Thomas Uncles on Not Getting Attached to the First Idea

Thomas Uncles is a four-time Emmy Award-winning producer and Co-Founder and Vice President of Weimar Pictures, a Los Angeles-based motion design, VFX, and post-production company. Through Weimar Pictures, his work spans title design, graphics packages, visual effects, animation, editorial content, and custom graphics systems for television, streaming, film, and branded content. He has received numerous Telly Awards, including multiple Gold Telly Awards. His work has contributed to projects for major networks, streaming platforms, production companies, and brands.

How many years have you been a judge?

1-3

What are your responsibilities in your current role and what do you love most about your job?

As Vice President and one of the founders of Weimar Pictures, I’m involved in nearly every stage of a project, from the initial client conversations and creative development through production, editorial, design, animation, VFX, revisions, and final delivery.

What I enjoy most is the variety. Every project presents a different creative problem to solve. We might be developing the visual identity for a television series, building a graphics package that needs to work across an entire season, creating screen graphics for a film, or designing content for a large-format live event. I enjoy figuring out what each project really needs and then helping our team find the best way to bring it to life.

What inspired you to pursue your career path?

I was always interested in both creative work and technology, and post-production was where those two interests naturally came together.

What fascinated me early on was how much editing, design, sound, graphics, and timing can completely change the way an audience experiences something. Once I began working professionally, I also discovered how much I enjoyed the problem-solving side of the business. Every project has different limitations and challenges, and finding creative solutions within those constraints continues to be one of the most rewarding parts of the job.

What was your first job in the industry? What did it teach you?

One of my first jobs in the industry was working with CenterStaging and Rehearsals.com in the early 2000s, during an early effort to bring professionally produced music and rehearsal content online.

It gave me an early look at how quickly technology and the way audiences consume media can change. It also taught me that having a good creative idea is only the beginning. You need to be able to execute it, collaborate well, adapt quickly, and consistently deliver.

Those lessons have stayed with me throughout my career and still apply to the way we approach projects at Weimar Pictures today.

What do you look for to determine excellence in video?

For me, excellence starts with whether the work successfully communicates what it is trying to communicate.

I look at storytelling, pacing, originality, editing, sound, design, technical execution, and attention to detail, but more importantly I look at how all of those elements work together. High production value alone doesn’t necessarily make something great.

The strongest work usually feels intentional. You can sense that there is a clear point of view behind the choices and that the creative decisions are supporting the story rather than simply calling attention to themselves.

What initiatives or projects are you working on now that excite you?

We’re currently working on a broad mix of projects at Weimar Pictures, including title design, motion graphics packages, visual effects, film screen graphics, branded content, and large-format graphics for live events.

What excites me most are projects where the traditional lines between disciplines begin to disappear. A single project might involve design, editorial, animation, VFX, interface graphics, and building flexible systems that need to work across dozens of different deliverables.

Those projects are especially rewarding because you’re not simply creating one finished shot. You’re developing an entire visual language and figuring out how it can function across a larger production.

Tell us about a moment of recognition that had an effect on you – whether personal or official? What does recognition mean to you and why is it important in our industry?

Receiving my first Gold Telly Award was probably the moment when professional recognition really registered with me.

You spend so much of your career focused on whatever project is immediately in front of you—deadlines, revisions, problem solving, and trying to make the work better—that you don’t necessarily stop and think about the larger body of work you’re building.

Recognition is meaningful because so much of what happens in production and post-production is collaborative and takes place behind the scenes. Awards aren’t the reason to do the work, but they can be a meaningful acknowledgment of the creativity, skill, and effort that an entire team put into something.

I also think recognition is valuable because it helps great work reach a wider audience and can introduce people to artists, editors, designers, producers, and crafts they otherwise might never have discovered.

Do you have any specific practices you lean on to spark creativity?

I try not to become too attached to the first idea.

Sometimes the obvious solution is the right one, but giving yourself permission to explore a completely different direction often leads somewhere more interesting. We like to look at multiple approaches early in the process before everyone becomes too invested in one direction.

I also find it useful to look outside the immediate category of whatever we’re working on. Inspiration can come from photography, architecture, typography, advertising, interfaces, industrial design, film titles, or something completely unrelated to the project.

And sometimes the best thing you can do is simply step away for a little while. Coming back with fresh eyes can make a problem that seemed complicated suddenly feel much easier to solve.

In your experience, what is a significant change you are seeing happen in the video, television, and/or film industry, and what insight can you share about how to navigate it?

One of the biggest changes I see is how compressed the production process has become. There are more platforms, more versions, more deliverables, and increasingly shorter timelines, while expectations for quality continue to rise.

AI is also becoming a significant part of that evolution, particularly in ideation, visualization, cleanup, workflow automation, and production efficiency.

I think the best way to approach any new technology is to treat it as another tool rather than allowing the tool to dictate the creative. Technology will continue to change quickly, but storytelling, taste, judgment, communication, and understanding why you’re making a particular creative choice remain incredibly valuable.

What excites you about judging for the Telly Awards?

One of my favorite parts of judging the Telly Awards is getting to see work that I otherwise probably never would have encountered.

There is such a wide range of styles, budgets, formats, industries, and creative approaches represented. It’s a great reminder that excellent work can come from anywhere and doesn’t necessarily require the largest production or the biggest budget.

I also enjoy seeing what other creatives are experimenting with and getting a broader sense of where the industry is heading. Having spent so much of my career creating and producing work myself, it’s rewarding to have the opportunity to recognize the thought, craft, and effort behind someone else’s work.