Harnessing ADHD Hyperfocus for a Career in Visual Effects [Video]

By Understood

Sometimes, people with ADHD can thrive in jobs that require hyperfocus. That’s true of Jo Shaffer, a self-taught visual effects artist who says working on motion graphics is a perfect fit for how their mind works. Learn how Jo gets paid to come up with fun computer-generated graphics for companies and advertisers. Jo also shares thoughts on the connection between having ADHD and being nonbinary. The answer might surprise you.

To find a transcript for this episode and more resources, visit the episode page at Understood. https://www.understood.org/podcast/ho…

We love hearing from our listeners. Email us at thatjob@understood.org.

Understood is a nonprofit and social impact organization dedicated to shaping a world where the 1 in 5 people who learn and think differently can thrive. Learn more about “How’d You Get THAT Job?!” and all our podcasts at u.org/podcasts. Copyright © 2021 Understood for All, Inc. All rights reserved.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:01
[Music]
0:05
from the understood podcast network this
0:07
is how did you get that job a podcast
0:10
that explores the unique and often
0:11
unexpected career paths of people with
0:14
learning and thinking differences my
0:16
name is eleni mathil and i’m a user
0:18
researcher here at understood that means
0:20
i spend a lot of time thinking about how
0:22
we find jobs we love that reflect how we
0:24
learn and who we are
0:26
i’ll be your host
0:29
[Music]
0:30
our next guest creates the motion
0:33
graphics you may see in videos visual
0:35
ads and gifs
0:37
joe schaefer is a visual effects artist
0:39
from madison wisconsin
0:42
yes joe identifies as non-binary and
0:45
uses they them pronouns joe also has
0:48
adhd welcome to the show jo
0:51
thanks for having me
0:53
i don’t know why i struggled saying
0:54
wisconsin
0:58
people are mystified in new york people
1:01
think that it’s like i don’t know
1:03
it’s some truly some far away planet
1:05
people have laughed at me before so i
1:08
i’ve got a thick skin about it
1:10
is that the best way to describe your
1:11
job
1:12
yeah i work as a visual effects artist
1:16
and mostly i have been working on
1:18
commercials so that would be anything
1:21
from if there’s a logo
1:23
on a billboard that someone isn’t
1:26
cleared to show and they’re commercial i
1:28
will take that out or if they just want
1:31
like to add a whole billboard in or they
1:33
want an explosion blood
1:36
smoke
1:38
rain
1:39
all the stuff that you can’t do in real
1:41
life essentially or didn’t have the
1:43
money to do
1:45
so would i have seen any of your stuff
1:47
anywhere out in the world
1:49
yeah so i would say my current claim to
1:52
fame is the tina fey show
1:56
girls five ever
1:58
i don’t know if i’m pronouncing that
1:59
right but i uh did some object removal
2:02
on the opening credits so it’s not like
2:05
i even added something you’d recognize
2:07
but i cut everybody out of the
2:09
background so that stuff could go in
2:10
behind them
2:12
nice well i love teen to face and that
2:14
is a great coin to face yes yeah it was
2:16
very exciting and i was shocked that
2:18
they hired me like why be is there
2:20
somebody else for this
2:23
so
2:24
when i heard motion graphics or like
2:26
visual effects i really associate that
2:28
with drawing is that a fair assumption
2:31
like what is it really about how would
2:33
you describe it
2:35
yeah it’s interesting because i actually
2:37
got into visual effects or just i would
2:40
say maybe computer-generated imagery is
2:42
maybe the best umbrella term
2:45
but i got into it because i wanted to be
2:48
able to paint hyper-realistically or
2:50
draw hyper-realistically but i just felt
2:52
like i couldn’t do it i felt like i
2:56
was not able to i guess put the time
2:59
in and the idea of getting to automate
3:01
visuals without getting into all the
3:03
weeds of the technical stuff being able
3:05
to
3:06
have a means of computing
3:08
lighting scientifically rather than
3:11
approximating it was really interesting
3:13
to me and i still think drawing has been
3:15
extremely valuable and i definitely
3:17
use it and just enjoy it but i view it
3:20
almost as an alternative to sort of
3:22
classic visual arts so when you said you
3:25
really wanted to be able to do hyper
3:27
real things but you felt like you
3:29
couldn’t really do it do you mean
3:30
through like more manual drawing
3:33
yeah yeah totally like
3:35
the classic stuff that you need to do
3:37
like rendering the human form
3:39
really understanding value and obviously
3:41
all those things still come into play
3:43
but with
3:44
drawing or painting it’s all kind of
3:46
channeled through your hand
3:48
which
3:49
i found that difficult at the time this
3:52
was also before i started taking meds
3:54
for adhd so i think
3:57
since then i have kind of come back
3:58
around and come to appreciate the
4:01
discipline of that a little bit more but
4:04
it just took so much repetition which is
4:07
silly because i have now spent
4:09
years and countless hours practicing
4:11
this other thing what is it about visual
4:14
effects or computer generated graphics
4:17
that you think is less repetitive or
4:19
more appealing than drawing
4:22
being able to just press a button and
4:24
get a result felt like alchemy honestly
4:26
like you would mess with all these
4:28
settings get all these ratios right and
4:30
then press a button and something would
4:33
come out and you could be surprised by
4:35
it and i liked that it incorporated some
4:37
randomness and some chance and i liked
4:39
that it felt more interactive and
4:41
frankly more like a video yeah i think
4:44
it’s interesting yeah because i never
4:45
really thought of it like that it gives
4:46
you more of like that instant
4:49
satisfaction
4:50
or even just like more of an instant
4:53
feedback it’s like you do a thing and
4:55
then you see the output more quickly and
4:57
it’s more surprising too i think which i
4:59
appreciate
5:00
yeah so it sounded like you had an
5:02
interest in like creating those types of
5:04
effects but how when did you decide to
5:07
pursue as a career yeah it was a very
5:10
slow process because i didn’t think that
5:13
i could actually do it or get paid for
5:16
it but i really
5:19
just couldn’t stop doing it i guess
5:23
hyper fixation i just
5:25
would spend
5:26
like every night till 4am just
5:29
messing around with it and that honestly
5:32
took like two or three years until i was
5:34
finally like oh my god i think i could
5:37
maybe get paid for this and i’m still
5:39
frank i mean
5:40
it’s the type of thing where once you
5:42
are in
5:43
you can really make a good living and
5:45
there’s a lot of work because it’s a
5:47
pretty specialized field yada yada but
5:50
in my experience it took a long time
5:53
to really like get to the point where i
5:55
could be paid for it yeah so you said
5:57
you were just messing around in your own
5:59
time so would you say that you were
6:01
self-taught yeah i took one class in
6:05
this program called maya then everything
6:07
from there is self-taught i really
6:11
wish i had watched more tutorials at the
6:13
beginning because i think i could have
6:15
cut about a year down from how long it
6:18
took me to learn everything again chalk
6:20
that up to 80d but
6:23
i have a very specific self-directed
6:26
learning process that is
6:28
not always the most efficient but it’s
6:31
the way i live my life i guess
6:33
how did you go about learning very
6:36
haphazardly i would say i mean i think
6:40
the way people traditionally recommend
6:42
it is to just really focus on
6:45
function which is to say you know pick
6:48
something that you need to do
6:50
and then learn how to do everything
6:52
specific to that part of what took me a
6:54
long time to learn about these programs
6:56
is that they are so open-ended that even
6:59
the people making them don’t really have
7:02
a great idea of like everything you
7:05
could do in it
7:06
so i was looking i think a lot of the
7:09
time for
7:10
just like a really iron-clad way to do
7:13
something and i found it really
7:14
liberating when i heard somebody compare
7:17
these effects more to recipes like you
7:19
know you have all these techniques and
7:21
ingredients that will probably
7:22
ultimately create this kind of a fact
7:24
and so i think that’s something that
7:27
suits me is
7:29
just the fact that no task is ever quite
7:32
identical it’s always informed by just
7:35
what’s in the image yeah that’s pretty
7:36
cool so
7:38
there’s an element of experimentation
7:40
and as you said earlier like surprise
7:42
and you know the ability to be creative
7:44
with it and kind of
7:45
figure it out each time on your own
7:48
definitely yeah that’s really cool now i
7:50
believe you went to film school before
7:52
deciding to focus more on visual effects
7:54
tell me about that i went to film school
7:56
and i thought i would be an editor just
7:59
because it was the trade i guess that i
8:00
thought i could do and had been doing
8:03
film was always kind of my main
8:05
thing that i really wanted to do
8:08
the first like
8:09
real visual effects i did was i
8:12
wrote and directed a feature film which
8:14
is sort of
8:16
making the rounds through festivals and
8:18
stuff now and we just couldn’t afford
8:20
visual effects so the first shot i ever
8:23
started working on was a gigantic storm
8:26
cloud
8:28
and
8:29
i was surprised i think by how much it
8:31
still kind of plays by the rules of
8:34
traditional filmmaking stuff it’s just
8:37
applied through a very specific
8:40
kind of process and i think this is part
8:42
of what i enjoy about visual effects is
8:45
it doesn’t really matter how you did it
8:47
if it looks right
8:49
it’s all about perception i guess and
8:51
about
8:52
understanding how much people perceive
8:54
and
8:55
what they’re more likely to miss or what
8:57
their eyes gonna gravitate towards and
8:59
knowing how to lead an eye or disguise
9:01
something from someone’s eye yeah which
9:03
is all stuff that filmmaker is doing
9:05
yeah
9:06
so you talked a little bit about
9:08
hyper fixation
9:10
do you want to talk about any other ways
9:13
adhd shows up in your work and
9:17
also perhaps like how it makes you good
9:19
at what you do
9:20
i mean i think it’s a tricky
9:23
combination because
9:25
on one hand i think it makes
9:28
it very easy for me to jump into
9:31
something and to feel
9:33
comfortable with a little bit of chaos
9:36
just because there’s so much technical
9:38
stuff but it’s never quite gonna work
9:40
right so i don’t know if this is true
9:42
for all people with adhd but for me
9:45
definitely having a little bit of chaos
9:49
going on i’ve found
9:51
that it’s like adhd it makes it helpful
9:54
for me to just
9:56
really like be able to switch between
9:57
things quickly and keep adjusting my
10:00
plan because in visual effects like the
10:03
person you’re working for almost never
10:05
knows how visual effects work
10:08
so like there’s always going to be so
10:10
much miscommunication and it’s so much
10:13
on you to be able to adapt because they
10:16
don’t know what they want but they know
10:18
what they don’t want and they’ll fire
10:20
you if they get what they don’t want so
10:22
yeah i think that flexibility is really
10:24
useful i think obviously time management
10:26
is maybe
10:27
the negative end of that or the thing
10:29
that i’ve really had to be militant
10:31
about because
10:32
if you hyper fixate too much you can
10:36
literally spend
10:37
infinity on this stuff and yeah there’s
10:40
just a point of diminishing returns i
10:42
suppose which you have to know when that
10:43
point comes yeah
10:45
those are both themes that we’ve heard a
10:47
lot from people so
10:49
this idea of being comfortable with
10:51
chaos has come up quite a bit actually
10:54
and this idea of being comfortable with
10:58
a lot of like change in ambiguity and
11:01
having a flexible plan
11:03
you know all of those things come up a
11:05
lot and maybe this doesn’t apply to
11:07
everyone but it applies to me like
11:08
that’s what i love about this podcast
11:10
that everyone can really share their
11:12
unique experience and how it applies to
11:14
them because of course not everything
11:16
applies to everyone but it’s also really
11:18
fun when we hear these commonalities too
11:22
so what about when you were growing up
11:25
like how did some of the challenges with
11:28
adhd come up for you
11:30
i think the
11:32
biggest thing
11:33
with regard to that that i find myself
11:36
just like
11:37
ruminating on the most maybe is what i
11:40
thought math was like
11:42
as a kid the way that
11:45
i think at least i was taught math and i
11:47
would venture to guess most people it
11:50
almost reminds me of learning
11:52
latin from like a strict german school
11:55
in the late 1800s or something like it’s
11:58
just purely about memory and i don’t
12:01
know i had such a narrow idea of what
12:04
math was and my dad sent me a picture of
12:08
like a math notebook i had the other day
12:10
and it had all these
12:12
spirals in it which at the time was
12:15
doodling but i i just found it funny
12:17
because
12:18
now i view something like a repeating
12:20
spiral pattern as math procedural
12:23
geometry is a huge part of what i do so
12:27
interesting yeah like manipulating
12:29
patterns and understanding how layers of
12:33
shapes can create
12:35
different things in sort of what
12:36
mathematical formulas you know are good
12:39
for different things like noise
12:41
functions for example which i don’t even
12:43
fully understand but it’s basically just
12:45
a way of creating like static would be
12:47
one example of noise but there are all
12:49
these different types of noise functions
12:51
which are used to create smoke and
12:53
atmospheric effects and stuff and i just
12:55
didn’t know that
12:57
math is just
12:59
life and that it works so well with art
13:01
i thought it was like calculators you
13:03
know
13:04
i love that because i think so many
13:06
people have that assumption that math
13:09
has like no real world application
13:12
even though you didn’t like it at school
13:14
you found a real world application for
13:16
it that you actually really enjoy yeah
13:19
and i wish i’d paid more attention like
13:21
trig for example if i had paid more
13:23
attention to trig i could do all this
13:26
crazy stuff i mean i’m in the process of
13:29
relearning it now but
13:31
that would be so helpful in like
13:32
creating a mountainside and figuring out
13:35
where to place the rocks because i could
13:37
tell where to place the rock based on
13:39
the angle of you know stuff like that
13:41
yeah
13:43
i feel like you blew my mind a little
13:44
bit there and i hope other people have
13:46
been able to make that connection too so
13:48
i love thinking about how math and
13:51
science and
13:53
art can actually be really intertwined a
13:56
lot of the time yeah totally
13:58
i know that you said you spent a lot of
14:00
your time like really hyper focused and
14:03
sometimes
14:04
that means that you can
14:06
kind of spend infinity time on things
14:08
are there other ways that you
14:11
also express yourself yeah my partner
14:14
makes fun of me because i mostly only do
14:16
this stuff but
14:18
i’m trying to think of what i do outside
14:20
part of what i like about this job is i
14:23
can listen to audiobooks during it i
14:26
have trouble reading but
14:27
for whatever reason my brain absorbs
14:30
audiobooks really well i’m very
14:32
interested in cold war history
14:35
and state crimes i guess like crimes
14:39
against humanity committed by the
14:41
united states government and the nato
14:43
block of countries so it sounds like i’m
14:46
joking but i swear to god this is a huge
14:48
part of my life most of my life is spent
14:51
listening to audiobooks about state
14:53
crimes and state terror perpetrated by
14:55
the united states while doing visual
14:57
effects
14:59
oh my god i love hearing about people’s
15:01
obscure interests yeah
15:04
but also
15:06
like you kind of just braised over that
15:09
but how cool is that you can
15:11
listen to audio books and be doing
15:14
something while working like
15:15
simultaneously it’s like the best part
15:17
of my job
15:19
you know it’s so good i love that well
15:22
in terms of other interests i know
15:24
you’re also in a band you want to talk a
15:25
little bit about that yeah i play bass
15:27
in a band called the ophelias we just
15:30
put a record out called crocus
15:33
i just really enjoy it being the thing
15:36
that is just pure instinct in my life
15:39
there’s not a lot of thought involved
15:40
and like on tour
15:42
i mean i’m in the process of trying to
15:44
figure out a good way to be able to be
15:46
on tour and do visual effects stuff
15:48
which is kind of tricky because you need
15:50
so much processing power but for the
15:52
most part i would say it’s a really nice
15:54
counterbalance just because you really
15:56
can’t think too hard about it all the
15:59
time i mean some people would probably
16:02
disagree but for me i really love that
16:04
it just comes and you don’t have to be
16:06
analytical interesting yeah it sounds
16:08
like you can be really in the moment
16:10
with it yeah definitely visual effects
16:12
is so laborious everything has 10 steps
16:15
associated with it so it’s nice to just
16:17
be able to pluck a string and a note
16:19
comes out
16:22
so at the start of the interview i
16:25
introduced you as non-binary in terms of
16:27
gender
16:28
do you think there’s any connection
16:30
between
16:30
your gender identity and your adhd
16:34
i don’t know if there’s a
16:36
direct connection
16:39
i could draw i mean i think it all
16:41
comes together to
16:43
feed into like a world view i’d say
16:48
mostly it just makes me angry more than
16:50
anything just rage honestly i wish i had
16:54
a better
16:55
happier answer but yeah just mostly feel
16:58
angry about it
16:59
just at the world
17:02
do you want to say a little bit more
17:03
about where the anger is directed or
17:06
what you’re angry about yeah no it’s a
17:08
good question it’s hard to unpack and i
17:11
mean clearly i’m still figuring it out i
17:13
keep forgetting how old i am i’m 25. i
17:16
mean i think it’s so easy with
17:19
80d stuff you just
17:21
very often put in a position where
17:24
people think that you’re less competent
17:26
than you are i mean that’s part of why i
17:28
like visual effects is because i know
17:30
i’m competent and i know
17:33
that i even know what i’m doing and
17:35
so it feels like a place
17:37
where i feel in control
17:39
i mean i think people get upset when
17:41
they feel like they don’t have control
17:42
right and with gender stuff it’s more
17:45
just like fear of getting killed on the
17:47
street and that just transmuting itself
17:50
back into rage i don’t think that’s
17:52
gonna happen to me i think that’s
17:54
probably a little out there but it could
17:56
if i’m wearing feminine clothing i
17:58
definitely am bracing to get hit over
18:00
the head so yeah it’s hard to know where
18:02
to put that stuff
18:03
and it’s
18:05
definitely not an unfounded fear we know
18:07
gendered violence is
18:09
rampant in this country yeah definitely
18:12
yeah it’s funny i thought that would be
18:13
more of a big deal traveling around on
18:16
tour but i found that people who work at
18:18
gas stations are generally very friendly
18:21
and understanding or that’s probably the
18:23
person you see most on tour they’ve
18:25
always been very nice to me the only
18:27
time it was weird was somebody told us
18:30
not to stop at a town in utah because
18:32
they said we wouldn’t be safe but other
18:35
than that it’s been good
18:37
well in that instance that might have
18:38
been a helpful advice yes yeah no i i’m
18:41
glad
18:42
i would definitely rather hear that than
18:44
the naughtier that
18:46
well thank you for sharing all of that
18:48
yeah totally and the reason that i asked
18:50
too is you know we talk a lot about
18:52
layered identities and they often do
18:55
connect in some way if people feel like
18:58
other or different yeah totally
19:00
everybody has like a mound of stuff they
19:02
have to figure out about themselves to
19:05
feel like they can live in the world
19:06
without exploding and it’s like one more
19:10
thing to figure out
19:12
so i think i just have one more question
19:13
given we had that whole conversation
19:15
about being self-taught do you have any
19:17
advice for people that maybe are not
19:19
interested in pursuing like a more
19:21
traditional or structured education and
19:24
have like some sort of interest that
19:25
they would like to build on or pursue
19:28
definitely there is obviously like a
19:31
class element to this stuff because you
19:34
need time and time takes money so i feel
19:39
maybe a little bit sheepish offering
19:41
blanket advice because i know that
19:43
different people have different amounts
19:44
of time i would say specific to visual
19:47
effects
19:48
don’t pay for anything unless you’re
19:51
positive you have to you can do it for
19:53
free at least for starters it truly is
19:56
essential because you cannot do this
19:59
without the software and the software is
20:01
way too expensive so you got to figure
20:03
out how to scam it a little bit a few
20:05
free trials in a row or whatever if you
20:07
were pursuing the self-taught route
20:09
you’re probably
20:11
an obsessive type and that’s good it’s
20:13
good to be obsessive about the right
20:15
things but definitely just
20:19
have a little part of your brain that’s
20:20
like what’s the broad plan here what am
20:23
i trying to learn this month what would
20:25
be good to learn next month if you even
20:27
just pay a little bit of attention to
20:29
the structure of how you’re learning
20:30
stuff then you just let your obsession
20:33
fuel the day-to-day stuff you will be
20:35
surprised how fast you learn in my
20:37
experience
20:39
thank you so much for joining me today
20:41
joe yeah thank you for having me
20:44
[Music]
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21:01
tell someone about it
21:03
how’d you get that job is for you so we
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want to make sure you’re getting what
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you need go to u.org that job to share
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every episode that’s the letter u as in
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understood.org
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do you have a learning difference in a
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job you’re passionate about email us at
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that job understood.org if you’d like to
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tell us how you got that job we’d love
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as a non-profit and social impact
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21:42
more at understood.org
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21:46
how’d you get that job is produced by
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andrew lee and justin d right who also
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wrote our theme song
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laura key is our editorial director at
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understood scott cashier is our creative
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21:57
seth melnick and brianna berry are our
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22:01
thanks again for listening
22:05
[Music]
22:26
you

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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