freedom, because we know that that's where the best work is going to come from. While we will more often than not run up against the limits of a client's guidelines, we really are open to freelancers coming to us with ideas, with passion. Saying, hey, this is something we could do, here's a quick mock of what I'm thinking. Recently I just had a good experience like that; we were working on a client project where the script was too long. The editor came back and said, look, I produced the 30-second spot that client requested, but I've also gone ahead and produced a 60-second version that features the whole script. Ultimately, we decided to share both with client, and the client loved both versions; we wound up moving forward with both. So that was an example of great initiative, and great communication, from the freelancer.

You can find Prime Motion studio on Instagram, website, and LinkedIn.

Hope this one gave you something to think about – or at least confirmed a few things you already suspected.

If anything Yan said hit close to home, or if you have thoughts on the series, just reply to this email. Always happy to hear what's landing and what you'd want more of!

And if you know someone whose story belongs in Behind the Lines – send them my way ☕

As always, thank you for reading,