 Live from San Francisco, it's theCUBE, covering Samsung Developer Conference 2017. Brought to you by Samsung. Okay, welcome back everyone. Here live in San Francisco at Moscone West is theCUBE's exclusive coverage of Samsung Developer Conference, hashtag SDC 2017. I'm John Furrier, the co-founder of SiliconANGLE Media, co-host of theCUBE. My next guest is artist director and producer, Rob Pryor at robpryor.com. Great to have you. Thanks for spending the time. It's good to be here. All right, great to have you. You're super impressive. It was amazed by the work behind me on the wide shot. We go the wide shot, you can see the artwork you've done. You were just here behind us from the main disruptor studio with Stanley, who was Marvel Comics, legend in the industry. Legend. I mean, just absolute legend. And he's here promoting the edge of the network with Samsung, games, all that good stuff for the Developer Conference. But you were up there painting with both hands in real time and did this art. Yeah, it was less than an hour, I think this one was. I don't know, I don't even keep track anymore. I'm just like. So you do both hands, so how did that come about? How did you get to the two hands? What I was about, I was gonna be an artist no matter what, my entire family line were artists, but none by profession. So I was kind of not even given a choice. So I got to be about 10 years old and I thought the same thing that every 10-year-old thinks, what if I lose my right hand? No 10-year-old thinks that. So I switched at 10, I switched to, I was born a righty, I switched to be a lefty, I switched everything, I switched baseball, how I threw balls, playing guitar, I switched everything over. So for two years, no matter how much people begged me, like my grades were going down because no one could read my writing because I was like cryptic. Yeah, it was weird. And so at that point, I made my left hand as good as my right hand. And I was published very young and I was published at 13, internationally published at 15. And at 13 when I got published, I had math homework to do and I had a painting, a cover do. And I'm like, oh my God, how would I do? I screwed the homework, how would I do the painting? So I picked up two brushes and I was like, oh, I could do this. And then I actually found out that I could do my math homework and paint simultaneously. I shut my eyes apparently when I, I don't know when I do it, but when I paint, my eyes are shut like a lot of the time. Wow, that's awesome. So great skills to get it done faster, but it's also creative. Talk about your work. And obviously your artistry, cartoons, you started doing, what did you get into first and how did your career evolve and take us through the evolution of your career? Because now in the tech scene, you're doing some awesome art, but we live in a digital world. Yeah, yeah. How's that? You're doing cartoons and covers. Well, I did, when I first started out, I was doing interiors, like just pen and ink interiors. And then I started moving into color painted covers and sort of gradually went from black and white work to full color work, to doing a lot of different magazine covers, book covers, you name it. I worked heavily with TSR, which is Dungeon and Dragons at the time. And I just sort of moved forward and kept... And then you got the Hollywood you started with, what movies, what movies did you work on? Oh my God, I've worked on a lot of low budget movies. I worked on TV series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Angel, God, so many. I mean, literally that whole era of TV shows. Movie wise, I've done stuff with Fast and the Furious. Wow, it's amazing when you get asked, when you have a giant body of work, when you ask that question, all I see are ducks going across. Well, you just came off stage, so you're really in painting mode now. You just did this painting, and how long did it take you to do this one? I'm sorry? How long did it take you to do this one? This was a little under an hour. I painted one earlier as well on the main stage during the keynote speech. And that one took me, I don't know, 45 minutes or something like that. So they're giving their talk and you're painting away? Yep. And you've done this at concerts. What other venues have you done? Things like this, I've done it with concerts. So people like Tech Nine, Lincoln Park, Stevie Aoki, Flo Raya, just to name a few. So I do it while they're performing, so I'll do a full four foot by eight foot painting in about an hour and a half. But when I'm doing gallery work, it takes me about a day, maximum two days of painting. Yeah. Considerable talent. You mentioned before we came on camera, you're going to do the Lincoln Park Memorial to Hollywood Bowl? I am. I'm going to be painting there on the 27th at the Hollywood Bowl. You know, there's going to be a lot of people there. Just, you know, I think they said that the ticket sold out in like 39 seconds or I was crazy. But I'm fortunate enough to be able to do that and you know, pay my respects as well, so. Well, great, great work you're doing. I'm really inspired by that because one of the things we're passionate about at the Silicon Angle in the Cube here is the social science, arts, and technology coming together. That's clearly a trend that's happening. It's starting to see the younger generation too coming into this world. And certainly, you know, you have four kids, I have four kids too. We're talking about that earlier, but are they getting immersed in this digital culture and might miss out on some of the analog art? And what's your thoughts on that? Because this is like, you do both, right? So you get your hands dirty. I see your hands are dirty. Good job. You really roll up your sleeves, little pun intended. So this is the key to success. Share your thoughts and vision for the younger generation and other artists out there because art will be the front and center piece of technology. Inspiration, user interface, gaming, augmented reality. No, absolutely. You know, here's the thing, and this is something that you and I were talking about just a little bit ago. I think that we as humans have a choice. You know, especially kids nowadays, they can go and they can be fully immersed, but then they miss all the other things. I've seen kids at tables texting each other instead of talking, but I think if you take the analog era, the thing, like the live painting, because I'll take a picture of this, I'll port it into the computer, I'll clean it up, and I'll do that. I think mixing the two worlds is vital in advancing forward as humans. I mean, that's just my opinion. I try and teach my kids that as well. You can't forget about the real world because the real world is going to be here no matter what. So, you know, I think- And then game developers are out there right now working on a lot of ideas, inspiration. You've drawn monsters before. Absolutely. So the characters here from Malware with Stan Lee. There is a creative spark. Oh, absolutely. And look, there are, KoreaSpark, anything can be a tool, you know? So the computer, doing computer art, is an amazing opportunity to explore a new kind of tool, right? To invent and create new creatures or new things. It's all on how you use it. And then you get the people, and I said this on stage the other day, you get people who are taking photos and then pressing, you know, 27 filters and calling it art. I think you have to go backwards and once again, be able to do the analog, write your story, create your idea, and take any tool that's available and make it happen. Whether it's to picking up a paintbrush, whether it's getting on a computer in a Wacom tablet. So you think best practice from a young artist standpoint is, get down and dirty, get analog. Absolutely. And that's your inspiration sandbox, if you will. Absolutely. You know, and I think, here's an example. It's hard to have a gallery show of all digital stuff because then it's just prints of things that you've done. There's no brushstrokes, there's nothing there. And a lot of art collectors want to see the stroke. They want to know it's a one of a kind. That's it. Yeah, the prototype. Or whatever the inspiration was. It's inspiring. Absolutely. And so I tell all artists, and even at the best computer artists, I'm like, go analog, get your hands ready. Paint and let that speak as well. I've been lucky at my age to see a bunch of waves of innovation and technology and super exciting. I'd love to get your thoughts from your perspective in the artistry community. And you've been in LA over the past 10 years, maybe even 20, I would say 10 is easier number. 10 years ago, the iPhone wasn't even out, right? So actually 10 years ago was the iPhone, but say 11 years ago, there was no iPhone. It was YouTube just hit the scene. So this whole digital culture has just shifted. Oh, absolutely. Apple was a no name company in 2000, right? Michael Dell once said, you know, they should give the stock back to stockholders. So Steve Jobs proved them all wrong. What is the scene like in your world around the past 10 years? What's been the disruptive change? Where's the enablement? What's been bad? What's been good? What's your thoughts? You know, in the art world itself, something I just mentioned, what's disrupted the art world is people coming in and literally just being what I call a button pusher artist. You know, they figure out a filter or a tan or whatever, they make art on their phone and they're like, and that disrupts a lot of things because then it shows or can teach kids or artists, anybody, our people are aged, whatever, it doesn't matter. That it's okay to do that and skip all of the steps. And I think that's the biggest point is the technology has allowed people to think they can skip steps, but you can't. You can never skip the steps. Some of the consequences of those steps skipping. What's the consequence of that there? So, like if that's what you are, if you figured out filters and you get hired to do a job because maybe you're the greatest filter button pusher in the world, but then all of a sudden your computer goes out, what do you do? Call AppleCare. Yeah, there you go. Genius bar appointment. I know something. You screwed, basically. You are. I knew way back in the 20 years ago, if you were versed in drawing cars and you got a job doing storyboards for a commercial, and all of a sudden they said, hey, we're changing everything, now we're taking out all the cars and now it's going to be real people. If you're not good at drawing real people, you lost your job. Same basic concept. You have to take it all in, in a giant ball. And for the people who are like, I don't want to touch a computer. Man, that's... So it works both ways. Absolutely works both ways. So what you're saying if I get this right is that the computer's a great enabler and accelerant of a finished product. Absolutely. So you use it, you take this print and we bind us, you'll touch it up and you'll turn it into posters, you'll sell it, you'll syndicate it, et cetera, et cetera, but you did the work here in an hour with both hands. You know, yeah. And you did it just on the fly, total creative creativity. Yeah, I mean, today's world, I think if we let things go too much, then the computer takes over and we lose a part of ourselves. And what about your social friends, like musicians, you know? Oh my God. So what's the musician vibe? Same thing. I mean, tools are out there now. My son's doing some stuff on Ableton Live. He loves that software suite, but he's still laying some guitar licks down. Absolutely. And you know, the great thing about in the music scene, you know, I heard this a lot when Pro Tools first came out. Everybody was like, that's the death of the producer. No, that was the beginning of a different kind of producer. And if you can do things at home and you're good, then it's great. What's the culture like in LA right now in terms of the creative producer, creator? Cause you got like a maker culture on the geek side, robotics, maker culture, puts stuff together, builds some new things. Now you got a creator culture which builds off the maker culture, then you got the builder culture, all kind of coming together. What's the success formula in your mind? You know, besides the managing the tools, what's the mindset of the new producer, the new director, the new artist? What do you see as success points? These are some of the best questions I've ever been asked. Like literally in every interview I'm answering the same ones. No, this is great. I think it's a little bit of the Wild West out in LA and all over because you're forming amalgamations. The director of a movie is no longer possibly just a director. He's also working on some of the cinematography. Maybe he's an editor. It's a jack of all trades thing. And I think a lot of the people that had one trade going in and were really good at it are finding that they're getting passed up sometimes by the person who can do four or five different things, including being able to be versed at technology. We're seeing a lot of the things happen in the computer industry just to share on my side of the table. Data scientists is the hottest job on the planet doing data. The best data scientists are anthropologists. Really? Like weird majors in college, but they have a unique view of the data. They're not parochial in their thinking. They're looking at it differently. Or they have a math background. Obviously math is pretty important for data science. But also it's not just a typical, you got to be this spec. It's a little bit of a different artsy kind of feel because you got to be look at things differently. You got to be able to rotate around 360. And that's exactly it. That you've got to be able to have, you got to be thinking outside of the box at all times nowadays, you know? Well, Rob, what's next for you? What's going on? You got a lot of things going on. Wow. You got a lot of business ventures. You make a lot of money on your prints. You're famous. You're exploring new territory. What are some of the boundaries you're pushing right now creatively that's really getting you excited? Well, I'm going to be directing a movie coming up, which I find great because it allows me to take every bit of all the things I know and put it into a package. That's fun. I've got several gallery shows coming up. I've got a gallery show that I'll be doing with Stan, which will be New York and LA. And just getting on stage with more and more bands. And, you know, I think... You're a cult of personality. What's it like when we're with Stan? He's a cult of personality. Oh my God. Stan is great. I mean, people yelling stuff at him. Hey, what do you think about that? I mean, there's a lot of culture in the Marvel comments world. Oh man, he, you know, and look, he's what, 95. And he's got more energy than I, literally last night, we're all out to dinner. And I left before everybody else. And Stan outlasts me. A 95 year old guy. I was like, I'm too tired. I got to go to bed and Stan's still going. You know, he's an animal. Well, great for coming on. Thanks for the inspiration. Great art. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, man. Great job. Congratulations. Good to see the arts. Analogue and the digital world is connecting. This is the key to success in the technology business, bringing an artisan mindset. It's a great technology for societal benefits. That's what theCUBE believes. We believe it. And so does Mr. Pryor here. Check out the art, revertpryor.com. Check it out, robpryor.com. This is theCUBE live from San Francisco. More after this short break. Thanks for having me.