WATTS: A Few Of My Favourite Things

With most of us working from home, creative-types are having to find ways in which they can keep their output flourishing under difficult circumstances.

More prepared than most, however, are new Outsider signings WATTS. 

Directing duo Jenna and Tripp Watt are used to updating their warehousey space in East LA to fit whatever project they're working on, so were happy to show us round the current configuration, lined-up for a spot of stop-motion:

The Coffee Mugs

Let’s start with the coffee mugs.  

We love coffee...and we drink too much of it.  

Drinking lots of coffee requires the perfect mug so naturally we each have our favorite.  

For Jenna, it’s the Dolly Parton mug complete with a quote on the back that reads “Find out who you are and do it on purpose”. 

Tripp grew up in Tennessee which means he grew up in Waffle Houses which means he loves his coffee in his thick, heavyset, diner mug on loan from the Old Hickory Road Waffle House.

The 1993 McDonald’s Happy Meal Toys

We created our first stop motion animation together in high school and when we didn’t know how to make an animatable puppet… these guys did just the trick!  

Tripp grew up on chicken McNuggets and had an obsession with McDonald’s Happy Meals toys and has held on to all of them.  

These ones were actually super cool as they were essentially junk food transformers!  

We’ve snuck them into a handful of other projects since.

The Experience Tube

When we came across this truly magnificent invention we could not believe our eyes. 

It’s one of those things that we wished we had had all our lives. 

We use it for discussing very important subject matter, problem solving, brainstorming ideas or simply chatting to one another.  

When you’ve been in isolation with someone the tube gives you that different perspective you may be looking for.

The Puppets

We tend to sneak puppets into all of our projects.  

Quite literally if there is ever an excuse for one… we’ll add two!

The orange puppet was created in Prague for an ad we directed for Fanta. 

We couldn’t believe the details that were put into it so we had to bring him home with us. 

Puppets also come in handy when we sing Happy Birthday to a friend or family member over video chat.  

This guy has bellowed to just about everyone in our contacts list. 

The Car Buffer

We kept getting insta ads for the theragun - that thing that makes a huge racket and massages all the knots out of your back but it’s like $600 and probably not worth all that racket it makes. 

But when you’re hunched over an animation table all day that racket starts to sound worth it.  

Enter the next best thing..The Car Buffer!  

$30 at home depot for the best knot-getter-outter of your life and, bonus, it also waxes your car.