Join Kosta and his guest: Darby Faccinto, Future User Interface and Visual Effects Designer featured in series such as Loki, She Hulk and Hawkeye as well as DC Comics’ latest blockbuster hit Black Adam.
In this episode: What is a User Interface/Visual Effects Designer? Darby's career and how he started working for Disney, Marvel and DC Comics. The future of filmmaking and how remote working has revolutionized editing, production and the cinematic universe. Finally, if movies or shows will ever be completely created and directed by artificial intelligence.
Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.
Find out more about Darby Faccinto:
https://www.darbyfui.com/
Find out more about Kosta and all the ways we're better together:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/
Join Kosta and his guest: Darby Faccinto, Future User Interface and Visual Effects Designer featured in series such as Loki, She Hulk and Hawkeye as well as DC Comics’ latest blockbuster hit Black Adam.
In this episode: What is a User Interface/Visual Effects Designer? Darby's career and how he started working for Disney, Marvel and DC Comics. The future of filmmaking and how remote working has revolutionized editing, production and the cinematic universe. Finally, if movies or shows will ever be completely created and directed by artificial intelligence.
Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.
Find out more about Darby Faccinto:
https://www.darbyfui.com/
Find out more about Kosta and all the ways we're better together:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/
Because anything creative if you do it halfway, it's just gonna reward you halfway. So to any any young person trying to do this, just dive in headfirst. Don't be scared about it. And don't be scared if it looks like crap.
Morgan Franklin:Welcome to Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation, making your own path to success, challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host, Kosta Yepifantsev.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Hey, y'all, this is Kosta and today I'm here with my guest Darby Faccinto user interface and visual effects designer featured in series such as Loki, She Hulk and Hawkeye as well as DC Comics latest blockbuster hit black Adam. So Darby, let's get right into it. What is a visual effects designer? And how did you start working in this industry?
Darby Faccinto:Oh, man. So I think when I'm trying to describe it to people, the easiest way to describe it is, hey, I'm a visual effects designer. But I'm actually not, I'm actually not a visual effects design. Okay, technically, I work in visual effects. And I guess you could lump me in that umbrella. But really, I'm in the niche of the niche of the niche. So there's visual effects. Okay, go down a tier, and then there's motion graphics. And then you move down another tier, and there is UI design for film and TV, which is extremely specialized at the bottom of the barrel. I operate in that realm.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Do you have like a specific specialty in the UI realm?
Darby Faccinto:No. So I guess I can design any kind of UI, okay. And she Hulk, I made fake Dell monitors, you know, like, all the way up to like holograms and blackout and like, will do any kind of screen design.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So I watched black Adam, okay, and she Hulk. And I always thought that the Dell computers were like real and on. And on a green screen. So you actually create something that looks like the real thing.
Darby Faccinto:Yeah, like any movie, you watch whether using a cell phone, okay, there's a screen, none of that is real, even if they just whip it out. And it says incoming call. That's not real, no matter. And I don't know why I don't want to be honest. It makes me mad. Really? Yeah. Because I'm sitting here watching it. And Productions has a black screen in the back. No one's touching it. And I have to go through this labor of making this realistic Dell windows back when someone could have just turned it on when they were filming. Yeah. But I think it's the way the camera would reflect off of it or something weird. But there's a whole vein of work called playback, where some companies get hired out to make graphics on set, and they will display them on set.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And so here you are growing up in Cookeville. How do you end up deciding that you want to go into this industry? I mean, visual effects world like, That's intense. Yeah.
Darby Faccinto:Well, I never honestly plan to fact there were specific moments where I said, I will never do that. And I here I am talking about it. So I was in school with my parents for a while to like seventh grade. I was just a nerd. Like I'd always freeze frame movies and study what's going on. And I loved all the the future tech stuff like Tron and the Avengers. Nice. And I was like at the beginning of that the Marvel popping off kind of thing. And I didn't necessarily know exactly how I wanted to approach it. But I knew I wanted to work in movies. So that was always my focus. And I met this guy who was doing this really hyper specialized work and UI, and he was he was making up how the Ironman suit works. And he was just saying, hey, like, this is how I think it works. And Marvel would take it and that was his stuff. I thought that was the absolute coolest thing in the world. And so I started trying to figure out if maybe I could replicate that path that he was doing. And that's kind of how I ended up here. Did
Kosta Yepifantsev:you go to college for No, I?
Darby Faccinto:I went to college for film. So I went for two years at Tribeca. And I was, yeah, it was a great school. And I was studying film and doing this stuff as a hobby. And things just started to escalate without me really even trying. And it came to a crossroads where I had to kind of decide do I stay in school? Or do I leave and move to Las Vegas for three months and try to? So I chose Vegas, which honestly, I hated Vegas, but it was a good decision.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Did you want to be in visual effects when you were growing up? Like I said, like I always
Darby Faccinto:enjoyed it. Like I would make little windows movie maker movies on my old camcorder. My mom got me and I would like I would pretend to time travel. And I would draw like a time portal and Microsoft Paint. And so there'd be like the movie and then it would freeze frame on some awful picture of me and some drawing and then it would keep going. And I'd show my parents and they just kind of nod you know.
Kosta Yepifantsev:I mean, it kind of sounds like you want to be a director at some point.
Darby Faccinto:I'd love to direct Yeah, I love movies that tell a great story that helped convey something different. Yeah, I was always really passionate about telling scripture and maybe a new way through film. Yeah. And that was always really important to me, because I would see the impact of film in the media and helping people understand. Maybe I can relate to these people in this text that's 1000s of years old, just because we're so removed I think it helps bridge that gap.
Kosta Yepifantsev:It's interesting that you say that and we're not going to go on a tangent, but I am curious, like your thoughts on the commercial ads, he gets us the Jesus was like one of us, gets us ads. And I think that that's so impactful. It's simple, but it's so impactful. And I love that you were talking about bringing you know Scripture and religion into a new light. Given your background, what is your day to day look like,
Darby Faccinto:my day to day? So typically, I'll wake up to like Marcus King, you know who he is? No, all right. It's just like this blues artists, I'll have them find. Just start riffing on his guitar. When I wake up, I'm like, Alright, here we go, I'm ready. I'll get up my cats with me, we'll walk in the living room, I'll typically sit down and I'll try to pray for a second read a song and then I'll go to the gym, then I have this literally the same coffee shop every single day, I go to Red House, shout out red house, I'll shout them out. Go back home, pick up scripture, again, try to do something a little bit more in depth, then I'll sit down, that's about 10am. At this point, I'll sit down open My Computer. And then we kind of look at where we left off yesterday, or I'm just gonna kind of wait for that inbox stuff to start hitting me. So I'll do that to around 7pm. Okay.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And so you are not an employee of any bodies, right? No, I
Darby Faccinto:mean, really, I make my own schedule. So that's just my made up schedule that I've created for myself. That's not like cantina said hey, Darby. You should be doing this. And this, it's kind of like, it'd be great if you're around, you know, nine ish hours a day. And like, sure, like I'll get on at 10. And then I'll leave around seven or
Kosta Yepifantsev:something. And canteen is the company that hires you, yes, continue creative
Darby Faccinto:as the company that I typically freelance with in Los Angeles.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So I know this isn't gonna sound sophisticated, but just so that everybody understands, you are like an Uber driver for Uber, right? Whereas container like hires you as an independent contractor and gives you work. And you mentioned a term that I thought was really interesting about kind of how you describe your work experience or work life. Personal ambulance, yeah, yeah. So you're a permanent freelancer for Cantina?
Darby Faccinto:Well, I like to say that cantina might say, oh, Darby is not that permanent. I learned that term when I started working in the industry, because these big VFX houses, I don't know if you're familiar with any like the bigger ones like Industrial Light and Magic. I was just heard of that one. Yeah, that was George Lucas's company. And they do all the cool like Davy Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean, they did his character and Jurassic Park, all the dinosaurs, they've done all the cool stuff. And they have employees all around the world. They've got so many branches everywhere. But some of these smaller studios like Ueda, which really is not small, but more localized, I guess, it's not uncommon to hear somebody getting hired for a specific film, and then let go after that, but building relationship, so instead of them hiring 400 employees, for one movie that's really big, but only really needing 50 on staff the rest of the year, they'll just staff out a team without source VFX people get the job done. And then those people just go on to the next job.
Kosta Yepifantsev:How many people were in via fax, when you guys were doing black? Adam?
Darby Faccinto:I don't know the exact number. I mean, it's got to be like 1000s Probably something ridiculous, like 1000s of people exaggerate. I would probably say like, maybe like, 1500? Sure. Sure. VFX. Board. Yeah. Is that across the world? Yep. Depending on who they hired out. Yeah. I mean, that could be in London, there's people. What is that of Australia? I think that was Peter Jackson's company. And he created it just for the Lord of the Rings. And so now they do all their stuff. And, or sorry, in New Zealand,
Kosta Yepifantsev:there's a studio called territory in London a lot. A lot of people in the UK, a lot of shooting happens over there. Is there a lot in China? I've never heard of a VFX video. And the only reason that I asked that is, you know, there's like a ton of computer programmers or people in tech. And this is me just showing my ignorance now what you do versus like, what I perceive that you do. And so I'm assuming that there's a ton of people that are contracted out in China, because there's so much talent out there. But it's interesting hearing it from your perspective that it's primarily concentrated in Australia, London in the United States.
Darby Faccinto:Yeah, I think this feeds in to the Hollywood market. China really doesn't want Hollywood there. I don't know if you've ever read those articles where a movie will come out. And China has to filter what comes into China. And so if they don't like what Hollywood's putting out, they won't let the people in China Watch it. Or they completely censored, like half the movie out. Yeah. So I couldn't see them wanting to contribute. I could be completely wrong. This is just what I've seen. And I mean, you could look this up, I could be completely wrong.
Kosta Yepifantsev:My kids watch ugly dolls. And you know, it was produced by an arm of Alibaba, which is a Chinese company. And I bring it up because avatar had like this big global release. And so I'm always fascinated by the movie industry, how complex it is, how many different arms there are. Yeah, and the fact that it literally is a global business there.
Darby Faccinto:I mean, India has a bigger film market that's completely separate from Hollywood. Hollywood, I think it is called Bollywood. Yeah, I think that is what they call it. I love it. Yeah. So they have their own genre, their own VFX House is doing stuff.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So how much of the movies and shows that you're working on are visual effects versus real life filming,
Darby Faccinto:most of the time, when I'm getting something, I would say 99% of the time, I'm working on a screen, a physical Prop has been shot. So like for Lukey. Most of the stuff that we got back, they were on a physical set. But everything beyond that was green screen, if there was any kind of extension pass up point. And I would see our physical prop and understand the context. And then we would put our graphic into that and send it back to marvel. And then they would take it from there.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Like, say, for example, we're watching low key, and he's walking in that office with all the computers and the tables and desks with him. And Ellen Wilson, I believe so yes. As they're walking down the aisle, how much of that is put in there through visual effects, green screens? Is it literally just two people walking and everything around them is produced in our house?
Darby Faccinto:I hate giving this answer but depends. So for example, in the main, I believe in the main control room, where the big TVs and like everything happens in the show, that set probably only goes to the physical desk, you see. And then beyond that, where you're seeing other workers and cubicles and outside, that is all just green screen. And that is added later to give a sense of depth. People try to give as much attention as they can, to physical props and a set, because that makes it so much more believable, and then leave CG just to extend that reality beyond what we're interacting with. If you're just trying to interact with all CG, it's not going to feel very grounded at all,
Kosta Yepifantsev:how long have we been doing this for coming up on
Darby Faccinto:three years now?
Kosta Yepifantsev:So when you talk to your colleagues that have been doing this for like, 2030 years, what were through your conversations, kind of the groundbreaking moments, like obviously, you know, I'm gonna point to Star Wars, you know, the original in the 70s. That was huge. And then avatar in 2009. But like, when you have these conversations and reflect back, do they ever talk about like, man, that movie kind of like changed the game for everybody when it comes to visual effects?
Darby Faccinto:From what I've heard Minority Report? Wow, that Yeah, with Tom Cruise. Yeah, a lot of people I work with did that. Were just fun. It's crazy to like, talk to them. So it's like a big moment. But when the audience saw Tom Cruise, swiping through all these, like holograms and screens, I mean, it wasn't the first time we've seen something like that. But that was the first time was implemented in a way that was so fluid, and it felt seamless. And it felt like he knows what he's doing. And the UI is responsive to his gestures. And I get that, and that's pre iPhone pre swiping, pre pinching to zoom. I mean, this was all before that. I think that really changed the game. And I think that kind of paved the way for the Tony Stark stuff, where he's walking around his garage and these holograms everywhere. And he's throwing stuff around. And I think that kind of set the precedent for for oh, yeah, no.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And the reason that I asked that question is because I was listening to something on NPR the other day, and they were talking about how they're using artificial intelligence to make music. So you know, they feed all these different songs into a computer, and then they process the data. And they're able to say, Okay, I want you to play this type of music, and they create kind of like a new beat or a new tune. Do you ever feel like the things that you do like the creativity that it took for somebody to create those holograms that are literally in like every single movie that we see nowadays? Do you ever think that AI will take over your profession? Oh, that's
Darby Faccinto:a huge conversation right now, I don't know if you're familiar with the program called mid journey that might
Kosta Yepifantsev:actually the music application as well,
Darby Faccinto:maybe, but as far as I know, is just images. Maybe you're right, though, it could be music, too. But Midrand can generate an image based on anything you type in. And it can be a stylized or as realistic as you want it to be. I saw some the other day where someone typed in Aquaman, and like a 70s bar, and it generated Aquaman with a mullet. And it's Jason Momoa. But it's like almost not him and he's in a tank top and he's in this random bar. And there's people around him and he's got like a drink in his hand. Super believable, it looks like faded film, very realistic, does not feel like a animated character, anything, you wouldn't have no idea that is a just a few seconds, just a few seconds to do that. And it blew my mind. And so I know some people who do my style of work, and sometimes they'll use mid journey as a starting point. And so we'll kind of type in maybe like a rough prompt of the style we're getting at and it gives us infinite options of starting points to kind of play off of and get everything flowing. But as far as AI replacing the artist in the industry, I think that's gonna be a while because it's very hard right now anyways to nitpick which directors like to do. It's gonna be hard for a director to see and a I generated image look at it and say, Well, what if we made this blue, which I could retype it in, but it's not going to generate the exact same way that I had it prior. And so I'm like, Well, what happened to that circle at the top? It's like, well, I regenerated it. And I think the ability for a human to interpret what another human wants is going to be critical, because there's always going to be a disconnect between machine and that
Kosta Yepifantsev:what coding platform do you use?
Darby Faccinto:I have no idea how to code I've no, I just meant fake code. Ignorant. Don't don't phrase my stuff. Because if you look at it, I'm just smashing my keyboard when we have to do coding or like text. And I'm like, Yeah, ABCDEFG. And it's just scrolling. Everything we do is in the Adobe Suite. Okay. Yeah, everything. So illustrator and After Effects are the two programs that use and illustrator for designing all the vectors and the graphics. And then after effects. I don't know if you're familiar with the word comp, or compositing, but compositing is I have my graphic. And now I'm going to make it look distorted, pixelated, make it glow, and I'm going to put it on a screen, and then I'm going to track it to movement. So it looks like it's placed inside the shot.
Kosta Yepifantsev:This is probably all the things that Morgan knows, learns and uses. And I'm just I'm always fascinated by both of you really. I don't I just don't have that that side of my brain, I guess just doesn't work, you know, the creative side. Or maybe I just might be creative in a little bit different way. But literally, Microsoft Paint. That's me right there.
Darby Faccinto:If I start I told you I was in a band for a while. So that's where my,
Kosta Yepifantsev:my love starts and ends. So do you have any stories about like, when you were working with directors or set designers or producers, people in the movie industry, and you were just having the hardest time creating something that they were interested in? Because I know how picky like, I know, when Morgan and I get together, and we're trying to design a new podcast, for example. And we're trying to design the narrative around that podcast, the branding around that podcast, like it takes so much time back and forth. No, I don't like this. No, I don't like that. And it's just like going back to the well all the time. Like, do you have instances like that? And how frustrating is it?
Darby Faccinto:Sure. Well, first of all, your branding is great. I was talking about that. Branding here is awesome. Thanks for having me on. I never said that. Thanks for having me on. Yes. So there's always trying to figure out is that there's always a conversation with different directors. So for example, when I was working on Loki, what you see in the movie, or the show is very different from what we originally pitched in the beginning. And as a creative, you get very attached to your thing. I'm sure you guys can relate to that. And then becoming your baby. And so when you've poured weeks into developing how this credit monitor is going to look or creating one to four looks for that. And then Marvel sees it and they're like, oh, man, what if we just basically did everything opposite of that. But I'm not an artist, I'm a designer, so I'm hired to do what they want me to do. You know, that's my mission. That's my goal is to provide it for the client. It's not to make art for myself. So I have to find a way to let go of that. And that was a conversation, at least on Loki. I remember that being one of the shows that had that as a bigger, bigger thing we're working towards, because I think Marvel had this idea which completely works, by the way, this very simplistic user interface tech for the TVA, and we were giving them retro things, but I think we were trying to find ways to really dress it up and make it detailed. And Marvel's like, no, the details should just come from the simplicity. And I don't think there was a wrong answer there at all. But that's kind of when we can go back and forth and buttheads and we were working on that for such a long time. And then we eventually got to like a nice middle ground. And that's what you see in the show. Today.
Kosta Yepifantsev:I talk to people who are artists who are creatives, people that produce content every day, obviously, Morgan and I work very closely together. And one of the things that I always notice is, there's a sense of like, ownership in everything that you do. And like you're describing, it's hard to just say, Okay, well, I spent, you know, 12 hours on that, and you don't like it or you don't want it this way, or you change it this way. And that's and I guess that's all Yeah, but you said something profound when you said that. They knew what they were doing the simplicity of it. So after you saw, Oh, wait, maybe this will work the way that they want it.
Darby Faccinto:I don't want to admit that. But yeah. I watched it and I was like, it kind of works. But after months of trying to figure it out. I was like, also,
Kosta Yepifantsev:who are the people that make that call? Because those are the ones who are like, I mean, obviously you're extremely talented and you're borderline a genius. What not and I'm making stuff up who are the people that are like actual like close to Elon Musk's genius, making that call like no, we needed to look like that and where do they where do they learn that stuff from in your opinion?
Darby Faccinto:Well, first of all, I think no one really knows what they're doing. There's no right or wrong answer to anything. So it's not like there's somebody who has ultimate design knowledge. In fact, I would argue that the most design knowledge is coming out of the VFX studio. And maybe the vision or the tone is strongly coming out of the client issue sometimes can arise when you're working with people is, we have a specific way we would approach it as designers because we've been hired to design, but the client is looking for a very specific tone that our designs are unnecessarily hitting. And that can kind of be that back and forth, which is fine. That's completely expected. And if you expect that as part of the process, you just look into the next step. So those conversations are fun to me. I like just throwing something random at the wall, and then seeing what they're gonna say back. But to answer your question, there's a hierarchy, let's say I make some graphics that we need to send out for a shot that will go to well, it's different for each studio, let's say we're doing Marvel, it will go to the VFX producer and the VFX team, and they'll look at it and they kind of vet it, because they know what the director is going to want. They're like the liaison between. And so they'll kind of tell us, hey, I know that she loves red, you might want to throw that kind of stuff like those are the conversations that we're having that will then get sent to the actual director of the show or the movie. They'll check it out. And then they'll make those decisions. But what is interesting about Marvel is that there's always a step above. Because Kevin Feige and Victoria Alonso are the owners of the studio, okay. And they're the ones who map out what movies are being made and timelines and all that stuff. They're very hands on with a lot of the product, which most people like that I would say in this positions are way more just in the business side, and the directors have the control over the film, the directors have control. But Kevin Feige has the ultimate say, and Victoria. And so they're the ones they'll actually look at our graphics, and they'll sign off on them, or it could get past everybody. And they may ask for a change at the top. And that is completely over any other opinion. And so that's what we have to do.
Kosta Yepifantsev:As you're doing these projects. You can't talk about your work, right? So I mean, you obviously have a personal life, you know, you have friends and somewhat of a person. But like when you're working on a show, like Loki or black Adam, for that matter, you know, some of your close friends, you can't talk about what you're doing. They just see you, you know, sitting at home for eight hours a day at your computer. Yep, they may think that you're like a, you know, secret agent? And how do you relegate like managing your personal and your professional life?
Darby Faccinto:It was challenging in the beginning, because I wanted to tell people so bad, right? It's a little easier now, because so many things are out that people now have a general idea of what's going on. So it can still be exciting. I can still just be like, Oh yeah, like I'm working on a similar project, maybe just something in the vein of that. But to balance it, I have to shut it off. I used to think people cared way more than they did, which sounds super conceited. And it was never out of a place of pride. But I just thought everybody was going to be out to get me because I knew these things interesting. And I'm just a nerd. So I guess I just thought it may it's just cuz I've always been a fan or something I don't know. But when I first started, nobody knew what I was doing. There was a scene and Loki where Loki opens a drawer and all these Infinity Stones are in the drawer. And this is right after endgame. And I realized that they were about to negate the importance of Infinity stones with this show. And I was the only person who knew this. This was five months before. I mean, it hadn't, you know, property of Marvel watermarked across the footage and like all this stuff, and nobody could ever see it. But me, and I'm looking at it and I'm in shock. And so I held that secret for so long. And this was right after endgame. So everyone was really I don't even think Wanda vision was out yet. So nobody knew where Marvel was gonna go. I mean, after all this stuff happened. And I was like, yeah, man, I don't know. But in my head, I was like, just like shaking. I was so nervous. I was gonna say something that I should not say. I had too much knowledge. I had too much power.
Kosta Yepifantsev:That's what you were saying. When you're like out to get you you think like you might slip up. And then I'm sure they make you sign an NDA, obviously. Yeah. So all that stuff. Now that must have been extremely stressful. And you were doing this. I mean, you technically started your career right before the pandemic started, right.
Darby Faccinto:I started in the pandemic, pandemic. I started working on this stuff, January 2020. Wow.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And I know I'm going a little bit off topic, but what you do before that nothing.
Darby Faccinto:Well, I was in school, I was okay. Yeah, I was in school for two years at Tribeca. And then I took three months I went to Vegas, right. And I went to Las Vegas to hang out with Jace who was doing all the Iron Man stuff. And we hung out did a little mentorship I worked on this little small thing he was producing it wasn't anything crazy. And then I moved back and then January of 20 Oh, that was in the fall 2020 December, nothing was going on. I was getting little worried. And then January 2021, is when I started loci, and then from then it's just been a constant ball
Kosta Yepifantsev:well, and I feel like with the pandemic, I did a lot of Netflix and chill. I watch a lot of TV at night before I go to bed. Anyway, I'm one of those guys that has to fall asleep to watching TV. And so I watched it all I mean Disney plus HBO Max Netflix Prime Video, all the shows. I mean, all of them. Yeah, I loved it. And I'm more of a Star Wars guy. I do like Marvel but I will say that I do feel a little bit. I don't want to say let down but the Avengers series Yeah, it's so good. Obviously Iron Man's character is Captain America's character. They are so great. I don't think at this point they found a movie that is rivaling the Avengers.
Darby Faccinto:I agree, some Disney drama for you. Sure. So Bob Iger recently stepped back in as CEO, right. And he released a statement saying that we're going to slow down production of Marvel films, or Marvel production because I guess the underlying message there was it was quantity over quality and all the release and slate stuff that was lined up has all been pushed back heavy. So they were Marvel is gonna have a lot of stuff coming out this year, and next year, and Bob came in, and I think he's restructuring it. So now things are going to be like they used to be in the past where we would get a movie every like year and a half. And it's a big deal. And it really pushes a story and it's much more exciting. I think they're gonna try to not over saturate the market. So I'm kind of excited about that, because we could potentially get a better story out of that, I think so hopefully, you can get back to that point that it used to be.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And we're gonna get a little technical. I'm gonna put on my movie director hat, studio owner hat. I think one of the reasons that Marvel needs to make that move versus something like Star Wars, for example, is because Star Wars has so many gaps that they've naturally like organically created. Yeah, right. So like, for example, they released episode four, five, and 612, and three, then 789. In between all those episodes, a lot of stuff happened. Whereas with Marvel, it's been a progressing timeline. And I think it's hard for them to incorporate so many new characters into a timeline that's already happening. In my brain, I'm thinking to myself, I can't handle any more new characters, whereas in Star Wars, every single movie is like another layer that's peeled back. And it helps me understand and connect the various episodes better,
Darby Faccinto:as far as I understand what the comics, so I didn't grow up in that era. But I mean, Thanos is pretty low level threat. Okay, it really isn't that big of a deal. And the comics, I mean, he shows up and they do their deal, and there's a fight and stuff. But I mean, that's just like a walk in the park, from what I understand the rest of the stuff is these massive Celestials is this guy called Galactus. And he judges universes and they have there's multiverse wars, where things break apart. And so it's like 50, Iron Man's fighting each other. And there's like a whole government of these. There's all kinds of stuff that goes down. And it just gets so out of control. That, at least the way I'm seeing it. I think what Marvel is trying to do is they're trying to get you to be like Thanos was a huge threat. And it was such a big deal. But what if we told you that's not that big of a deal? And there's something even bigger?
Kosta Yepifantsev:That would be? I mean, I might go see that movie two or three times in theaters?
Darby Faccinto:Sure. There it is. The I mean, they tease two Avenger movies like 2026 Darby,
Kosta Yepifantsev:are you telling us that there may be a chance that Tony Stark could come back to life? I'm
Darby Faccinto:telling you I am. I am Tony Stark. Oh, wow,
Kosta Yepifantsev:guys. here first. Tony Stark, they will be back.
Darby Faccinto:No, I have no idea that you think they told me that much. I'm barely I barely know what I'm doing. There's no way I don't pass that point. Listen,
Kosta Yepifantsev:I'll give you a secret phone after this episode. You just call me when you get the like the pictures of what you design. And if you see Tony Stark's face on one of the pictures. So what advice do you have to young designers and aspiring filmmakers? Like where should people start?
Darby Faccinto:The best advice I could give is just do something. Do it. Find the niche you're passionate in or find something you're interested in and wholeheartedly give yourself to it? When I was in school. That was the advice I tried to give all my friends even though they were my friends and didn't want to hear it. But we were in film school. And we would do these projects in class. And then that was it. And then they would go about their life and mess around for four weeks. And then we would have another film project or whatever. And I looked at it as a portfolio piece like we're building these films, and I don't have a real job right now I'm in college. So why don't I use this as a chance to build a real to hopefully use to get a job post college. And so I started taking my time and doing that but I also was doing this stuff as a hobby because I find it interesting. If I would not have given 100% to UI when I decided to make that decision to pursue it. It would not have worked out because anything creative if you just do it halfway it's just gonna reward you halfway. So to any any young person trying to do this just dive in headfirst don't be scared about it. And don't be scared if it looks like crap because all my stuff looks like crap. The other day I got told me this is crap. You know, and I get paid to do it. Yeah, everyone makes crap. So just I remember Ed Sheeran said this, this is so random, but it's a quote that sticks with me. He was saying that if you turn on a water faucet and there's a bunch of crap brown water that flows out, you just let it run and you let all the bad stuff come out and then eventually it sucks. clean water. And I don't know why an Ed Sheeran coat has stuck with me for years, um, some random interviewer shirt washed. But I have thought of myself like that. If I don't turn on the faucet and just let the brown water run out, then I'll never get to the clean water. But I got to turn on the faucet first and let it run.
Kosta Yepifantsev:What was your step one? Like if somebody is saying, Okay, I'm going to do it? Where do they go? They go to like, staples and buy Adobe Suite, you know,
Darby Faccinto:staples, where you start? I mean, I guess it just depends exactly what they want to do you want to do what I'm doing? Exactly. You would want to learn the Adobe suite 99% of what I know, I learned on YouTube. Nice. Literally learn on YouTube. That's like Morgan. Yeah. Like there's no, why am I going to pay for an After Effects class when there's, and I don't know how but there's 5013 year old boys that seem to know how to do it on YouTube. And so I just watched them, explain it to me pick up knowledge from that, you know, and hyper fixate on a project. Because if you can have a solid end goal to something that is how you're going to end up with the most detailed and nuanced result. So for me, it was the Iron Man HUD when he's in the helmet, and his face is there zoomed up in his face, and all that hologram stuff's going on. I love that. And so I focus so hard on that effect. And I was doing that for five years. That's really all I cared about. I was learning the program as I was trying to recreate that effect. But I had such a clear vision because I could look at screenshots and clips from movies, that it was an easy critique of my work. It wasn't like I was just making something in a void. And then I would present it and hope somebody would say something, I could just compare it to the film. Sure. So by the time I got to a point where it looked really close, I understood why it was close. But then I looked back and realized that I learned how to do so many things in the software that I never really set out to do. So I would do that find in effect you love or something you maybe live from a film and try your hardest to recreate that and use it as a critiquing tool.
Kosta Yepifantsev:And if I could tease out like a bigger message, I think that people should do whatever they want to do. Because the literal tools to be successful are right there. And it's all for free. And what I'm talking about is YouTube, because I hear it all the time you go online, and you learn a new skill, you learn a new craft, and then you do what practice Yeah, we're living in the age now where you can change your career. And you don't have to pay 10,000 $100,000 for it for a specific education, when it's all right there. And it all depends on you and how much time you want to devote how much of your life you want to devote to getting perfect or close to perfect your craft.
Darby Faccinto:Yeah, and I think people also get a little nervous with the idea of how specialized it can be. So if you're learning how to do something like I'm doing, they're afraid you're going to be locked into film. And they're afraid it may not be consistent or steady or whatever it offers. But UI is so broad. I mean, there's a studio in New York who some very similar to cantina, they do a bunch of Marvel UI stuff as well. And they just did the whole digital dash for the Hummer EV and I designed all the graphics, because Hummer wanted it to look like Tony Stark. And that's I mean, there's stuff like that. They did the Ford GT to Ford's HyperCard. They designed the dash for that. And there's so many real world applications to UI. And we're moving into an era. I mean, everything has a user interface, your phone, your screen, your laptops, it's just I'm in the vein of hey, it's for films that have slick, futuristic, but tech is getting to a point now where it's just catching up to that concept that we've created a futuristic, and so I've started to see more and more opportunities come up, where I can implement my skills into a real world application. For next gen VR, next gen AR next gen cars, there's a whole avenue that that stuff will open up. So now's the time to get in on it. That's something you want to do.
Kosta Yepifantsev:Where do you see yourself in 10 years? But also where do you see the industry,
Darby Faccinto:I told myself that I really wouldn't consider leaving doing user interface specifically until I feel like I'm in a place where I'm just so confident and may not be as challenging anymore. And I know a lot of other designers who've gotten to that point. So I know it's achievable. I hope that I'm there in 10 years, I hope that something I'm able to fall into and pass that point. I mean, I would love to be able to direct and create movies and films and shows like I'll talk about earlier, I really would love to tell pieces of scripture in different ways. And my friend Adam Drake's and assistant director on the chosen, he's wonderful. He lives here in town. So yeah, he's so sweet. We hang out all the time. And, and I love the work that they're doing on that show and the way they're portraying Jesus and how relatable and I would love to be a part of something like that. On the other side of that, where I see the industry in 10 years, this is my hope for the industry is this is what I hope it ends up as right now we're moving into an age of fast consuming content, where everybody wants to swipe on Tik Tok. Everybody wants to Facebook real everybody wants to Instagram real and no one has an attention span past 10 seconds because that's the media's conditioning a student. I know it like I mean, I used to watch our long YouTube videos about something random but now if I see you know, three minutes I like roll my eyes. I got time for that completely out. Time I have time to consume 810 Second reels I have time for a three set. I remember when avatar two just came out, right? James Cameron released a statement saying I don't care if you get bored, don't go see it. He was just super blunt about it. He's like, I'm not making a tick tock, this is a movie go sit that was so funny, right? So my hope is that the trend moves away from the short form high action, give me your attention constantly storytelling, back to the long gladiator style epics, where the story is slow, and it builds and by the end, you've got on a journey with the character. I feel like we're moving away from that trend, because my generation doesn't want to sit through a two and a half hour movie, they would rather watch an hour 15 You know, the rock smashes everybody, you know, on a wall, it's just it doesn't compel me as much as to, you know,
Kosta Yepifantsev:what was your childhood like growing up that gave you this drive to to want to constantly challenge yourself,
Darby Faccinto:I want to say it's a it's a mix of reasons. One, I think is just my personality. I love that challenge. And I love being in the vein of something. And I love being on the world stage, and having the opportunity to be challenged, and then sharing the story of war on the other side, like I love working on a show like Loki, designing all this stuff with an incredible team that way, it wasn't just me. But designing all these graphics and animating and creating this timeline. And then sharing that story with everybody of how it became from nothing to something. I love that because that's just such an awesome challenge and a cool reward. But I think a lot of my entrepreneur mindset probably comes from my dad, he lives here and he built Crestline funeral home and some different homes in the area. And he sold out and he does something different now, but he's just such a business minded guy, you know, constantly getting rental properties to try to build different sources of income. And he's the one who taught me just good to go get everything. And I think that's probably where I get a lot of that from. It's the way he operates his life, I probably would still be in the same situation. But I think the fact that he is so entrepreneur heavy, that it was able to give me some advice starting myself as a business and as a freelancer and being able to have the ability to understand how do I go out and do it? How do I go out and get it? So yeah,
Kosta Yepifantsev:three quick questions, and we're gonna wrap Okay, yeah. What is your favorite superhero? Your favorite movie? And your favorite genre of games?
Darby Faccinto:favorite superheroes. Iron Man, for sure is asked to be Iron Man. That's why I'm here. Every movie Oh, man. I love long epics. I think I talked about this, Caroline. But when the movie came out where the crawdads sing, you know? Yeah, that's a great movie. And I went by myself and watched it. I'm so sick of these beat them up movies. I just want to sit down and watch something sweet. Yeah. So I'd have to say probably epics. I love Troy, Gladiator Titanic, like these long drawn out films are doing awesome. And I love doing them. So good. Yeah, I feel like storytelling has become very lackluster. And I think it is a direct result of Marvel. Interesting. Like Marvel has done that because the superhero genre is so fun, and so action packed. And that's great and successful and very successful. And that's Marvel's brand. But then everyone started to want to do it. But then the audience started to expect it right. And then tick tock and social media came about. And so now these things are getting condensed. And it's just about action. And what's happening right now. There's lackluster character development, it's very weak plot my opinion to a lot of different things.
Kosta Yepifantsev:What's your favorite genre of games?
Darby Faccinto:The I just finished god of war. Oh my gosh, like those Assassin's Creed? Any game that has a long single player story, right? I get sucked in. And on the other side, I feel like I am. Kratos, the god of war. Yeah, that's what I'm there for. So
Kosta Yepifantsev:I mean, I grew up playing Final Fantasy. Yeah, in my bedroom, on PlayStation, lights on door closed, like, immersed. And one of the reasons why I loved Final Fantasy. And that whole series was because of the story. Like, I mean, the gameplay was cool. And all that. I mean, it was just like, push a button on attack or magic, whatever it is. But it was the storytelling. And I don't know if you played Final Fantasy as a kid. Yeah,
Darby Faccinto:my friends are super into okay. Yeah, the story is great. I mean, it's just so complex and right. And games can do that. Yeah. So fun.
Kosta Yepifantsev:So we always like to end the show on a high note. Who is someone that makes you better when you're together?
Darby Faccinto:I was actually think about this all the way over here. I think it's my friend. Kyle went not I think I know. It's Kyle went. And it's Kyle, because Kyle is so logical. He's a civil engineer at the TDA. We've been friends forever. And he is so black and white, logical, precise, calculating, and I'm so abstract up in the air. Well, how does that make me feel kind of thing. And he gives the best advice and helps ground me as a person because I can bounce anything off of him and he's gonna give me the 180 perspective. And that's exactly what I need in somebody close in my life. I value his friend Chip above anything he's awesome.
Morgan Franklin:Thank you for joining us on this episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev. If you've enjoyed listening and you want to hear more, make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. Leave us a review or better yet, share this episode with a friend. Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a Kosta Yepifantsev Production. Today's episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin post production mixing and editing by Mike Franklin. Want to know more about Kosta visit us at kostayepifantsev.com We're better together.