Interview with Steve Marino, creative designer and director

Written by Nicole Mastrodomenico in Sculpture 2

What do Boardwalk Empire, President Obama, ESPN, and the Billboard Music Awards have in common with companies such as Busch Gardens or Nissan? The creative mind behind their design or production: that of Steve Marino.

As a creative designer and director, Steve Marino has worked on a plethora of projects in cinematography, ranging from television commercials to music videos to movie trailers and titles. His styles range widely as well, shifting from brightly colored and painterly stop-motion, to somber and subdued smoke effects, to catchy commercials with talking animals. Fresh from speaking with a group of New York University students touring the Nitrous Ltd. studio where he currently works, Steve graciously gave me just a bit of his time to get to know what life is like as a successful Executive Creative Director at a company in New York City, and what it takes to get there.

Nicole: As a friend of my cousin Richard, I know that you grew up in Florham Park, New Jersey, but what exactly is your educational background in art? What led you to the work you’re doing today, and what were your experiences getting there like?

Steve Marino: I went to the School of Visual Arts, and with a background in traditional animation, and ended up getting a job once I got out of school that I had for a number of years, working for one of my professors, who was a Disney animator. He was a very good guy, but he drove me crazy! So from that job I ended up going to R/Greenberg Associates, sometime in the late eighties. I started off there in the model shop – where you made models and production design for commercials – before CG was around, which gives you an idea of how long ago it was where there was a model-making industry.

Nicole: Is there anything specific you could name that I might recognize that you’ve done?

Steve: Yeah, there’s a commercial a few years ago – you could probably find it on the internet – for NICE cough drops that featured penguins I built. I had bladders in their stomachs, they would breathe, and I built their arms and wings, all that stuff. I also worked on quite a few things for Busch Gardens: I created a ride where [my team and I] made a very large (maybe 25 foot by 15 foot) salt water tank as well as a special snorkel lens that went on top of a motion-control camera, which would move through this world we created, filled with tropical fish. The purpose was to make you feel as though these were huge fish; it was a motion-simulator ride. That was model-shop wise, but I soon moved to the design department, and began shooting titles for feature films. I did the main title for twenty-five feature films, including Home Alone, Goodfellas, Silence of the Lambs…

Nicole: Now, when you say “main title,” what exactly does that entail?

Steve: It means the [opening], the main title for the feature film, I designed and shot it. If you watch Home Alone, when you see the main title sequence, I did that. There’s a whole bunch of films that I did, but from there, I got involved with desktop as far as Macintosh, when that first came out. Soon after, I ended up going to another company called Click 3x, which was the first company on this coast and the second in the entire country to have and use a system called the FLAME, which is a very high-end compositing motion tracking system used for commercial production. It was a very sophisticated machine, very good, and each one cost a million dollars. We had – at our height – about six of them.

Nicole: Wow.

Steve: I was there from a number of years, then from there went to a couple of other shops. You go to places and stay in places because of the mind-sets of the people that are there and the work that you’re doing, and really, more than anything else, the team that you’re working with. You want to respect those people, but when differences arise – different vibes and different mentalities – you move on, and find something else. So from there, I went to a few other places; I worked in [a few different shops, and had my own companies within a few of them] and have also had a couple of shops that were fully my own [as in, not an off-shoot of another company,] where I worked with partners. I opened up a design and visual effects company in Dubai, a number of years ago.

Nicole: Really? Is that still running?

Steve: Yeah, it’s still there. I was there for six months, before I returned to New York, and I’ve been back in New York for about four or five years, working at Nitrous Ltd. I’m the Executive Creative Director here, and I basically run anything that has to do with design or directing. Paul C. Rosen is the owner of Nitrous, he’s the senior editor, and handles everything to do with editing or editorials, and we work very well together. He’s a much calmer, nicer person than I am – I’m kind of reactionary and short-fused!

That’s basically where I’ve been for my career, which sounds pretty sad that I was able to sum that up in about five minutes!

Nicole: No not at all! I completely disagree – the work that you’ve done sounds like it’s been filled with a lot of really amazing opportunities and fun projects. You mentioned that you and your partner Paul C. Rosen work very well together, but do you ever find it frustrating to work with colleagues or interns? Perhaps especially so because you grew up in the art design world differently than students nowadays, who are going to school for programs like After Effects and Final Cut, programs that you learned within the industry by working with them as they were developed?

Steve: I learned at a time when the systems that I used when I was in school were not the same as what [students now are working with.] You didn’t have After Effects or Final Cut school, and what I find that upsets me [and a number of other people in the same position as me] is that you have a lot of kids coming out of school who think that – since they’re running these same systems in school that are used professionally – they know the same amount as you do, which is wrong. [Sometimes it feels like] you turn around and you’ve got a kid who’s an assistant and they think they know what you do, and you’ve been doing it for twenty-years. When you come out of school, you should be humble, and you should realize that there are people who have been doing this a long time, and there’s a reason for that. Their reputation is such that you shouldn’t second guess, and you should want to learn, and – most importantly – not take an attitude, because anybody with an attitude does not last long in this company, or this industry.

Nicole: I remember you mentioning that in a previous conversation we had. You told me that this industry very much about knowing people and making connections, right?

Steve: Yes, knowing people and making connections [is definitely an important factor]. It’s a small industry. If you come out of school and you have an attitude and you get fired from a place, you’re obviously going to go elsewhere; in the new company they’ll of course ask what you did or where you came from, and if they know me personally, they’re going to call me and ask about my experiences with the person. And I’ll admit that if I like someone and they do good work, I’m going to give them a great review. If not, I’m going to tell [whoever calls asking about them] “Don’t work with him, he’s got attitude, he doesn’t know what he’s doing,” because it’s going to be a reflection on me. It’s a small industry; you want your reputation to always be the best that it can be.

Nicole: Staying attitude-free and willing to learn: seems like good advice for any intern, especially those you’re working closely with on a daily basis. What is an average day like for you in the Nitrous Ltd. studios?

Steve: My every day? Well, I suppose there are two parts to that question [because it depends if I’m executive creating a job or directin]: If I’m executive creating, I’ll come in, and I’ll sit with the team I’m working with, and [my daily schedule then] depends on how hands on I am with the project.

Nicole: What decides how hands on you are?

Steve: Well, it depends what that project is. Here at Nitrous, we do anything from broadcast work to commercial work. One day, I might be doing something such as the titles for Game of Thrones, where I’ll sit with my team and create a template. Once that’s set up, my team can go ahead and start cranking out titles, and all I have to do is sign off on them. On the other hand, I will also work very hands-on throughout a project: we [just recently shot] a trailer for a motion picture that’s coming out, where I actually physically made elements for it in a bubble tank, shot certain live action elements, and was directing the piece. In this industry, depending on what you do, you wear many hats. That’s just me. It’s very liberating that I don’t do the same thing every day. We don’t have to wear a suit and tie and we’re not going from nine to fives shuffling papers, it’s always different. As far as the hours work, I’ll come in somewhere between nine and ten and stay until seven or eight, but I don’t mind it because I like what I do. The main thing is to like what you do.

Nicole: As Executive Creative Director do you get to pick and choose which projects you work on or how much you work on each project, or do you just work a little bit on everything?

Steve: It depends on the what individual project is and the workload involved. I put the same amount of time into something that I am directing as something that I am creative directing but there are certain projects [that are more time consuming than others.]

Nicole: Are there certain types of projects you enjoy working on more than others?

Steve: There will be projects that you work on that pay the bills. There are projects [I] want to work on that may not make money: I love directing music videos because I’m able to try out different techniques, things that I wouldn’t normally do on a commercial. But you don’t make money doing that. There are other jobs that might make a lot of money, but it’s not rewarding for your soul. The thing is that as far as the client is concerned, you have to look at every project you do – whether it’s something that you love, or might not love – you make sure that the client is happy and they know that it’s the best thing [you could produce.] You have to be committed to everything you do, you have to give more than just what’s required of you.

Nicole: And how exactly do you do that? What are some essential skills to have in your job?

Steve: If you want to go into design, you want to learn Adobe Suite and Adobe After Effects. More than anything else, that’s what you want to do. If you want to do animation, I would suggest you take a lot of life drawing classes and learn the basics of traditional animation, which is not the same as computer animation: traditional animation is drawn and will teach you [many techniques that] people who come out of school just learning [computer software don’t exactly grasp, and come to] find that their animation is very stiff. If you want to get into editorial work, you want to learn Final Cut. You get the understanding and backbone in school, the principles, but school is just meant to learn the basics and how to get your foot in the door to develop your career. When you get out of school, you’re a graduate, not a professional, and it takes years to become someone that people will respect.

Nicole: After all these years working, what would you say is one of the most challenging things, or one of the things you most enjoy about your job?

Steve: I like taking a project from the initial spark of the idea and shepherding it all the way to completion. I like working with clients, and working within the parameters of the budget of a job. Any of these would apply to both of those questions, because when you’re working with clients, they can be very challenging. And when you’re working within a time frame and budget of a project, that can be very challenging as well. But to see the result of your labors, to see [something you’ve worked on] on air or the big screen is very rewarding. And the path to get there is sometimes just as rewarding as the end project itself.

Nicole: As an art student myself I can really relate to that, and appreciate where you’re coming from. On that note, is there any advice that you would give to someone who might be looking into breaking into your field? What would you tell someone who was interested in pursuing your career?

Steve: Be willing to take criticism. Remember that the people you’re working with have more experience than you do and be willing to learn. Develop your sense of timing and your aesthetics. Be humble because you don’t know everything. In terms or portfolio or experiences, if I like a person’s work I’ll set up a meeting with them and see how they present themselves in person, and ask them what they want to do or where they see themselves. When you’re coming out of school, your website should show what you like to do, what you’ve done, a little bit of everything. Give yourself a broad [range] and then steer yourself in the direction you want. You’ll start as the low man on the totem pole and then work your way up, so expect that. You want to have as much knowledge as you can.

Click here to view some of Steve Marino’s videos on his website.