CREATIVE PRODUCER PAULA CEBALLOS ON ITERATIVE ART PRACTICE, PROBLEM SOLVING,
AND MUPPETS.
Paula Ceballos brings a background in advertising, interactive, experiential, mixed reality, and immersive mediums to her role as Sr Creative Producer here at Deeplocal. She lives in New York City and teaches 50/100 Days of Making at NYU, a course that shows students that “really good artists are actually really disciplined.”
WHAT IS YOUR ACADEMIC BACKGROUND AND HOW DID YOU END UP AT DEEPLOCAL?
I studied mass communications, public relations, and marketing at Florida International University (FIU) for undergrad. I worked in PR for a couple years, realized it wasn’t for me, switched over to advertising for five years, and also realized it wasn’t for me. That’s when I looked into going back to school; I stumbled on a program at NYU called ITP, which stands for Interactive Telecommunications Program. It’s a master’s degree in art, design, and technology. What I liked about the program was that it gave me a toolbox to do anything I wanted to do. When I finished, I freelanced all over New York, discovered my niche was in production, and got a job doing production for an experiential shop and, later, for the New York Times. After that someone from Deeplocal reached out. I’ve always been a fan of the work so I was excited to get a call! And that’s how I’m here.
IN YOUR OWN WORDS, WHAT IS A CREATIVE PRODUCER?
A creative producer is first and foremost a creative problem solver. An important part of the job, too, is someone who elevates the work being done. The best projects are when I’m working in a collaborative environment with creatives and technologists. You have this interesting synergy and back-and-forth. There are ideas but then there are also technology constraints or time and budgetary constraints that need to be taken into account. And it’s through that back-and-forth that you reach creative solutions. It’s about being able to keep the essence of an idea and make it real. The producers are the feet on the ground for everybody else with heads in the clouds.
IS THERE A “TYPICAL DAY” IN YOUR CURRENT ROLE?
There are “templates.” It mostly varies depending on the phase of a project. If you’re pitching something, you’re working hard on ideas, honing them, putting a narrative thread through them, and making sure that everything is buttoned-up. If you’re bidding something, then you’re in the weeds of budgeting and timelines and ensuring that whatever idea you’re pitching is realistic. Once production hits, it’s making. There are similarities in the structure of projects, but they’re never the same—especially in this industry.
WHAT IS A PROJECT YOU’VE WORKED ON THAT YOU’RE ESPECIALLY PROUD OF?
When I worked for the New York Times, I was brought on to establish our process and partnership with Facebook, now Meta. It was all around helping the Times expand their journalism into the AR space. I’m really proud of that because I established teams, processes, practices, protocols, and everything else needed to get the team of new hires up and running. We delivered 39 effects in a year, which is 52 weeks, so, it averages an effect every week and a half. The New York Times and Facebook teams were really happy. The work opened up doors for the exploration of what journalism looks like in a mixed reality space.
INDUSTRY-WISE, ARE THERE ANY TRENDS AND/OR EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES THAT YOU’RE EXCITED ABOUT?
Crypto and NFTs. Just the whole space around that—anything on the blockchain is interesting to keep an eye on. AR is huge, especially since companies keep working on it and mass market AR glasses are slated to come out in a couple of years. The moment you get wearables that people actually want to wear, I think that’s going to change the game of how AR has been used and adopted. I think the same with VR. Companies keep putting money into it, technology keeps getting better. It goes into this whole metaverse conversation: having this interesting duality of a physical, tangible presence and a digital, virtual presence, and figuring out how to navigate both, and be cohesive across both. In my opinion, that’s where the needle is moving.
CAN YOU TALK A BIT ABOUT THE 50/100 DAYS OF MAKING COURSE YOU TEACH AT NYU?
100 days of making, or 50 days of making, is a class about iteration and the impact on your creative process. The course takes the traditional academic class structure of having students focus on final projects, or midterms, and turns it on its head. Instead, it focuses on daily, iterative design practices. Students have to identify the theme and then explore it over the course of 50 or 100 days in a consecutive manner. I usually open with the age-old question: What came first, the chicken or the egg? Lots of people think you need inspiration to start whatever artistic pursuit you want to do, and most of the time it’s the other way around. You have to sit down and do it and then the inspiration will come through doing. It’s de-romanticizing what makes a good artist—really good artists are really disciplined and they sit down and do their work every day. The reason I teach the class is because I took the class in my last semester at NYU and it was life-changing. It made me a little bit fearless. If I don’t know how to do something, I can learn because I’ve taught myself how to do plenty of other things.
ARE YOU WORKING ON ANY SIDE PROJECTS AT THE MOMENT?
I usually do the 50 or 100 days project with my students when I teach it, and I’m currently teaching it, so I’m doing 50 days of playing card design. That’s the active project I have now. Aside from that, life in general has me pretty busy!
WHERE DO YOU LOOK FOR INSPIRATION? ANY RECOMMENDED BOOKS, BLOGS, ETC?
I would say reading in general, fiction or nonfiction, whatever you want, opens up your mind and brings in new perspectives. It shifts your paradigm. Somewhere else I look for inspiration, funnily enough, is on Instagram. Once I started 50 days, I was more purposeful about what I consume on the platform. I stopped following a bunch of things that weren’t serving me and instead curated my feed, narrowing down to interesting, relevant content. It’s actually useful if you take a moment to clear out the junk.
WHAT’S A FUN FACT ABOUT YOU?
I had muppets created to the likeness of me and my husband at my wedding, which I think is really fun. Also, I once played Mario Kart with Karl Malone. Pretty random, but that was fun.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR YOUNGER SELF?
I think it’s similar to my class: just start making stuff. Production is a hard job to fall into. You can’t go study “creative production”—unless it’s film production, and that’s very different. Whatever interests you, just pursue it. Go down the rabbit hole and see where it takes you. Figure out where you can carve out your space in the world. The best way to learn is by doing. Stay curious, stay hungry.
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