MINDSPLATTER: SPECIAL EDITION 07/26

Back to where it all started...

Jul 01, 2026

The dreaded SummerSplatter season is here! I have something special for you today, folks. But before you dig into this month’s update, be sure to check out…

Last Month's Issue

…and don’t forget to click the image below and browse the splatter archives to check out previous entries:

I wanna do something a little different today, so bear with me! The promotional stuff has been taking the spotlight lately, and I want a break from it. I’m going to publish plenty of SOLAR SISTERS content as the franchise’s release dates draw near, but before that happens, I wanted to pull Mindsplatter back to its roots. This month's issue is a bit more personal, as it explores the artistic origins of my career in media. This info will be new to some, familiar to others, and hopefully fun for everyone.

OK. Ready? Set…

People who know me from different times have different ideas about my professional background, so examining the early phases of my career, and the work I did in each, could be fun for me and for anyone who’s currently following my work.

Today, I wanna focus on Phase 1: My ANIMATED ORIGINS.

I originally started off as a 2D animator and production artist for TV and interactive media (software, games, etc) and I was a generalist from the start. Animation, direction, storyboards, character and BG design, etc. My early credits include, but aren’t limited to, stuff like:

Now, that’s nice and all, but to get to mainstream industry work, I actually started off a scrappy independent filmmaker. To put simply, I just worked on a bunch of silly shorts to help me hone my skills and get my work, and name out there…and that’s what I wanna focus on today. That weird, DIY experimental phase. I think it’ll be pretty fun to see how all the crazy bullshit I’m doing today started, and how it evolved over time…so with that in mind, let’s kick things off with my first ever indie film:

18 YEARS AGO I finished my first short: a traditionally animated flick titled “Born to be Dead”. As my undergrad thesis project, it was the first time I completed a task of this scale from start to finish. You can check it the finished piece below:

Skills I used on the project:

Traditional 2D animation (Pencils, papers and a light table baby! Vectorized with Toonboom Solo 1.1)

(My little student apartment “studio”. Jerusalem, Israel. Circa 2007)

Screenwriting.
Character and BG Design.
(Omg…so young. Jerusalem, Israel, Circa 2007)
(Born to be Dead Model Sheet. Amit Tishler, circa 2007)
(Born to be Dead Model Sheet. Amit Tishler, circa 2007)

3. Video editing, audio editing & compositing (Premiere Pro).

4. Voice direction.

5. Story boarding & animatics.

7. Graphic / Merch design (T shirts, posters, flyers & more for graduation!)

(Student Exhibition: Bezalel- Animation Dept, Jerusalem, Israel - circa 2008)

In retrospect, this production has made me into a one man army. It’s not the BEST thing I made, but it was an impressive technical feat nonetheless. But Born to be Dead was a pretty “traditional” production, and I’m a mentally unstable loon. So, after producing addition shorts that helped me master the full transition into digital motion-tweening, I wanted to do something a bit more…experimental.

Let’s be honest, I just wanted to to try weird shit...can you blame me? Back then I was just starting out, and every challenge was more exciting and intimidating. But thanks to my odd masochistic tendencies, I pooped out weird projects like “CONTINUE?”

(Continue? Animation/Pixelation/Live Action Hybrid. 2009)

I’m a big fan of videogames. Always have been. I play games, worked as a game journalist and even designed, animated, and at this point directed, designed and shipped branded games professionally. But back in 2009 I was a n00b. I got my first software job around that time, and that fucked with my brain in some weird ways. Long story short, my buddy and I were going coocoo for cocoa puffs in the office and wanted to vent out our frustrations from working as artists in a startup environment…the result? A ridiculous, but technically ambitious short film that mixed live action, pixelation, level layout design and a group of innocent victims that I dragged with me to create whatever THIS is:

And I didn’t stop there. Before I moved to LA, I kept testing the grounds with different mediums, tools and techniques. That included live-action animation hybrids:

(Filming during the MCAD MFA program, Minneapolis, MN. 2011)

And even independently produced, fully playable video-game demos, to go along with my own original concepts:

Yup! That’s right. Cross media adaptations, baby! I’ve been doing this shit from the start. The more ambitious my projects became, the more I had to become an honest to god multi-media producer. While I still acted as the lead writer, artist, animator, editor, etc, constructing and leading multi-disciplinary teams became a core part of my professional value, and my skillset expanded accordingly.

Learning how to wrangle productions that included everything from audio, to visual, and engineering was educational…especially with how involved I had to be at every step of the way. This shaped me and my creative career into something different. And if you’ve known me for a while, you know what happened next.

My journey as a startup founder is a story for another time. Fundraising, business development, financial management, contract negotiations, interactive design, UX, licensing and product management were all added to my professional arsenal at this point, and that led to an entirely new chapter in my eternal quest for intergalactic multimedia dominance.

PopBase’s foundation, acquisition and my later role as a new media creative director were their own, nearly decade long saga. That part of the story probably deserves its own Mindsplatter-special, though…

…but the point is that you can trace what I’m doing with productions like THE LAST WARDENS and SOLAR SISTERS all the way back to the early days when I was just trying to use my filmmaking skills to produce funny shots, and expand their scope with help from friends, colleagues and other talented collaborators:

If you’re reading this and asking you’re yourself…WHY? As in, why do I bother? It’s so much work. Why not just stick to one lane? Then here’s what I have to say:

Aside from creative fulfillment and professional advancement, I always believed that the future of storytelling is immersive. To me, mediums are more than just business verticals, they’re a unique creative funnel that, if utilized correctly, can expand the boundaries and reach of original works in truly remarkable ways.

Whether you’re a book publisher, music label, game developer or TV studio, my message to you is this

Don’t treat cross-media adaptations as the end game.

Make them a part of your core offering.

If you want to survive the ever-lasting changes to media landscape, you can’t do it by doubling down on your downward spiral. Market dips and spikes won’t change the general trajectory, folks. To survive and thrive, media businesses have to adapt. Without showing all my cards, I can tell you one thing for certain: if you think the problem is the cost / ROI - then you’re definitely doing it wrong :)

And if you think multimedia expansion should be dependent on a product’s success in a single medium….man, you haven’t been paying attention.

If you’ve made it this far - THANK YOU! You are an honorary Splatterite, and I appreciate ya! If you want me to write another one of these, focusing on the startup phase of my career, or anything else: let me know in the comments below. The startup phase included crazy shit like Venture Capital fundraising, original projects with Cartoon Network, a startup accelerator, and even a collaboration with Danny Elfman. It was a wild time, and I’d be happy to lay it all out for your enjoyment.

Until next time!

Amit