Today’s my last working day before Christmas, and instead of doing all the admin I really ought to have finished off, I did a little admin and spent the rest of the time putting together a short how-to article for my website giving museum and exhibit creators a few pointers on how to commission animation. Obviously it’s partially a way to get people to come to my website, but it should be helpful to people hopefully. I also set up a new domain name – something that only takes a few minutes but which I’ve for some reason not done.
I’m now officially www.anachronistic.co.uk – and the article is at www.anachronistic.co.uk/exhibit
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Ok – I think I’ve finished my “how to colonise the stars” documentary. I think because I haven’t actually watched the final render through to check it, but I’ve made all the changes I think it needs and tried to get all the shots fine-tuned, so I think it’s finished.
Does that mean the project is over? No. I’ve now got to send it to the distributors and hope they like it. Then I’ll have to do all the paperwork – music cue sheets, script, that kind of thing, and finally I’ll have to shell out for the full HD copy to be made along with all the audio versions so buyers can edit out my carefully written narration and replace it with their own…
In the meantime, I’ve been doing a little work on designing characters for my children’s animation series… I’m pleased with the way they look, and with the first script basically there, I should soon be able to start seeing how it all works in practice.
It may seem to you that this project is plummeting forward with undue haste, but it has to. I’ve only got a little time before I start taking on more paid work in the new year and if this project can’t be fitted in relatively easily around it, it won’t get done. This has to be a bit of a production-line job because I know it won’t make me much if any money. There’s no point wondering how good it would have been if it never gets made, so the aim has to be to do something that will look spectacular, and have the ideas in it I want to get across, but is easy enough to get done and get done fast.
So far, it’s looking great.
Expansion plans
I’m also thinking of ways to expand my work – and planning to go on an aggressive marketing drive at the beginning of next year (not that I haven’t got plenty to do already). Basically this mainly involves my Google advertising, but I’m increasingly thinking there may be other ways to get people interested – without shelling out money for advertising. And that will probably involve using my skills as a writer to create some content that’s useful to the clients I’m trying to attract, and publicises my site at the same time. That way, I can try to get it linked to by other sites my clients tend to visit…
More on that story as it comes in…
Does that mean the project is over? No. I’ve now got to send it to the distributors and hope they like it. Then I’ll have to do all the paperwork – music cue sheets, script, that kind of thing, and finally I’ll have to shell out for the full HD copy to be made along with all the audio versions so buyers can edit out my carefully written narration and replace it with their own…
In the meantime, I’ve been doing a little work on designing characters for my children’s animation series… I’m pleased with the way they look, and with the first script basically there, I should soon be able to start seeing how it all works in practice.
It may seem to you that this project is plummeting forward with undue haste, but it has to. I’ve only got a little time before I start taking on more paid work in the new year and if this project can’t be fitted in relatively easily around it, it won’t get done. This has to be a bit of a production-line job because I know it won’t make me much if any money. There’s no point wondering how good it would have been if it never gets made, so the aim has to be to do something that will look spectacular, and have the ideas in it I want to get across, but is easy enough to get done and get done fast.
So far, it’s looking great.
Expansion plans
I’m also thinking of ways to expand my work – and planning to go on an aggressive marketing drive at the beginning of next year (not that I haven’t got plenty to do already). Basically this mainly involves my Google advertising, but I’m increasingly thinking there may be other ways to get people interested – without shelling out money for advertising. And that will probably involve using my skills as a writer to create some content that’s useful to the clients I’m trying to attract, and publicises my site at the same time. That way, I can try to get it linked to by other sites my clients tend to visit…
More on that story as it comes in…
Friday, December 12, 2008
Back to documentary work – or at least a little of it.
I’ve edited the footage shot in Mexico into a taster for the Nevada desert fossil hunt project I should be filming at the end of January. It’s looking like fun, but I really need some feedback about just how it’s going to work.
The idea is to take a team of fossil hunters into the desert to search for the remains of the world’s first super-predator – anomalocaris, and to film the adventure. I’m going to focus on the characters of the team – who I introduce in the trailer clip.
I’m not sure how much of this clip will appear in the finished program, but it’s aiming to give an idea of the style and rhythm of the project…
So the questions I need to answer – any comments you’ve got would be gratefully received:
Am I making the characters clear enough and engaging enough for a 50 minute documentary?
If this documentary works out, is there potential here for a series in which the team go to fossil sites around the world on quests to solve ancient mysteries?
Should I be in it? In other words, do I need to be a part of the programme too – would it work best from the point of view of MY journey with them, or should the camera be in independent observer with an impartial narration? Should I be helping them dig for fossils, or watching them?
Planning to expand in a recession
Ok – it looks like I’ve got a decision to make. Do I keep my business the same size – i.e. with a workforce of one – where I do everything – and only take on the work I can do. Or, do I expand and bring in other people at the risk of
A) Loosing creative control
B) Ending up managing rather than doing the work I enjoy
And
C) having to pay people for work they’ve done, but which the client hasn’t ended up using
hmm…
Obviously I don’t want to be a manager or a salesman any more than I am now, and obviously there are some jobs I’ll want to keep for myself. However, I’ll have to learn to be a manager – and a decent one if I don’t want to get sucked into making management my main job.
Equally, If I’m to do this, I’ll need a flexible system where I only have people working for me when I have the work to give them. This isn’t too much of a problem as much of the animation industry is freelance and wants to stay that way.
On top of that, I’ll need to have a policy of keeping on advertising even when I’ve got lots of work on – and know instantly what to do when things come in that I can’t do on my own…
Ok – I’m not sure what I want to do here – but I do know I need to find out more before I can make a decision.
Perhaps the first step is to find the artists I’d bring in if I have work for them – get a whole load of CVs and showreels together so I have the access I need to freelancers.
Next stop – Elance…. And maybe Amazon for books on management.
Should I even be thinking about this in a recession? Why not? It doesn’t seem to be a recession for me. I’m busier than I ever have been.
Colonising space
Anyway, as well as the new documentary outline, I managed to finally do the last few bits of work I need on my previous documentary – the one about colonising space. There’s a little more to do – I still have to make sure all my paperwork on music and stock footage is up to date, but the creative stuff is done now and at least now I can submit it to my distributors. The next step after that will be the costly process of getting HD and PAL masters created. This is actually the most expensive bit of my production.
More work
Having cleared the decks of work for the rest of the year, it now looks like I’ve got more magazine work and more newsletter work on the horizon – and with this kind of stuff, the horizon tends to come up on you pretty fast. I was, and still am hoping for a little slack between now and Christmas – but we’ll see!
Children’s TV
And the reason I want the slack is so that I can begin work on my idea for a children’s animation. I think a lot of kids TV talks down, and I’d like to make something that treats children as capable of understanding a lot more – because to be honest, even if they can’t and just see a lot of colours and funny faces – what does it matter? – at least I’ve tried not to patronise!
The idea, I hope, will be do-able both in terms of scripting and in terms of animation, and having checked out the competition, it seems that 11 minute shows in series of 13 are the way to go.
That means I’ve got to be able to produce 130 minutes of animation – and I’ve got enough “real work” to keep me busy, so I’m going to have to be able to do it fast – i.e. not taking more than a couple of days to animate each episode. Realistically if it takes more than that, it won’t get done.
This sounds pretty unrealistic – but in my defence, Oliver Postgate (the maker of the fantastic and surprisingly grown up kids TV shows I grew up with) -who died this week was forced to use very fast “production line” type methods and reduce his animation style to the barest essentials, and still created some of the best most thoughtful TV ever made.
I’m setting him as my benchmark – and some would call that reckless considering his style of TV doesn’t seem to be that popular anymore… We’ll see.
Still, the ideas are coming thick and fast and I spent today writing the first script – I decided to start with episode 3 for no very good reason.
It’s gone pretty well, but isn’t finished. I’ve also got an idea it’s too long. Anyway, more of this later – when there’s some animation to show… In the meantime, here are the clangers…
The idea is to take a team of fossil hunters into the desert to search for the remains of the world’s first super-predator – anomalocaris, and to film the adventure. I’m going to focus on the characters of the team – who I introduce in the trailer clip.
I’m not sure how much of this clip will appear in the finished program, but it’s aiming to give an idea of the style and rhythm of the project…
So the questions I need to answer – any comments you’ve got would be gratefully received:
Am I making the characters clear enough and engaging enough for a 50 minute documentary?
If this documentary works out, is there potential here for a series in which the team go to fossil sites around the world on quests to solve ancient mysteries?
Should I be in it? In other words, do I need to be a part of the programme too – would it work best from the point of view of MY journey with them, or should the camera be in independent observer with an impartial narration? Should I be helping them dig for fossils, or watching them?
Planning to expand in a recession
Ok – it looks like I’ve got a decision to make. Do I keep my business the same size – i.e. with a workforce of one – where I do everything – and only take on the work I can do. Or, do I expand and bring in other people at the risk of
A) Loosing creative control
B) Ending up managing rather than doing the work I enjoy
And
C) having to pay people for work they’ve done, but which the client hasn’t ended up using
hmm…
Obviously I don’t want to be a manager or a salesman any more than I am now, and obviously there are some jobs I’ll want to keep for myself. However, I’ll have to learn to be a manager – and a decent one if I don’t want to get sucked into making management my main job.
Equally, If I’m to do this, I’ll need a flexible system where I only have people working for me when I have the work to give them. This isn’t too much of a problem as much of the animation industry is freelance and wants to stay that way.
On top of that, I’ll need to have a policy of keeping on advertising even when I’ve got lots of work on – and know instantly what to do when things come in that I can’t do on my own…
Ok – I’m not sure what I want to do here – but I do know I need to find out more before I can make a decision.
Perhaps the first step is to find the artists I’d bring in if I have work for them – get a whole load of CVs and showreels together so I have the access I need to freelancers.
Next stop – Elance…. And maybe Amazon for books on management.
Should I even be thinking about this in a recession? Why not? It doesn’t seem to be a recession for me. I’m busier than I ever have been.
Colonising space
Anyway, as well as the new documentary outline, I managed to finally do the last few bits of work I need on my previous documentary – the one about colonising space. There’s a little more to do – I still have to make sure all my paperwork on music and stock footage is up to date, but the creative stuff is done now and at least now I can submit it to my distributors. The next step after that will be the costly process of getting HD and PAL masters created. This is actually the most expensive bit of my production.
More work
Having cleared the decks of work for the rest of the year, it now looks like I’ve got more magazine work and more newsletter work on the horizon – and with this kind of stuff, the horizon tends to come up on you pretty fast. I was, and still am hoping for a little slack between now and Christmas – but we’ll see!
Children’s TV
And the reason I want the slack is so that I can begin work on my idea for a children’s animation. I think a lot of kids TV talks down, and I’d like to make something that treats children as capable of understanding a lot more – because to be honest, even if they can’t and just see a lot of colours and funny faces – what does it matter? – at least I’ve tried not to patronise!
The idea, I hope, will be do-able both in terms of scripting and in terms of animation, and having checked out the competition, it seems that 11 minute shows in series of 13 are the way to go.
That means I’ve got to be able to produce 130 minutes of animation – and I’ve got enough “real work” to keep me busy, so I’m going to have to be able to do it fast – i.e. not taking more than a couple of days to animate each episode. Realistically if it takes more than that, it won’t get done.
This sounds pretty unrealistic – but in my defence, Oliver Postgate (the maker of the fantastic and surprisingly grown up kids TV shows I grew up with) -who died this week was forced to use very fast “production line” type methods and reduce his animation style to the barest essentials, and still created some of the best most thoughtful TV ever made.
I’m setting him as my benchmark – and some would call that reckless considering his style of TV doesn’t seem to be that popular anymore… We’ll see.
Still, the ideas are coming thick and fast and I spent today writing the first script – I decided to start with episode 3 for no very good reason.
It’s gone pretty well, but isn’t finished. I’ve also got an idea it’s too long. Anyway, more of this later – when there’s some animation to show… In the meantime, here are the clangers…
Monday, December 8, 2008
Finished the boat safety video this week, or at least I think I did. There were a few last-minute changes, and this weekend. The whole thing gets shown to the brokers (who I assume, will want to make some alterations of their own).
The animation for Stafford Castle is also pretty much complete and we’re waiting for the council to take a look at to see if they want any changes. In addition, the cover for Nature is essentially finished, but we’re tweaking it as it is passed between different people within the magazine
One of the keys of any project like this, is that you really need to know exactly who it is that is making the final decisions about everything. Quite often the person commissioning you knows what they want, however, there are either people overseeing them or people holding the purse strings, or simply other partners in the business, who once everything is done will want to take a look and put their own ideas.
It also now looking as though the boat project might end up expanding. The same company want to produce some training videos for their staff -- and they want to do it in the same kind of style. It looks as though these projects might be substantially bigger. So that rather than creating a four-minute animation, it may add up to an hour or more. I think I might have to expand my operation.
3December
Every year, the 3-D industry (which is rapidly becoming just another word for Autodesk) runs a series of seminars all round the world. And I was invited to the London one this year.
Press events like this are always worth going to. You always end up getting something out of them. Even if it is not always what you expect.
This time, I met the editor of a popular science magazine aimed at convincing school students that science is a good thing. Leafing through the magazine, it’s something I’d really like to write for.
I email the editor the next day with a link to the shark documentary and my images on science photo library, and he immediately sends me back a cover of his magazine. It turns out they’d already used my pictures from science photo library as part of a feature on shark evolution which turns out to be based on the documentary.
Small world.
I’ll hopefully be writing something for them soon… having lots of ideas…
The animation for Stafford Castle is also pretty much complete and we’re waiting for the council to take a look at to see if they want any changes. In addition, the cover for Nature is essentially finished, but we’re tweaking it as it is passed between different people within the magazine
One of the keys of any project like this, is that you really need to know exactly who it is that is making the final decisions about everything. Quite often the person commissioning you knows what they want, however, there are either people overseeing them or people holding the purse strings, or simply other partners in the business, who once everything is done will want to take a look and put their own ideas.
It also now looking as though the boat project might end up expanding. The same company want to produce some training videos for their staff -- and they want to do it in the same kind of style. It looks as though these projects might be substantially bigger. So that rather than creating a four-minute animation, it may add up to an hour or more. I think I might have to expand my operation.
3December
Every year, the 3-D industry (which is rapidly becoming just another word for Autodesk) runs a series of seminars all round the world. And I was invited to the London one this year.
Press events like this are always worth going to. You always end up getting something out of them. Even if it is not always what you expect.
This time, I met the editor of a popular science magazine aimed at convincing school students that science is a good thing. Leafing through the magazine, it’s something I’d really like to write for.
I email the editor the next day with a link to the shark documentary and my images on science photo library, and he immediately sends me back a cover of his magazine. It turns out they’d already used my pictures from science photo library as part of a feature on shark evolution which turns out to be based on the documentary.
Small world.
I’ll hopefully be writing something for them soon… having lots of ideas…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)