Belief’s design and production tendencies stem from Goedecke’s early effects experiments in grad school. “When I started Belief I was in USC film school,” he says. “I wanted to make films, but my exposure to some early motion graphics software made me realize that I didn’t need expensive FX bays. I just needed these emerging desktop applications. With these new tools, I could include live action, go entirely with graphics or combine physical sets with green screen.”

Key in Goedecke’s development was an Annenberg grant that funded his attempt to make an experimental documentary about the Internet, before the Internet was famous. “I worked on that, interviewed a lot of people around the world and ran out of money, as every filmmaker does,” he says.

“Looking back, I wonder how we managed to wait for Mac OS X and how, without it, we were able to do the stuff we did.”

Without the money to complete the film, Goedecke decided to create a three-minute demo instead, using every available digital tool he could find. “This was at a time when you had to digitize one frame at a time,” he says. “There were no video cards — and no Final Cut Pro — so you couldn’t just digitize media in. It was grab a frame, rewind tape, grab the next frame, rewind again.”

Frame-by-frame, Goedecke advanced, completing the demo in a year and a half. And when a friend at NBC invited him over to show his results, he walked away with Belief’s first contract, an order for several promos for “The Tonight Show,” where Jay Leno was just taking over as host. “I didn’t even know what a promo was,” says Goedecke. But ever open to a learning op, he hired an employee and jumped in.

Desktop Driven

In outfitting his company, Goedecke shunned the proprietary systems typically used for high-end broadcast design. He decided instead that Belief should be a desktop-based company, and that the computers on his desks would be Macs.

Over the course of Belief’s eleven-year history — starting in an apartment in Manhattan Beach, moving then for several years to Wilshire and 7th, then finally to its expanded Santa Monica digs — Macs have traveled with him, evolving into the Power Mac G5-powered design and editing engine that drives his shop today. “As new Macs came out, cool, we’d buy the next Mac, never abandoning the platform that started it all” he says. “We’re still all Mac and, now, all Final Cut Pro.”

For Goedecke, the ultimate payoff from his all-Mac strategy was realized in the alignment of Power Mac G5s with Mac OS X. “Looking back, I wonder how we managed to wait for Mac OS X and how, without it, we were able to do the stuff we did,” he says.

Insourcing India

Much of Belief’s recent major work has come from a growing list of Indian clients, including a major launch for an Indian TV channel called Zoom. The project came to them after they completed a similar redesign for Sony Entertainment Television, one of the bigger television networks in India.

“We’re kind of like rock stars in India,” says Goedecke. “They really love our work, and they allow us to take chances, which usually results in more amazing work. Strange as it sounds, India is outsourcing to us. They’ve got all the tools, but the creative is stronger here.”

Led by Belief’s other creative director, Rick Gledhill, the creative team for Zoom was presented with the design equivalent of a 7-10 split. “They wanted a global feel, but with an Indian flavor,” says Gledhill.

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