A Post Story

Ever been in "post" with a knucklehead? It is a special moment. A favorite of mine occurred during a spot for a hospital chain near Cleveland. We were finishing the spot in "Flame" at a Minneapolis facility with one of the greatest Flame guys I have ever worked with (Jake Parker). We were busy compositing the animated character inks with several animated matte layers that acted as the character color and background. We composited in Flame (a very expensive process) due to the complexity of the animation and the amount of animated color elements, mattes and background plates. Things were going swimmingly until the Agency Art Director started putting his two flawed cents in.

The Art Director after finishing his large lunch that we hoped that would keep him quiet, started commenting on our color choices and wanted to adjust. There were several problems with his interference, one we were almost done (in other words why did he wait so long), and two, Jake informed him that it would be a difficult process due to the way he had set-up the file and gently explained (you always have to gently explain when dealing with a creative knucklehead)that it would have been better for him to have been involved during the composite. (I am sure that Jake was trying to help us here.)
Didn't matter. So "the Jake" started breaking apart a section so that the Art Director could bless us with his well fed miraculous eye. After a short period of time it was obvious that his color choices were awful. After an hour, the patience in the room started to wane and the eyes were starting to roll. I pulled the Creative Director out of the room and asked him to help us out and shut this guy up. He apologized, said he would wring him in and confided in me that this Knucklehead Art Director was of all things, colorblind. It cost us over a grand for the two hours of his screwing around and thankfully we ended up back where we started, sweet colors intact.
The good news, the Creative Director was a very loyal and wonderful guy who utilized us whenever we could and we rarely had to deal with the knucklehead again.