It’s near 2015 and I’m having 2013 syndrome. “How is 2014 more fucked than 2013? 2015 has to be better if I survive to see it.” Everyone has their moments so out with the defeatist garbage and back to work. When it comes down to it, you have to have your center. Visual realizing my imagination into creative works has always been one of mine.
In 1973, I made my first flip book. (“1973?! Dude, yo like disco caveman old!”). No troglodyte here, holmes. I’d enjoyed the hell out of drawing and I found it cool as all hell to watch those drawings move. During one of my presentations I realized that I hadn’t show any animations the entire day. Hell, I hadn’t even loaded any onto the tablet. What triggered this thought was one of the reviewers, Cynthia Hopkins from Kaiser Permanente telling me that she could tell that I loved doing this
THIS = purty wires with reflectivity, damage and grime
versus doing that (tennis shot below or to the right depending how formatting goes).
Well, I like getting goddamn money and if it all shows competence, what the flying hell does the quantity of love units matter? That’s what I asked her at least. Her statement wasn’t unreasonable but it also didn’t address the practicalities of hires. I’ve been too many places where I’ve been mistaken as a courier because the “culture” of the facility has never seen anyone who looked like me do high level visual jujitsu. But like most reviews, there’s a right and no wrong because we’re taking about the mechanics of how people view aesthetics from someone that they have no history of interaction. The imagery has to convey all of the spark of possibility that they might remember you in X amount of years because strength of that memory.
See remember, I have that disco caveman shit going on, according to some. I tell reviewers from the beginning,
THAT = There is a tennis ball coming my way
I’m old (at least in work history). I don’t want your opinion about the positioning of my pixels. I want to know if you are amenable to me adding you to my SPAM list (marketing list) and if there is any possibility that you would hire a mofo like me because of what I offer. Jason Lau from Team One was very direct. He had valid and sapient suggestions that I admittedly didn’t want to hear and possibly still don’t. Mainly, I’m tired of validity and the broken alpaca it rides. But honestly, despite a couple of people being really high on my vision and versatility, Jason and Cynthia’s thoughts brought me back to the animation. They galvanized the premise of hitting someone as hard as you can in the eye and the most efficient way is the energy. Because I was helping out APA, I got to see a lot of glimpses of a lot of portfolios and there were some seriously bad ass presentations and individual pieces. If your bank account doesn’t tell you to step up your game then the practical understanding of competition should. Your “competition” doesn’t want to feast on ramen every night either.
OK, the animation isn’t solely about the meticulous and insane amounts of detail. Sometimes, it’s finishing shit with proper polish. The videos I had were LOWWWWW budget but I really could have added some extra flourishes to them to make them pop more. Sometimes people only see the pop so it needs to be there. It’s a bit like polishing turds but that damn near describes the bulk of my home video/DVD career. Efficiency: that tennis shot took 30 minutes to shoots and 10 minutes of post pro. And video was shot. The wires shot took significantly more time to prep and post. They both made me the same amount of money. Both exist and the world is not dissolving into a puddle of goo as though there is a crossing of the streams.
Jason Lau provided me with an example where the comparative name will be omitted for safety purposes. Mind you I’m loosely paraphrasing this at 2 am. In his position, Jason can pretty much hire any photographer he wants to shoot with because his company is playing with house money. So say there’s a known photographer with a similar style but has a rep for being an ass. He would have no compunction hiring the lesser known person because in theory that person isn’t a dickhead and he’d rather work with cool, competent people.
As it is, I didn’t feel too high nor too low after these reviews. No one opened up the vault to invite me in nor did anyone challenge me to a knife fight. It’s a slow train but it’s still on the rails toward its destination.
Megasutra 