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[ May 23, 2001 ]
Cuppa Coffee's Adam Shaheen, trained in London as an illustrator and photographer, made the jump from editorial illustration to the world of animation and broadcast design almost by accident. Shaheen was merely responding to his view of the lack of design sensibility existing in television commercials. Says Shaheen, "It's just my personality to try new things. This opportunity arose to do some station ID's for Much Music. There was really no master plan, some things you just can't plan. The challenge was that it was a completely new world for me. I didn't know anything about TV."
As a newcomer to the world of broadcast, Shaheen didn't succumb to its preconceived limitations. He recalls, "I was from photography and editorial illustration, but it was an asset. We broke rules that we didn't know we were breaking and people were saying 'Well, no. You can't do that. But, wait a minute, can this work?'" Now Cuppa Coffee's edgy, experimental animation is widely seen in Coke's "Fall Mindset" ad and HBO's hit kids show, "Crashbox."
Working from the ground up to create each project as a complete package, Cuppa Coffee produces everything from animation and live-action to sound work. Although his studio is filled with state-of-the-art equipment, Shaheen still relies upon some of the basic elements of animation: paper, glue and clay. These days Cuppa Coffee is working on developing original properties for web and TV for clients like Bravo, CBS, Disney Television, IMAX Ridefilm, Teletoon, and VH1. Altpick.com spoke to Shaheen about his work.
Are you able to maintain creative input, or do you do more of the production?
I do the beginning, middle and end. I'm involved in putting a spin on it. Creative directors are assigned so they bear the brunt of making decisions. I'm good at producing synopsis, and bibles, and things in the pitching stage.
What do you offer a client that is unique?
The edge we have is that a lot of people are looking for original material and we're coming up with that original material. We are coming to the table with new ideas and new ways of doing things. The other huge edge is the people we select and hire have often been 'missed' because they haven't necessarily had the archetypal training that you might have had if you worked at Disney for fifteen years. And the style of animation that we do is different than anyone else out there.
How has your vision evolved?
I'd always wanted to move into longer format stuff. We still have three separate divisions, commercial, broadcast design, and long format. I was very naive in that the way that we had great success right away with the commercial work. I thought the same would be true of the longer format stuff and it's actually been quite a battle.
How so?
The biggest frustration is the time it takes from pitching a show until the moment when you actually sit down with pen and paper. It's an inordinately long period of time. Even if everyone thinks the idea is fantastic, which rarely happens, it takes two or three years.
To what do you attribute Cuppa Coffee's success?
I have never treated it as a business, the way regular people talk about a business, the big company, big budget, big sacrifices way. We could've gone down a very commercial route that's very lucrative, but it was not us. Stylistically it comes back to the work, and the rest has always followed.
- Contributed by Mary Beth Holland
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