Emmy-winning composer and sound supervisor Scot Stafford has spent two decades chasing insane challenges alongside some of animation’s great storytellers—from the Oscar-nominated Presto to Lost Ollie, Ultraman: Rising and a generation of experiments in immersive storytelling.

Then the ground disappeared.

Creative people are now fighting for their livelihoods, their relevance, and perhaps something even more important: the conviction that what they have spent their lives learning still matters. This is Scot’s very personal survival story, and an argument for sound thinking, breaking out of our disciplines, and collaborating like our lives depend on it.

Part story, part provocation, part experiment. And then we’ll leave time to talk.