Check Out Travis Reinke’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Travis Reinke.

Hi Travis, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I love to tell this story! My father was a surveyor so I grew up measuring things with technology. My path always tried to lead me to follow in my father’s footsteps even though I didn’t necessarily want to be a surveyor. Several times in my career, I was following that path – I could have been grandfathered in to get my state license because of my experience – but at the very last minute, I decided to do something different. Most of us can look back at key moments in our lives and the decisions that were made that got us to where we are. In my case, it’s decisions that I changed for some reason at the very last minute that got me where I am. That’s even how I met my wife! I decided not to go then at the last minute decided to go and the rest, as they say, is history. Now we have two wonderful grown kids that are about to get married and start their lives. I could never have imagined how things would have turned out!

When I turned 18, I was hired by an engineering company in The Woodlands, Texas to be a junior CAD draftsman. Before then I spent my high school years learning AutoCAD by reading the manual and learning every command, so two months after getting hired I was promoted to CAD Manager where I was over the entire drafting department and writing custom scripts and workflows to standardize and automate all of our workflows. It was there that I learned 3D design. That knowledge and expertise landed me a job at The Woodlands Operating Company (4th largest master-planned community in the nation at that time) where I was able to hone my 3D skills by being paid to refine my 3D skills and learn to render virtual walkthroughs of buildings and landscapes. I worked with Nicklaus Design to render proposed animations of their golf course designs before the land was even cleared.

In 1999 I started reading about 3D Laser Scanning technology, also known as LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging). The first commercially available system was manufactured by Cyra Technologies. A new survey company in my area hired me as a CAD Manager and they had a local Cyrax rental partner so I quickly identified that was a type of surveying I could embrace.

I was able to get into the 3D scanning technology at the bleeding edge when computing power wasn’t even ready to handle that amount of data. My 3D design and animation knowledge allowed me to quickly identify the benefits of this technology in the film and entertainment industry, though I had no idea where it would actually take me at that time.

Fast forward a few years and I was hired as a COO of a global laser scanning manufacturer where I thought I could finally have some say in the development of these technologies for use in the real world. That company ended up being acquired by a larger company so my position was made redundant after only a year. I was asked to stay on for half of my salary plus commission and work as a sales associate. That would have been the safe decision at the time, but that wasn’t my style so I chose to take my severance option and decided that if I could run other companies, why should I be afraid to try running my own and build a team to handle the things I’m not good at.

I was literally walking out the door after saying goodbye to everyone on my last day when my assistant hollered out at me letting me know that I had a phone call. It was a longtime personal client of mine. They had a small project in Dallas, Texas that paid well enough to get us through the holidays and I took it as a sign that I was choosing the right path.

By that time I had created an industry news aggregator website modeled after other sites I followed but tailored to all things 3D scanning. My little self-built and maintained site which was heavily optimized for the search engines (another set of tools I picked up along my path – another story) was receiving multiple thousands of new visits per month and was known across the globe so I had a great start. I originally started my company named something different, but quickly realized that SCANable was too well known to not use it so in November 2012, SCANable as a company was created. In December I was approached by one of my clients to provide 3D scanning services for an ad campaign for Playstation, what became the famous ‘Greatness Awaits’ campaign.

From there, one thing led to another and I can point to so many decisions and last-minute reverse decisions that led us to where we are now. We worked on 84 different productions last year alone including Black Panther – Wakanda Forever, Stranger Things, The Menu, The Last of Us, The Walking Dead, Lyle Lyle Crocodile, among many more.

Our journey to Atlanta started in 2018 with a cult classic, Haunting of Hill House, followed by Stranger Things, House with a Clock in its Walls, then HBO’s Watchmen where we met my now great friend, Keith Farley, who ultimately ended up on WandaVision at the initial launch of Disney+. I remember meeting with the WandaVision VFX team at Trilith Studios, named Pinewood Studios at that time, about our capabilities and negotiating how we could make their lives easier and, on a whim, decided to stop by the Studio Production Centre after my meeting to see if there was any office space available, something that was heavily sought after – to be based at the studio where so many huge productions were being filmed! They had a small office that was perfect for us at that time and it met Disney/Marvel security standards so we finalized everything immediately! We did end up working on WandaVision, which secured us work on Falcon and Winter Soldier, Loki, and Ms. Marvel among many others following that initial start.

Here we are over 4 years later, with our corporate headquarters now based at Trilith Studios where we have an amazing studio on the lot directly on the path to the new Phase 5 construction of 8 new stages. We have multiple state-of-the-art Mobile Photogrammetry Studios based at Trilith and also in Los Angeles, California. These mobile studios allow us to pull up to any production, at a studio or on location, and capture photoreal digital double 3D scans of actors in literally a fraction of a second.

We also have the best team that I have ever worked with. All have extensive on-set experience so our clients don’t have to worry about us. They tell us what they need, point us in the right direction and we take care of everything. We can digitally replicate anything that exists in the real world, from small props to A-list actors to sets, locations, and large environments. We have the latest and greatest technology to handle any task – laser scanners, structured light scanners, aerial drone LiDAR and photogrammetry, and the latest camera and high-end panoramic photography and lighting gear, and executed by the smartest and most talented team of professionals.

As a kid who grew up in a small south Texas town with a population of 401 people, I always dreamed of being involved in the film and entertainment industry but never could have imagined that I would own a company specializing in a niche field within that industry with hundreds of credits to our name! I was taught that anything your hand finds to do, do it with all your heart. That has always been my motto and a huge part of my journey and success.

I look back and see how the “dots” in my life connect and I could not be more excited and anxious about what the future holds. We have so many revolutionary things planned for this year and the coming years that I can’t talk about yet, but I look forward to changing the world… at least my little world and the lives associated with the amazing company that we all have built together!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I always tell my kids and my employees that our mistakes don’t define who we are, but how we handle those mistakes does. I don’t always get it right, but when I don’t, I go out of my way to make it right. We are ultimately a service-oriented company. We strive to do whatever needs to be done to pull off what we call “the gag” in our industry – the look or effect to make the shot believable.

One of my most humbling experiences was working on a show for one of my favorite VFX Supervisors and a great friend on an HBO series. I was scanning props and one of the items was labeled with a sticky note that said “Tea Cup that breaks”. Well, shiny objects don’t scan easily so we will typically apply powder to them to dull the surfaces and capture a great scan. I’m pretty sure you can imagine where this story is going. I will just say that I ended up being able to provide a great broken teacup reference. It was such a dumb moment and a humbling experience. Luckily the props department had a whole set of teacups so I was able to get what was needed.

Overall and looking back, there were always challenges, but when I look at them now, I see the miraculous things that happened in order for us to achieve our goals. We were supposed to scan Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen for WandaVision on a Tuesday in November 2018. The week before, my financing was still on hold due to one vendor who wanted an address to be a certain way on their invoice. We were building a brand new 200-camera photogrammetry rig and didn’t end up getting the gear until the Friday before we had to scan these two amazing actors. We worked all weekend and pulled it off, something that seems impossible and I still don’t know how we did it! There have been so many stories like that where the odds were stacked against us, but we pulled it off and gained more experience from the challenges.

The primary struggle was taking everything I had saved and betting on what we knew very little about at the time – WandaVision. Everything I had and new lines of credit had to be tapped into to pull together the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gear to pull off what we did for something none of us understood at the time. My wife was continually asking when we were going to pay off the debt I acquired and it was a very stressful time. Then, several months into that Covid hit and we shut down all filming for 2 weeks, lol. We all know how that panned out. We kept busy during the lockdown because the shows we were working on took that opportunity to go into post-production which meant a lot of scan processing for us.

Before these Atlanta productions started for us, a lot of our work was in commercials and advertisements, something that moves at an entirely different pace and pay structure. Had we not been in the right place at the right time, we would not have survived as a company because there was little to no commercial work happening during that first six months of the lockdown.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’ve talked about my company and career and how thankful and blessed I am for how things have turned out. I’ve been a musician, graphic artist, video editor, and many other exciting things, but I have to say that my kids are what I am most proud of. I often say that it is difficult to know or understand unconditional love until you have kids. My kids are absolutely amazing and have completely changed my life. I wouldn’t be where I am without them. Both have achieved so much even though they are just into early adulthood. I am so proud to be their father and I look forward to seeing where life takes them and how much more I learn and grow from watching them.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.scanable.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scanable/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/SCANable/309378532501406
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2820822/
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/scanable
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/scanable