Today we’d like to introduce you to Peter Zebbler Berdovsky.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Peter Zebbler. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Groups are more powerful than individuals. Since my graduation from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2006, I’ve been exploring ways to bring live video performances and installations to concert environments. As projects grew and became more complicated, the work naturally had to expand to a larger team in order to be done right. Eventually, one of our clients encouraged us to form an LLC. We took them up on it in January of 2013.
It’s been a crazy few years. We have since video mapped the Boston Public Library for an NYE countdown, toured non stop, made a whole lot of videos, installations, blinky art, festival stages. Got to work with Mayor Menino and Tom Brady. Went around the world in under a month. All while somehow managing to spread deeper roots in our home base in Charlestown, MA.
It was definitely not easy getting here. Years of work without a guarantee of success, sleepless nights, stress and insecurities – art is a hard business to be in. Eventually, the snowball effect started kicking in – as we acquired more clients, new projects started coming our way at just about “as fast as we can keep up” rate sometimes. And we are still rolling. We have an amazing team, and we are passionate about our work.
Has it been a smooth road?
There were definitely some obstacles in my way. Clearing them out took a while.
It was scary to have maxed out credit cards on new gear, and just enough gigs lined up to make minimum payments for years at a time. It was scary to see some of my artist friends quit along the way, just when they seemed so close to succeeding.
Perhaps where I always played it smart was by always thinking about visual performance art as a business. That was the only logical way to make it into a career. It became geeky fun for me to learn about taxes, licenses, fees, management. Along with my stubbornness, that way of thinking probably helped me turn my passion into my business.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Zebbler Studios story. Tell us more about the business.
Zebbler Studios is a multimedia design team, specializing in custom video-mapped installations, video editing, and animation, interactivity, software design, fabrication, and lighting.
We pioneered the design of video-mapped touring concert stages, creating Shpongle(Tron) and EOTO Lotus stages, as well as contributing to several other touring productions. Some of our other notable projects include annual large-scale interactive installations for DEF CON (hacking conference in Las Vegas), stage design for Envision festival in Costa Rica and a permanent video-mapped treatment of Verizon Innovation Center in Boston.
We are a team of VJs, animators, software and hardware hackers. We create easy solutions for adding video mapping elements to events or spaces, create concert and touring visuals, time lapses and video documentation, stage, and set design.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Technology is evolving so fast. So incredibly fast.
Machine learning will definitely affect how the video and design software works, how it interacts with humans. 3D printers, automation, robotic cutters – all of this has already made a profound effect on our society and democratized manufacturing to a large degree. New cameras, new resolutions and new formats are a yearly release. And throughout, all of the devices and all of the software are waking up and learning to talk with one another. If you know where you’re going, to arrive at a product from an idea is just a few simple steps.
It’s a really exciting time to be a part of.
Contact Info:
- Address: 7 Sherman Street
Suite 2G Charlestown, MA 02129 - Website: http://zebblerstudios.com/
- Email: zebbler@zebblerstudios.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZebblerStudios
Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
