Not that long ago Adi Goodrich was a world-renowned set designer from Los Angeles with a list of commercial clients as long as her arm. Sean Pecknold was a highly awarded animator from Seattle, best known for making one of the most epic pieces of stop-motion of the past decade, the extraordinary The Shrine/An Argument, a music video for his brother's band Fleet Foxes. Both were ADC Young Guns. Then they met each other on the set of an ad shoot, and have barely been apart since.
In the world of advertising this is a rare position to take. Most agencies farm work out to freelancers, or build huge teams of specialists to take care of every little aspect of a project. But for Goodrich and Pecknold that takes some of the magic out of the creative process and separates them from the work itself.
Also in progress is where Sing Sing is based. For the time being at least it's in Los Angeles, in a space coordinated specifically to meet their needs. What was previously a huge white box with a ceiling so high "it felt like our thoughts were escaping" now has a mezzanine, modular tables, storage spaces, bookshelves, and enough empty space left over to handle everything from animation to live-action shoots, as well as Goodrich's trademark large-scale sets. There are also a few cubby holes for Pecknold to hide out when he feels the urge to return to the animator's hole.
But the pair suffers from wanderlust and are frequently out of office, whether that's on short breaks to European cities or on road trips at home, where they project manage on Starbucks' wifi before disappearing into the woods. "L.A. is a hard place to make the magic happen," says Pecknold.