NAME: Chad Howitt
COMPANY: We Are Royale in Los Angeles
CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR COMPANY?
We Are Royale is a creative and digital agency looking to partner with brands to create unique experiences across platforms. In the end, we make pretty things for lots of different applications, depending on the creative problem our clients are looking to solve. We’re a full-service production studio that directs live-action commercials, creates full 3D worlds, designs 2D character spots, and develops immersive AR and VR experiences.
WHAT’S YOUR JOB TITLE?
Creative Director
WHAT DOES THAT ENTAIL?
Anything and everything needed to get the job done. On the service side, I’ll work directly with clients and agencies to address their wide variety of needs. So whether that’s creating an idea from scratch or curating a look around an already developed script, I try to figure out how we can help.
Then in-house, I’ll work with our talented team of art directors, CG supervisors and producers to help execute those ideas.
WHAT WOULD SURPRISE PEOPLE THE MOST ABOUT WHAT FALLS UNDER THAT TITLE?
While the title stays the same, the responsibilities vary by location, person and company culture. So don’t think there’s a hard-and-fast rule about what a creative director is and does.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PART OF THE JOB?
Seeing a finished project out in the world knowing the hard work the team put in to get it there. Whether it’s on TV, in a space as a part of an installation or online as a part of a pre-roll… it’s a proud moment whenever I see it in the wild.
WHAT’S YOUR LEAST FAVORITE?
Seeing the results of a job we lost or had to pass on knowing that the creative we were planning will never see the light of day.
IF YOU DIDN’T HAVE THIS JOB, WHAT WOULD YOU BE DOING INSTEAD?
I’d probably be in the video game industry, but that wasn’t really a feasible career path back then.
HOW EARLY ON DID YOU KNOW THIS WOULD BE YOUR PATH?
As a little kid, I was obsessed with drawing and computers. So merging those into a profession always seemed like the most natural course. That said, as an LA native, working on film sets just seemed like what out-of-towners wanted to do. So I never saw that coming.
Under Armour spot for its UA HOVR running line
CAN YOU NAME SOME RECENT PROJECTS YOU HAVE WORKED ON?
I’ve wrapped a few projects with Under Armour, a trio of spots for NASDAQ, and a promo for Billy Bob Thornton’s series on Amazon called Goliath.
WHAT IS THE PROJECT THAT YOU ARE MOST PROUD OF?
It’d probably be the first project I worked on at We Are Royale, which was an Under Armour spot for its UA HOVR running shoe line. It allowed me to work with merging live-action, CG and beautiful type design.
NAME THREE THINGS YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT.
Fire, indoor plumbing and animal husbandry
WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS DO YOU FOLLOW?
The last social media I had was MySpace, unless you count LinkedIn…which you really shouldn’t.
CARE TO SHARE YOUR FAVORITE MUSIC TO WORK TO?
Some of my current go-to tracks are “We Were So Young” by Hammock, “Galang” by Vijay Iyer Trio, “Enormous” by Llgl Tndr, “Almost Had to Start a Fight” by Parquet Courts and “Pray” by Jungle.
WHAT DO YOU DO TO DE-STRESS FROM IT ALL?
I stress eat. Cake, cookies and pizza make most problems go away. Although diabetes could become a new problem, but that’s tomorrow.
