Joel MacKenzie
Captured by Pano Media
How to Get Rich or Die Trying
In this talk, Joel MacKenzie shares a candid and comedic look at building a creative career in film and animation over the past 20 years. His client list spans major studios across broadcast and entertainment, but his focus isn’t on the credits. It’s on the missteps, rejections, and stubborn choices that shaped his path.
Joel rewinds to animation school, where things did not go smoothly. While teachers pushed technical precision and industry standards, he gravitated toward strange proportions, naive drawing, and intentionally unpolished work. The advice he received was solid. He ignored most of it. That tension between training and instinct followed him into the industry, where he entered through rough animation while chasing the far rarer role of character designer.
After repeated rejection and a dip in confidence that led him to question his own style, a full studio layoff forced a reset. Instead of scrambling for the next safe job, Joel doubled down on what he calls his “SWUDS” — his super weird unique design style. For him, that meant funny-at-a-glance characters, awkward proportions, loud colour, and ideas pulled directly from real life. Rather than adapting to fit in, he clarified what made his work unmistakably his.
He funded and created his own short film, essentially giving himself the role no one would hire him for. The project gained traction, led to character design opportunities, and proved a core belief: when permission doesn’t come, make the thing anyway.
Joel closes with a simple message. Protect the weird thread in your work. Stop waiting for validation. Ain’t nothing to it but to do it.
joel-mackenzie.com
@Joeltron2000
