MK12 Studio
The much-rumored ‘Make it MK12’ button is visible in this photo if you look hard enough. (Hint: look at all the people working their asses off.)
Anyone out there who hasn’t tried the ‘Brazil’ thing after seeing MK12’s version, raise your hand.
Evidence of an addiction to Region 3 DVDs. The MK12 ID, a tribute to the pioneers of Canto-film, the Shaw Brothers.
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Our reps, The Ebeling Group, have the patience and capacity of forgiveness like unto a saint. Unless they're being dicks, in which case we're the beatified ones. In the end, what it comes down to is we've set ourselves up to be a weird kind of anti-business, and it's our reps job to bring in business, and we're constantly trying to figure out what the Right Thing To Do is on a daily basis, because it seems like it changes on a daily basis.

Would you be able to function without a rep? Not so much client wise, but motivationally?
Client wise, absolutely not. We'd be dead in the water. Motivationally? Yeah, absolutely. No disrespect or anything like that--motivation is rarely an issue here, I think. We're dumblucky enough to get paid to do what we'd be doing anyway, you know? We thank our lucky stars every day. Coming to work and getting to work isn't ever the problem.

How does the work get separated person-to-person. Who does what?
Everyone has their own thing, but we really, really try to keep our structure really fluid, and rotate in and out of different rolls. That's, you know, the platonic ideal, the best case. But everyone's got their own center of gravity, I guess.

We sort of deliberately work and credit ourselves as a collective. That said, the nine of us are John Baker, Jed Carter, John Dretzka, Tim Fisher, Shaun Hamontree, Maiko Kuzunishi, Chad Perry, Ben Radatz, and me.

When you guys go to a client meeting in NYC or LA, how much fun is it to be the guys from Kansas City? And do you all go? Or do you go at all?
It's kind of losing its charm? At first it was a hindrance--people thought we'd show up for meetings in overalls chomping on a sprig of wheat. Then it became a novelty--people thought, ooh, how exotic. Now it's just vaguely belittling, like, people are impressed we're not idiots. Then again, there's always a strategic benefit to being underestimated, I don't know.

And we absolutely would not have been able to survive had we not been here. No doubt about it. We owe quite a lot to Kansas City.

What's the MK12 philosophy behind balancing personal projects with client work? Do you ever end up in conflicting situations trying to do both and, if so, how is it dealt with?
Clients come first, much to the resentment of our astronaut and cowboy costumes and MANHANDER crane. The only conflict is, you know, we gotta work and not play. So--yeah, it's dealt with pretty simply.

The philosophy, and this actually is true and isn't some businessy-schmisinessy thing I just pulled out of my ass, has always been that one finances the other. Our client work feeds us and creates a kind of order that eventually we're all ready to break out of; the personal work is a reaction to that, a way to try and push our idiom and ideas. And sometimes it looks real neat and impresses clients, who then want to hire us to work on things. And they'll pay us for it most times. Which is great, because the time we took doing our dumb stuff made us all broke. So... yeah. That's the philosophy. Ouroboros. Abraxas!
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