Rendering blackberries
The last few days have been busy. Horrendously busy. I had to do the two animations I thought I was doing (Nature luckily turned out not to want the illustration they thought they were going to need) – the first went very well. The second needed a couple of alterations – nothing too difficult, but it did mean I had to do more work and start the rendering from scratch.

This was OK – I expect people to want a certain number of changes to any project and the changes will make the animation better in the long run. I’m still rendering the changes, so we’re cutting the deadline very tight.

Both the deadlines were tight – just a few days - However, I also got an email from someone in the states trying to do a videogame based on Mexican Wrestling….

This originally started out as 2 illustrations of 9 figures each with their own costume… however the deadline was tight (one day) and unfortunately, the guy talking to me was using a blackberry – so could only communicate in one line text type messages.

Trying to get a complex brief (as it turned out to be) across using only a keypad an inch across while trying to do four other things at once is kind of tricky.

Anyway, the images worked out well, but it turned out that what he was actually after was a set of animations and pictures he could use to create a videogame (or at least a Flash pitch for one). The project started to spiral – suddenly there were 8 animations to do, and 9 more pictures… then there were another 8 animations…

But the deadline didn’t shift and it was still hard to find out just what was needed.

Eventually, I think we’ve got it (after a little re-negotiation on deadlines and fees) and the result is going to look great.

However, I’ve still got the deadline for the other animation looming – and I’m now trying to render two sets of animations at once on the same machine. It’s a bit of a nightmare and a bit of a panic. I’m having to be very firm about exactly when I do each part and how much time I allow for every element of the work.

It’s a bit annoying when you can’t be as fussy about the project as you’d like to because of time constraints, but I think I’ve still exceeded the expectations of all the people giving me these commissions, so I guess that’s a plus.

The thing is, when you’ve got deadlines like these you need to make sure the brief is clear and doesn’t change. If it does, you end up having to be less fussy about the finished result because there’s no time to change things if they’re wrong.

I was thinking of getting a Blackberry, but having seen how difficult it is to communicate properly through them, I’m not so sure…


I’ve now got the commentary through for “how to colonise the stars” – it’s sounding great – if only I had time to fit it into the edit… maybe this afternoon… but then I’ve also got a book to write….

I just got told that Digital Video magazine is closing. There was a lot of talk about this happening since before Christmas, but the closure kept being postponed. It was going to be replaced by a higher-end title aimed more at semi-professional videomakers – which would have suited me just fine – but it now seems that this has been abandoned and there’s not going to be a replacement.

Apparently although there was a good readership for the magazine, advertising revenue wasn’t justifying it, so it’s been cut.

It strikes me that there will be a lot of people that miss this mag – it’s been going for a long time (under different titles) – and there are lots of people who want to hear about digital video making and how to do it. Since Future brought up Highbury, there isn’t really much competition for the magazine out there, so there will be a bit of a gap in the market.

This is probably part of the economic slowdown, and part of the general turning off of magazines that most people in the industry have been predicting for some time (as more and more people get their information online).

The problem here is that online publications don’t tend to be as authoritative – reviews are often written by PR companies, features are shorter and therefore less detailed and information isn’t quite as well researched (primarily because the authors aren’t paid or commissioned in quite the same way)….

I’m sure something will turn up to replace digital video, but I don’t know what it will be. Highbury – one of Future’s biggest rivals collapsed a couple of years ago (I ended up suing them to get paid for my work) and Future ended up with many of their mags (including Digital Video. So now, if Future aren’t replacing Digital Video, that means there’s only a couple of other publishers who could replace it.

Hmm… I think I have an idea…

On top of that, Raoul just phoned saying he has a meeting with some people at the Natural History Museum tomorrow… one of them is looking to expand their audio-visual side and wants a producer. I don’t want to do this as a job, but maybe I could do it freelance… unfortunately, this means getting a CV or something like it together today.

I haven’t had a CV since 1998….