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.

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.

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.