Culture + ToolsHow we work together.

Welcome to Ghost Robot

We started Ghost Robot by following what was interesting. More than 20 years later, that’s still pretty much the idea.

We want this to be a place where curious people do work they’re proud of, learn new things, and work together to make good things happen.

For some people, Ghost Robot will become home. For others, it will be one stop along the way to something else. Either is okay.

You won’t learn everything about Ghost Robot from this deck, but it should give you a pretty good sense of how we approach the work and each other.

Welcome. We’re glad you’re here.

EXPLORE

Follow what’s interesting.

Ghost Robot has always been driven by curiosity. Over the years that’s taken us from independent films to music videos for artists we admired like Björk, Killer Mike, Panda Bear, and Yoko Ono, and eventually into commercials, campaigns, experiences, design, strategy, and plenty of things that are harder to categorize.

We didn’t get from one to the other by following a master plan. We followed what was interesting.

Bring that same curiosity to the work. Ask questions. Look around. Learn from people who know things you don’t. Dig through the archive. And pay attention to things other people might have passed over.

Look for what’s been overlooked.

There’s Something Interesting In There

One of our earliest jobs was making reenactments for America’s Most Wanted. It wasn’t exactly the kind of work anyone dreamed about in film school. But it took us into strange locations, introduced us to interesting people, and forced us to figure out how to make something compelling with very little time or money.

It taught us something we still believe: almost every assignment has something interesting hiding inside it.

Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes you have to dig for it. Finding it is part of the job.

Don’t take the brief at face value.

Understand Before You Change

We have systems and processes for a reason. Some make the work better. Some protect the client. Some protect each other. And some exist because somebody learned a painful lesson years ago and made sure nobody else had to learn it the same way.

Ghost Robot used to run productions with fax machines, giant binders, and a 20-page production manual. We don’t anymore. The tools changed because the work changed. The useful part was never the binder. It was having a system everyone could understand and use.

Learn why something works the way it does before you tear it apart. Then, if you see a better way, please tear it apart.

Understand it. Then improve it.

Learn The Tools

Tools change constantly. We know because we’ve been doing this long enough to have used quite a few of them.

The expectation doesn’t change: learn the systems around you well enough to use them confidently. Read the tutorial. Watch the walkthrough. Ask someone who knows. Spend a few minutes figuring something out before spending a few hours working around it.

You don’t need to know every feature in every platform. You do need to be resourceful enough to figure things out.

Knowing how to learn is part of the job.

EVOLVE

Nothing stays still for very long.

When we started Ghost Robot, making independent films and music videos seemed like one thing and making advertising seemed like another. Then the lines moved. The formats changed. The platforms changed. The tools changed. We changed too.

More than 20 years later, we’ve learned to be suspicious of the phrase “we’ve always done it this way.”

Processes are useful. Dogma isn’t. Keep what works. Question what doesn’t. And when you see a better way, bring it forward.

Better is everyone’s job.

Diverge. Then Converge.

Creative work requires two different kinds of thinking.

Sometimes we need to diverge: open up the possibilities, explore different directions, ask questions, make experiments, and resist deciding too quickly.

Other times we need to converge: evaluate what we’ve learned, make choices, narrow the field, and move something forward.

Good creative development moves back and forth between the two. We might explore broadly, choose a direction, discover something new, and open things up again. That’s not going backward. It’s part of the process.

The important thing is knowing which mode we’re in. Don’t shut down exploration when we’re trying to generate possibilities. And don’t keep exploring forever when it’s time to make a decision.

Know when to open it up. Know when to narrow it down.

Bring A Point Of View

Exploration doesn’t mean showing up without an opinion.

Autonomy is a big part of working here. We don’t want people waiting around to be told exactly what to do, and we don’t expect every decision to travel through layers of approval before anything happens.

Think about the problem. Form an opinion. Bring a recommendation. You don’t need to have the final answer, but you should have a starting point that gives everyone something useful to react to.

“Here’s what I think we should do. What am I missing?”

Own Your Piece

We don’t have a lot of layers. That means everyone has real responsibility for moving the work forward.

If something is yours, know what success looks like, know what happens next, and communicate what you need to get there. Don’t wait until a deadline has passed to tell everyone you weren’t going to make it.

Ownership also doesn’t mean doing everything yourself. Raise your hand early when something is going sideways, priorities conflict, or another person needs to get involved. Asking for help before a problem becomes an emergency is part of owning it.

Responsibility includes knowing when you need support.

Jump In

Creative work is collaborative, and workloads don’t distribute themselves neatly.

Pay attention to what’s happening around you. When someone needs help and you have capacity, offer it. When you see something you can reasonably move forward, don’t wait for an invitation.

But helping each other doesn’t mean every problem automatically becomes everyone’s emergency. Support the team while respecting priorities, workloads, and commitments people have already made.

We succeed together.

Make Things

Some of the most important things we’ve made started because somebody was interested enough to make them.

Independent films, music videos, experiments, original projects, and things that don’t fit neatly into a client brief have always been part of Ghost Robot. They keep us curious. They teach us things. And sometimes they point us somewhere we wouldn’t have gone otherwise.

A client doesn’t always have to ask for something before it’s worth making.

Don’t wait for permission to be curious.

EXPRESS

Make something worth putting into the world.

Exploration and evolution eventually have to become something. A film. A campaign. A design. A strategy. A sentence. Whatever form it takes, we want the work to be interesting, useful, well made, and specific to the problem in front of us.

Interesting without useful is self-indulgent. Useful without interesting is forgettable. A great idea poorly executed is still poorly executed. And something that could have been made for anyone probably wasn’t made thoughtfully enough for anyone.

We don’t expect every project to win an award or change the world. We do expect to care about what we make, push past the obvious answer, and make the thing as good as the circumstances allow.

Make work worth caring about.

Good Work Works

We like interesting ideas. We also like ideas that do what they’re supposed to do.

Great work starts with the actual problem, not the thing we happen to feel like making. It considers the audience, the objective, and where the work will live. A CTV spot isn’t an Instagram post. A billboard isn’t a website. What works beautifully in one place can fall completely flat somewhere else.

Constraints are part of the assignment. Budgets, schedules, formats, brand guidelines, and client needs don't prevent creativity. They're the box we get to be creative inside.

Make the right thing, not just a cool thing.

The Details Matter

Everything we send out represents Ghost Robot.

An estimate, deck, call sheet, edit link, spreadsheet, film, photograph, design, mailing label, or PDF may feel like one small piece of a project, but to the person receiving it, it’s part of their experience of the work and of working with us.

Craft matters. So does everything around it. Use approved Ghost Robot templates, fonts, logos, colors, and design elements. Check spelling. Check names. Check dates. Check links. Check formatting. Check the filename.

Then look at it one more time as if you were seeing it for the first time.

The details are part of the work.

Before It Goes Out The Door

Anything important going to a client should have another set of eyes on it first.

Post materials with enough time for project leadership to review the thinking and for someone else to QC the execution. Build that time into your schedule instead of treating review as the thing that happens three minutes before the client deadline.

Whenever possible, the person doing the final QC should not be the person who made the thing. Fresh eyes catch different things.

Review is part of the deadline.

Say What You Mean

Great work gets harder when the people making it don’t know what’s happening.

Most workplace problems don’t begin as giant problems. They begin as unclear expectations, unanswered questions, missing context, or people waiting too long to say something.

Good communication makes the work easier for everyone around you. Say what you know. Say what you need. Say what you’re doing. Say when people should expect it.

And don’t make simple things sound complicated to sound smart.

Make the way forward clear.

Be Specific

“Someone should do this” leaves a question behind.

“I’ll take this and have it done Thursday” answers it.

When you don’t know something, say that and find out. When you need feedback, ask for it. When you can’t meet an expectation, communicate that before the expectation passes.

You don’t need to sound certain all the time. You need to make your intentions visible.

Clarity is more useful than confidence.

Respect Time. Be Clear About Urgency.

Sometimes our work moves quickly. There will be real deadlines, last-minute changes, and occasional emergencies. When something is truly urgent, say so clearly and use the communication method most likely to reach the person who needs to act.

But not everything is urgent.

Think before scheduling, tagging, or sending the late-night message. If something can wait until normal working hours, let it wait. When everything becomes urgent, it usually means something else in the process needs fixing.

Know what needs attention now and what can wait.

Talk To Each Other

Slack, email, meetings, video calls, and phones are all useful. Not every conversation belongs in the same place.

Quick questions and everyday project communication can live in Slack. External communication and things that need a formal record often belong in email. Complicated, sensitive, emotional, or increasingly confusing conversations are usually better handled live.

If six Slack messages haven’t solved something, another twelve probably won’t.

Talk to each other. Then put the decision or next steps in writing when they need to be documented.

Solve the problem, not the thread.

Keep The System Useful

Shared systems only work when everyone maintains them.

Keep project information current, organized, and easy for someone else to find. Pin important files and links in Slack channels. When giving direction or assigning work, resurface the relevant file instead of assuming everyone remembers where it is. Update documents when information changes and retire old files so they don’t get mistaken for active ones.

Leave enough context that someone joining the project can understand what’s happening without reconstructing the last three weeks of Slack.

Good systems reduce the amount of stuff everybody has to keep in their heads.

File Sharing & Naming

Film and production generate a lot of files. A good file name should tell someone what they’re looking at without making them open it.

Name files and folders clearly and consistently. Include the project, what the file is, and a version or date when it matters. Please spare the next person final_final_v2_USETHIS.mov.

Generally speaking, each pitch or project we work on has a job number. Use it.

For stand-alone files:

YYNN-CLIENT-PROJECT-PHASE

YY = Year
NN = Ghost Robot awarded job sequence for the year
CLIENT = 2–4 character client code
PROJECT = 2-character sequential client project number
PHASE = 1-character optional additional phase number

Examples:

2504-CRT-010 - CCRT REBRAND - DESIGN EXPLORATION - V01
2612-FND-02 - FOUNDERS PRODUCTION - SHOOTING SCRIPTS - V03

For files within Google Workspace:

Ghost Robot x Client Name: Document Description - Date [INTERNAL or EXTERNAL]

Use Ghost Robot-controlled tools for Ghost Robot work, and be clear whether something is an internal working file or something the client has seen.

Make it easy for the next person to find.

Respect Is Part Of The Work

Different backgrounds, identities, experiences, disciplines, perspectives, and working styles make our work better. Treat people accordingly.

Give credit generously. Give feedback thoughtfully. Make room for other people to contribute. You can disagree with someone without making them regret speaking up in the first place.

Harassment, discrimination, bullying, intimidation, and retaliation have no place here. Raise concerns when something feels wrong, and ask for help when you need it. You should never need to solve a workplace problem alone before speaking up.

Good work depends on people feeling respected enough to do it.

Our Team

Ghost Robot has always been bigger than the people whose names happen to be on the staff page.

We learned that early making independent films and music videos. Every project meant putting a different group of people around an idea and figuring out how to make something together.

That’s still how we work. Our core team brings together creative, strategy, production, design, post, and plenty of things that don’t fit neatly into a department. Around that is a much larger network of directors, writers, animators, editors, photographers, producers, artists, technologists, and specialists of all kinds.

We don’t need every capability sitting inside the company at all times. We need to know who can make the idea better.

The question is always: Who should be in the room?

This Is An Ongoing Experiment

Ghost Robot has been around for more than 20 years because it hasn’t stayed the same for more than 20 years.

The work changes. Technology changes. People change. Ghost Robot changes.

This guide will change too. In fact, it should. Keep what remains useful. Question what doesn’t. Add what we learn along the way.

If this document looks exactly the same five years from now, something probably went wrong.

There’s always more to explore.

There’s Always More To Explore

You won’t learn Ghost Robot from a deck. You’ll learn it by working with people, asking questions, making things, solving problems, screwing a few things up, and paying attention to what happens next.

When in doubt, come back to the same three ideas we use in our creative work:

EXPLORE how things work.
EVOLVE how they could work better.
EXPRESS what you find.

Welcome to Ghost Robot.