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.

A Toy Story con't.

So remember our little Toy Story (if not see below to get all caught up). So, here is the continuing saga. As you can imagine the omission of the invisible flower on the jumper was a problem easily solved. I drew a simple sunflower on the "cute" little doll design with pigtails and faxed it to New York. Excellent. Five minutes later, I received another call from the irritated producer. The flower was great, almost exactly right, but the doll's face was not quite on character. Remember I was dealing with no reference to speak of except a small thumbnail photo of a doll which was probably 5 pixels by 20 in terms of image size, the face was probably 4 pixels square. It was 3:00pm on a Friday afternoon and I had a 6:00 date with my wife. (So there was a teeny time crunch.) I asked if this could be done on Monday (trying to be a good husband) and was instantly met with that bizarre commercial producer panic. "The client would like this resolved asap". So Mister Customer Service kicks in and asks once again, "Can you send me a quick photo of just the doll's face?" The producer responded as if she all ready knew I was going to ask this question. "No, we are shooting an important sequence and the prototype was in make-up". Again, remember the prototype was the only doll that existed at this point. I then asked another stupid question, well, I guess it must have been a stupid question because the response was, "We don't know, can you just try some variations?" The question of course was, "Can you tell me why I am off character?". So that is exactly what I did, variations, changing eyes and proportions, lips and noses, and faxing like a madman. "No, it's still not there."lamented the broken record producer and client. To make this ridiculous story a bit shorter, I canceled my date with my wife and was in the studio past 8:30. The final result was my original design with the hairline an eighth of an inch higher. "That's it, that's perfect." the knuckleheads finally shouted from the other end of the phone. And then they had the amazing and mindless audacity to laugh and incredulously reflect upon the simple fact that the hairline was the only problem. Five and a half hours to move a hairline two ticks north.

Goodness Gracious

I am just amazed at what the American consumer will buy. Yikes. Can't wait for Easter. I can see it now, a blow up Christ on a cross. The Wall Mart Crucifixion. That will be great.

A Toy Story

Working on a toy commercial before Toy Fair was always an adventure. Once upon a time, I worked on a doll commercial that was a very special vehicle for knuckleheadism. The toy company and agency was in the midst of shooting the live action for the commercial when they contacted us to design the doll character for the animated section of the spot. Unfortunately for us, there was only one doll on the planet, the prototype, and that was being used for the live action. I asked the producer to send a photo via the internet even though it was the early days of dial up. She agreed and soon a photo was in my inbox, when I opened it I was surprised to find a 50 pixel by 50 pixel thumbnail photo with a tiny image of a doll in it. I called and asked to send the photo at a larger size to which the producer responded that they were too busy with the live action shoot and to just do the best I could. She continued to say that I should just design a cute doll with pigtails and that should work and that she needed the design asap due to the client being available. Well, I got right to work and within a couple hours faxed the first design. In less than five minutes, I received a call from the producer who was extremely upset that I had missed the flower on the doll's jumper. How could I miss something so obvious. The flower in question was one a little more than one pixel on the reference photo they had sent. Unfortunately for me, it didn't stop there. To be con't.

So let's wrap this bad boy up.

So in the continuing saga of the soft drink commercial that would die a horrible death, where the live action director didn't want an animated character to ruin his combination live action animated spot and so forth and so on. The worst part of this whole fiasco was revealed in the live action tag, the "money shot" where the soft drink is tossed back in one big hearty gulp by a macho stud. The actor not previously present on the set, walked in and donned his wardrobe and instantly reminded everyone of Michael Jordan. Everyone of course except the live action producer and director who assured the client that he was too muscular to be "Mike". The situation came to a head when the video assist revealed that this guy's profile, Helen Keller herself couuld have seen the resemblance. The soft drink executives asked this animation director his opinion, and I stated the obvious truth (too heated glares from the live action company), "He looks exactly like Michael Jordan". Why is this a problem? Well the main issue would be infringement upon Jordan's image, false advertisement, and the fact that Jordan was not under contract with this soft drink company. OOPs. Duh. Not good. Okay, so they re-shot the tag a week later, and used a non-union talent. Guess what? He turned out to be a convicted felon. The soft drink company received a call from a New York drug lord telling our little soft drinkers, that the new tag guy was a convicted murderer. Oh happy, happy, joy, joy our greatest opportunity in the proverbial toilet. The spot was pulled after only three weeks on air. It took us over a year to get it for our reel. YAY, KNuckleHEads!!!

The saga continues

So back at the soft drink commercial that died. Why did it die? Bad decisions plus, might be a reason. I went to NY to observe the live action shoot. If you are an animator and have to have a character interact in a live action environment, you better make an appearance at the live action shoot. The main reason is that you want to make sure that the live action director keeps the character in mind, leaves room in the shot for the character and doesn't make a decision that will cause you to lose sleep later. And when you have a live action director who doesn't want the animated character in the spot, it is a journey in diplomacy, eye-rolling, and conflict. During the shoot, our wonderfully talented live action director continued to brush me off, when I would remind him to "leave me some room". He wanted to direct and didn't want to hear from some animator, so basically he ignored me. I had to talk to the director of photography on the sly who understood and agreed with my direction and "slipped" in shots that woudl work for me while the director wasn't paying attention. This lack of cooperation from the director definitely hurt my companies rep with the client even though I was trying my like crazy to put on a smile and work through it. The client, a huge soft drink company, surely appreciated how poorly we were working together, and they returned the favor by never working with us again. Yes, there is more.

A great photographer

I worked for a great photographer (Jim) in Chicago in the mid 70's. He was a master technician, a great photographer, and incredibly adept at dealing with clients. I remember one shoot where Jack (the photographer's main assistant) and myself (the plebe) set up a table top shot for a food product. Jack and I set up the lights and Jim came in and set up the composition of the product and it accessories for the shot. At around 10am the art director arrived at the studio to take a gander. He discussed the shot with Jim and moved several of the objects around "improving" upon Jim's expert composition. The average photographer might have bristled, or just went with whatever the client wanted. Not Jim, we worked throughout the morning and shot several rounds of tests while the food stylist prepared the product. Little by little, I noticed that Jim moved some the objects around with no real plan, something he rarely did. He furrowed his brow and looked at our test shots immediately throwing them away in disgust. We wrapped the morning and went out to lunch with the art director. When we returned, Jim proceeded to work the composition. The art director (half in the bag) talked to the Sales Rep and the Food Stylist recounting stories of his artistic prowess. Jim eventually returned all the objects to their original position, his initial composition. I know this because Jim had sketched the composition on a piece of vellum and taped it to the back of the 8 X 10 Deardorff camera. He knew what he was doing every step of the way and slowly took control. When Jim was ready, he tore the vellum from the back of the camera and handed it to me to throw it away. He called the art director over to view his final composition which the art director approved without a quick nod and a pat on Jim's back. Excellent. Done deal.

Once upon a toy client

Once worked on a commercial for a small toy company who shall remain unnamed. They had a new doll coming out and wanted a commercial produced before toy fair. They only had one doll, "the prototype" and needed it for the live action segment of the commercial being shot in NY. No problem, they assured me they would send plenty of photographs so I would have no problem designing the character for the animation. After a day or so past, I finally received a jpeg. in my e-mail of the doll. When I opened it I was surprised to find the smallest jpeg. I had ever seen. The doll was approximately 1/4 inch tall in a jpeg. that couldn't have been more than 70 pixels square. I called. They were swamped, the live action shoot was going over budget and they just didn't have the time to take the photos they had promised. They instructed me to design a standard "cute little girl" and they would adjust. So without delay, I got on board and designed a character based upon an impression and a quick phone call. Later that evening, I received a call from a distraught creative director who started to berate me on my design skills. "It is cute and well drawn", she started, "BUT, IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE OUR DOLL,AND WHERE IS THE FLOWER?" "What flower?", I responded. "THERE IS A FLOWER ON THE DRESS, IT'S OBVIOUS", She explained angrily. I explained to her that I did not notice a flower and looked to my jpeg. for reference. The flower in question was a pixel. I sent her the jpeg. and never received an apology. That evening and into the night, I drew revisions of the doll for the client. After seven or eight redesigns, I sent the original drawing with a slight adjustment to the lips. "That's it", they exclaimed. Knuckleheads.