Benjamin Hable, MA

What We Do

Clients—such as companies, artists, universities, or museums—come to us with an idea they want to turn into a moving-image project. We develop tailored concepts, which may result in films, 2D and/or 3D animations, as well as interactive installations and AR/VR projects. Our main focus is animation, all of which we produce in-house. For other types of productions, we collaborate with trusted freelance partners and companies.

What We Love About Our Job

Whether it’s cartoons for a children’s museum or 3D animations for a stainless-steel manufacturer—our own ideas always flow into every project. The best part is when clients come to us precisely for that reason: they like our work and value our ideas.

We are also much more than just a company with shareholders. Privately close friends, we also see ourselves as equally matched table-tennis partners, film enthusiasts (we meet once or twice a month for a trash movie night), and nerdy beer drinkers who can spend hours discussing how the camera movement in the thirty-fourth minute of the last film we watched together could be interpreted.

Important Skills in Our Job

Apart from technical skills, the following qualities have proven especially useful:

• The ability to organize yourself better than your younger self ever believed possible

• The ability to tolerate your colleagues’ bad taste in music—or better yet, grow to like it

• The ability to consume enormous amounts of coffee without developing shaky hands or a racing heart

• The ability to integrate your own ideas and skills into a greater whole while putting your ego aside for the sake of a shared goal

• The ability to recognize your own tasks and strengths within the company, focus on them, and delegate other responsibilities—working efficiently as a team

Our Greatest Achievement So Far

Our greatest success is probably that we are now running the company in its fourth year, managing to get by financially, and—so far—haven’t killed each other.

Highlights include the production of our 2015 showreel, which finally gave us the opportunity to realize an internal passion project and let our imagination run free. Another highlight is the many wonderful projects we have been able to create over the years.

Among the most recent projects we are particularly proud of are Instagram animations for Sagmeister & Walsh, created in collaboration with photographer Marion Luttenberger, as well as the production of all illustrations and animations for the upcoming exhibition “Tüftelgenies” at the Graz children’s museum Frida & freD.

How We Got Into This Job

All partners met during their studies at FH JOANNEUM. The origin story of the company is fairly unspectacular: on a beautiful spring day, several friends were sitting relaxed under a large ash tree. Someone suggested, “Hey, should we start a company?”—and the others enthusiastically replied, “Yessss!”

What We Learned During Our Studies for Professional Life

Through project-based work, we quickly learned what it means to work in a team. It soon became clear who worked well together (and who didn’t), where the chemistry was right, and with whom it sparked so strongly that a few years later we founded a company together.

One important and positive message was drilled into us during our studies at FH JOANNEUM:
“Somehow, it always works out!”

Job Opportunities in Our Field

In our opinion, the film and video industry in Styria is quite overloaded. However, there are only a few companies that offer conceptual, story-driven, and high-quality productions. In the field of animation—which is currently expanding toward explainer videos and, unfortunately, through various “animation factories”—we were able to establish ourselves relatively easily thanks to our individual concepts and our background in graphic and motion design.

Our belief is: the more specialized your positioning in the market, the easier it is to find your niche. We had to learn this the hard way, having started out as so-called “jack-of-all-trades.”

We Are

• talented

• passionate

• a bit crazy

Us and Our Job

We don’t have anything like a five-year plan. (We also don’t have a business plan—but shhh, don’t tell anyone!) When faced with the outdated job interview question, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” our collective answer would be: “No idea!”

We live and work very much in the present and have found a good balance between work and free time—which we value just as much. Self-employed means “self and constantly”? What nonsense. It’s all a matter of organization. Sure, sometimes you spend a weekend at the office—but then again, as an employee you usually can’t crack open a beer at 4:00 p.m. while working.

Our goal and wish is to continue working in the same core constellation, with a growing network, and to enjoy our work for many years to come. For us, Graz is a wonderful compromise between urban and rural life, with a small but active and highly talented creative scene that—based on our experience—works with each other, not against each other.