In this episode of the 360 interviews, we have decided to focus to chat with Keith Jeffrey- Head of the Taylor James Automotive Group in EMEA. He has managed to develop and maintain many of the studio’s relationships with global automotive clients.
1. How did you cut your teeth and learn your trade before TJ’s?
My background is originally in vehicle design and engineering before moving into a computer-aided design, working on contract design projects for a variety of different clients.I used CAD systems and eventually started to support them in both post and pre-sales. That grounding in CAD data has been really useful through the rest of my career when I made the move across to marketing rather than engineering. Suddenly I was working with people who didn’t want things in 12 months, and only if another department hadn’t stolen their budget allocation for something important to the business. These people wanted projects delivered in weeks to launch their new products and CAD/CGI was the latest way to deliver that for them. I was fortunate enough to work for an innovative hardware company who were pushing the boundaries of CG realism at a time when photorealism was the very latest thing to hit the streets. We were the first company in the UK to sell the new Spheron HDR camera and it revolutionised the process. After that, I formed a company with two partners called Automotive Image Rendering (AIR) and we started selling our production services.
2. How did TJ’s come about and how did you both meet?
Taylor James was founded by Glen Taylor who was soon joined by Brendan Haley and they worked to develop our reputation for creativity and quality we hold so dearly. Taylor James was actually retouching some test images produced by AIR and that’s how I met the guys. After AIR Glen mentioned that TJ was looking to move into CGI and asked if I would help them out for about 6 months, that was 14 years ago!
3. You started 20 years ago as a traditional retouching house, and now offer animation/configurators etc – talk us through how that transition, evolution and company growth happened?
We have always tried to push boundaries of our craft whilst never forgetting the core skills that the business was based around. We moved into CG almost 15 years ago and very quickly realised how important it was going to become. The company has always done our best to add to the creative ideas of a campaign but CG really enabled us to grow in this area. We quickly developed a “fully integrated” approach, looking for ways we could deliver more to help exceed our brand clients, agency clients and photographer partners requirements. Customers media requirements are exploding, they are facing a content challenge where budgets are typically decreasing but the hunger for assets is expanding rapidly. A Digital First strategy is the only way this need can be achieved so we are constantly expanding our skills and knowledge to deliver into multiple sectors.
4. How have you seen tech/software change over the years and how important is it now to be multi-disciplined as a production house?
It used to be that you made a big investment into one software solution and everything seemed to go through it. Now we tend to use the best tool for the job. We still have our core Max/Maya/VRay workflow between our offices but specialist tools and software have become increasingly important as the years have past but at our core, we are still a people business, the creative skills and dedication of our artists really make the difference in the projects and solutions we deliver for our clients.
5. You’re creating full CGI scenes, and producing some great content, what advantages and what limitations do these scenes present?
As we all know, CG can produce anything your customer’s heart desires……creativity knows no bounds but…… it has to be managed within the time and cost constraints of the project. A CG scene could be any created for any location in the world, any time of the day and any season but it takes a lot of hard work to create the levels of realism that customers expect. Project requirements have to be considered and the very best production solution selected to best match those unique needs. We don’t consider ourselves as a CG house, we are a creative production studio and CG is one of our many skills so we could combine photography, stock locations, post-production, live-action, VFX, MGFX and integrated/interactive solutions.
6. Real-time configurators and real-time productions are emerging and developing quicker than any of us can keep track on, where do you see this in the marketplace over the next few years, and how does it slot into your production process.
This has been a big area of development for us for some time now. The realism and quality that is being achieved by “Gaming Solutions” is developing at a rapid pace. Add to that the ability to spin it around in realtime at that quality and you pretty much have your answer. We have all seen the demo that Epic Games released of Unreal Engine 5….. It looks like that is going to be a game-changer in terms of the complexity of data that can be handled. The quality gap between pre-rendered and realtime rendered if closing all the time and I feel we passed that tipping point for configurators around 12 months ago. High res stills and beauty shots are almost there but for the moment the pre-rendered route still has a slight edge.
7. VR / AR – thoughts on where it’s at and future commercial integration – is this an area you’re exploring?
We have been working with both VR and AR for quite a few years. At the moment the AR solutions look like they are crossing into mass adoption with the latest phones and tablets even having LiDAR technology built-in. It makes perfect sense for someone to go online, configure their product and then see it either on their drive, on their feet or in the corner of their living room. It’s all about the ownership experience and feeling that the product you are looking to purchase is “Your Product” and unique to your specification.
8. Let’s talk about traditional image quality and HDRI’s- how important is quality content and deep dynamic HDRI’s as a foundation to your CGI image pipeline? ( feel free to big up the Domeble Massive)?
We are constantly striving to deliver the very highest quality work so stock locations and HDRI’s are an integral part of that process. Deep dynamic range and matched HDRI captures are a massively important part of the overall puzzle. Producing 360 shootarounds and real-time configurators make that even more important as the viewer only has a 60o field of vision with a 120o field of peripheral vision so the 360 HDR resolution has to be high enough to deliver the resolution quality we need in the small section the viewer is focused on. We have worked with a number of stock libraries over the years and very few can deliver the kinds of resolutions, depth of dynamic range and probably most importantly, matched HDRI and backplate locations. Domeble is up there with the best in the industry, we know we can trust what we receive from them which is vital with the crazy deadlines we usually end up working with.
9. How has the Pandemic changed the industry in the short term, and do you think it will change our working processes in the future?
The pandemic has been a terrible shock to everyone. We had a number of projects going on hold or cancel at the start but these were quickly replaced by clients having to rethink traditional production strategies. A CGI workflow is the perfect production solution with social distancing relatively simple to build into the pipeline. We started home working back in February and have continued here in our UK and US offices. Our IT team have done a fantastic job streamlining the remote access to our systems and render farms. Right now we don’t have any firm plans to get people back to the offices and will make sure that our teams are safe and feel comfortable before opening up again. Customers are far more accepting of remote meetings and electronic review and signoff which can only be a good thing for the whole industry moving forward.
10. You’re one of our judges and a sponsor in our first ever Domeble Symetri Student Awards – how important do you think opportunities like this are for students?
I was really happy to be asked to help judge the Domeble Symetri Student Awards. We have always supported colleges and universities with tours of our studios and talks about the best ways to get into our industry. It’s all about deciding where your interest lies and then going for it with all your energy and these awards give you a great platform to get your work seen by the wider industry audience. Taylor James is really happy to be a part of that and hopefully, we will find our next intake of talented artists from the entrants!
11. If you look into the TJ crystal ball, how do you see the future of the industry and how do you think content creation will evolve?
If I was starting out in the industry again now, I would be spending all my time developing my skills with the latest games engine technology. These guys are changing the industry and the more people that can utilise their technology and push the levels of realism as well as the interactive, engaging realtime aspects of the tech, the quicker the industry will develop. I can’t wait to see the results!
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