Today we’d like to introduce you to Wes Meyers.
Hi Wes, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
It all began on a farm in East Texas, I had just graduated high school and was absolutely certain I was going to make it in the music Industry. Fast forward 8 years later and I have 100% NOT made it in the music Industry or any industry for that matter. Down on my luck, my family stepped in and helped me get a job working with my brother in Shreveport, Louisiana. I was given an entry level job at a VFX company working night shifts for minimum wage. More importantly, I was given an opportunity.
VFX was never the path of choice, but it was creative, I enjoyed it, and there was a ladder to climb. I worked as a compositor, and over the next few years became one of the highest performing artists at the studio. My bosses noticed and then allowed me to start planning VFX sequences and also work on set as an Assistant VFX Supervisor. I was hooked.
In order to keep moving up the ladder, I needed to switch studios. So I marketed myself as a VFX Supervisor, and eventually landed a job in Dallas at a mid-sized commercial house called Element X Creative. I was there for the next 5 years and had a blast. The owners took me under their wing and taught me a ton about the business, and how to keep great company culture. However in the end I burnt out. The years had passed and I realized so was my life… The industry is grueling and I found myself working 16 hour days and weekends as a norm. Something wasn’t right.
So I quit, took my savings and bought a professional graphic T-Shirt printer. I was going to take all my art skills and apply them to T-Shirts! The dealer told me the T shirt biz was like “Printing Money”. I was hooked! Nine months later I was 100% NOT printing money, in fact I was one car payment from being flat broke. But then! I got a phone call. A company from LA had heard about me as a VFX Sup in Texas, and wanted me to be their onset representative for a SciFi show filming in Austin. Then I got another call…. A VFX company in Texas wanted me to do the same thing – for the same show. I said yes to both of course. After that production called me and wanted to know why 2 of the 3 VFX vendors had me listed as their Supervisor, so they called me in for an interview. I landed the job as the VFX Sup for production, and they also wanted me to negotiate the VFX budget with the prospective vendors. Unfortunately I couldn’t get any of them to come close to hitting our desired budget, and production was breathing down my neck to make something work… So I had to come up with a solution. Remembering that I once was a pretty bang up VFX artist, I took the lowest bidder and split the show between them and myself. Production agreed, and I walked away with a year’s worth of income in one month. Burning Tractor was born.
My company, started by happenstance… right place, right time, but also where preparedness and opportunity collide. Now almost 10 years later, we have 20 employees, leverage over 200 contract workers overseas, and provide VFX work for tier 1 Hollywood entertainment. Our clients include Apple, Netflix, Showtime, Amazon, and we have worked on titles such as Stranger Things, SEE, AIR, The Morning Show, and many more. And just like the acquisition of the first show, right now it feels like we are just getting started.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I eat challenges for breakfast! That is just part of being an entrepreneur. You are constantly encountering unknown territory, learning it, and then conquering it. Tomorrow’s impossible tasks just end up being the road bumps in your past. It makes you tougher and more accustomed to the constant bludgeoning that comes with progress.
Our first major challenge was transitioning from an “uncredited outsource company” for larger shops, to taking full ownership of Tier 1 entertainment. This required infrastructure, cyber security, and a lot more employees. All of which had to happen in the bidding process to land the job. So again, similar to the first gig, we were given an opportunity but our backs were against wall. While in preproduction for a show out of town, we had to find/lease an office, build and install new servers, meet a 402-touch-point security protocol and successfully pass an audit to prove we met all the requirements. And we only had a month to get it done before they would hand the show to another vendor. In the end, we did it and those studio relationships that were built in the process have remained. Those studios trust our ability to meet unknown challenges to this day.
Covid. We don’t have to go there, but Covid rocked a lot of us. Maintaining business and payroll through that period was another huge challenge… but luckily we survived.
Strikes were, of course, a challenge that affected all of Hollywood and production across the country. During the past year and a half we had to make all sorts of deals on shows in order to stay afloat. It again has been a very challenging financial time, but proper planning and saving when things were good allowed us to keep pushing forward, and better prepare ourselves for when the faucet turned back on.
The Cloud. Our latest endeavor to remain relevant is migrating workflow to the cloud. Everything is moving to the cloud: workstations, servers, remote artists, and rendering. In order to produce at the speed our clients demand, we have to be able to adapt, but like everything else it comes with tons of technological challenges. It has to work, it can’t break, and most importantly it has to be cyber secure across the entire infrastructure. It takes months to build these systems, but once you get there, it is a beautiful thing in action.
We’ve been impressed with Burning Tractor LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
We do Visual Effects! Founded in 2010 Burning Tractor is an independent TPN certified studio that delivers cutting-edge visual effects, artistic animation, and full-service production. Our skilled artists and efficient pipeline deliver a level of creative work that makes us trusted partners of many of the most acclaimed film makers and content creators in the industry.
We specialize in live action entertainment providing VFX services script to finish for streaming, indie and feature films. We also provide data asset management for large cooperate clients, and produce turnkey commercial and cooperate video projects. We have the ability to quickly scale workforce through the cloud, with secure pipelines that deploy and manage 10, 20 or 100’s of artists worldwide.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I never gamble in my personal life, because in business we have to do it everyday. Risks are part of the process and every job is like a personal relationship, but in business you’re dating multiple people at the same time.
Day to day, the hardest part is when to say “no”. Can we take this extra job? Can we take this extra show? Will we find the right personnel to complete the job on time? Will we make any Money!?! It’s a constant juggling of resources and managing expectations and it will turn your hair gray.
On the larger side, the greatest risk is associated with growth. The VFX industry has a very large scale difference in project size. Some jobs can be done with 20 people, others may require 2000. Our clients like us and have asked us to grow so they can give us larger projects. We tell them give us the projects and we will! So we hit an impasse – to double or triple in size requires big investment capitol for a job that we aren’t guaranteed we’ll get. We cant sell ourselves too big, or too small. We have to gamble when to invest in infrastructure and personnel in order to prove we can take on the larger project and recoup the capitol it took to get us to that position.
I advocate growing slow and steady when possible, but life is going to force you to leap from time to time. So you need to be ready – always looking 6 months, to a year out.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.burningtractor.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/burningtractor/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/41677324/admin/feed/posts/
