PABLO ROCHAT INTERVIEW
What are some of your first creative outlets as a kid?
My mom is a painter and so I just grew up in her studio making my own paintings. Then I spent most of my time in school, in the art room. I honestly just grabbed whatever was cheap or available and just kinda made marks on stuff I’ve found. I did some like graffiti and stuff.
Oil paints, I couldn’t really do because you have to have a little patience. It has to dry slowly. I like things that dry, fast, so I can keep moving on and putting other things down, and adding stuff to it. Kind of like the computer now, I just like to make something, put an image down and then change it immediately. I like paint that would dry fast so I could change it immediately.
Do you think your lack of patience influences your work?
Yeah, for sure. Luckily, most people don’t have much patience either, so I consider myself as the target audience, I think a lot of people are similar, at least when they’re scrolling Instagram or online. They only have a couple of seconds to give, so that’s what I’m trying to design.
Things that will make an impression in the first couple of seconds.
A lot of your work, the execution may be a little simple, but the main focus is usually the idea and how clever it is.
100%. Yeah
I spend most of my time thinking of ideas, so much more than the production, The production is like 5% of the work really.
So for me, my process really went from most of the time after doing traditional artwork, painting, and whatnot, moving on to more entertainment and idea-focused work. I just spent all my time in a sketchbook, just jotting out ideas cause that’s where the good stuff happens. If there’s an idea that doesn’t take much effort to come alive, but still hits, that’s what I’m looking for.
Do you feel like you get most of your ideas when you’re deliberately trying to come up with ideas or in a more natural setting?
Yeah. That’s a good question. I think a lot about the process because I’ve learned that as much As I want to have a good idea every day, I can’t just decide to have a good idea.
So what I can control is the environment and the context in which I’m brainstorming. So for me, that’s making sure I get good sleep, not eating too much. So I have to put my body in a position where it’s relaxed and energized.
I will come up with 10 ideas a day. That’s my process. I just have notebooks here where I make a grid of 10 squares on each page. Each page represents a day. So that’s on my to-do list every day, is to have 10 ideas. You have to just allow bad ideas to flow because I can’t just wait for a good idea. That takes forever and is a bit discouraging.
So basically, I give myself permission to have 10 bad ideas that day. And if one of them is good, that’s a great day.
I feel like that’s very important, allowing yourself to fail.
It’s kind of confusing to people because my work may come off like I don’t put too much effort into it. But I’m posting the things that I think are worth posting, I don’t really share all the bad ideas because I don’t think they’re worth anybody’s time. But I have to go through them to get to where I’m going.
How important is writing down your ideas and do you ever forget ideas? It seems like you’re pretty meticulous.
Oh yeah. I do forget ideas, but I kind of have to write them down. Also, so I can move on to the next one. I have it recorded on paper. I know it’s there. I can review it the next day and select it to produce. If I don’t write something down, it kind of stays in my head. So I’d rather just put it down.
Also like at the end of the day I have a record of what I did. I proved to myself that it did the work and so I can feel good about that. When I’m stuck brainstorming, I’ll refer back to old bad ideas and maybe see how I can improve that idea and start from there instead of starting from a blank page.
I think quantity is important, at least in my creative process.
I know some artists or creative people will just have an idea and chip away at it until it’s something they like. I like moving on. I like kind of seeing what happens next, so I like quantity.
What’s like the ideal reaction to someone viewing your work.
Yeah. Haha like LOL. No, I mean, yeah. I mean, most of my stuff is designed to entertain it and through a bit of absurdity. At a base level, I want them to be happy that they encountered it. Having something be good enough that someone wants to actually interject someone else’s day by sharing something I’ve done, that’s meaningful, That’s kind of high praise in my book.
How often do you think, how often does it happen to you, where you think something’s the funniest, but it doesn’t hit?
I have some R-rated ideas that I think would be funny but in general, I don’t like to be too polarizing with my audience. I kind of give myself the challenge of how I can kind of push the boundary and be creative while I’m not really pushing too many people’s buttons. It kinda makes it a little bit more challenging, which is fun.
My favorite projects are the ones where I can go out, making it for an hour, and come back and eat a burrito and watch a movie because I like being lazy too.
Are you into stand-up comedy?
Oh yeah for sure.
I feel like some of that applies the same to clean stand-up comedy. For example Brian Regan, a very hilarious and respected comedian who doesn’t curse at all.
Yeah, Regan, I love him. Even the really dark comedians who are saying whatever they want respect Brian still because he’s achieving the laughs without going too far, which is cool. Everyone has their own language. I think it can be something that is really fresh, but It doesn’t lean on shock value, is really cool too. Sometimes I feel like I have to lean into shock too much but if I’m able to get someone excited about something that they can also show their four-year-old and they think it’s funny. That’s pretty cool too.
What about stand-up is so intriguing to you?
I just love the presence of a comedian. Listening to them on podcasts while I’m on Photoshop or something or watching them. It’s inspiring that someone can make an entire career and get people to go to a theatre or club for an hour with just their thoughts and their delivery.
I like how little overhead being a comedian is,
I try to keep my overhead as just me and my laptop and my subscription to Adobe, a piece of paper for writing down ideas. That’s so cool to me that, even if my laptop dies, I can get another one and still have a career.
Not relying on much other than my own creative insights is challenging, but also comforting knowing that I don’t really need much.
So what’s the main difference between you making something for yourself versus something a client brings to you.
I’m kind of learning now that a lot of clients are coming to me because of the work that I’m doing on my Instagram or publishing independently. So the creative process for client work and personal work can be super similar.
What makes a pigeon such good subject matter?
A pigeon is a perfect example of something that everyone kind of sees around. If you live in a city, you see them, they’re kind of overlooked. They’re kind of thought of as like rodents, like trash.
So I like taking things that our people take for granted and are not sexy material, and then make something of it.
Cause I think it adds to the value of the end product when there is something that is entertaining from what we thought was just like mundane. So it’s just like twisting everyday subjects or experiences. Being on our computer all day. So I use my laptop a lot because I know everyone’s not in front of the laptop all day.
Or I’ll play with food because just kind of like peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a boring thing, but how can I make a peanut butter jelly sandwich that’s entertaining and actually worth photographing? That’s kinda like this pitch.
Once you get one idea going that people react to, then you’re like, okay, people are into this. So I’m excited to make or that. I have more pigeon and stuff that I’m going to film. but I don’t want to be the pigeon guy either.
They can’t pigeon hold you.
[Laughs] Yes.
What are your goals?
I’ve been really super lucky that people are enjoying what I’ve made as of recently. So I’m just keeping the creative process going. The goal is to continue writing down ideas every day. I’ll just see where that leads me. I’ll bump into opportunities along the way.
PABLO ROCHAT INTERVIEW
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