I managed to get precisely nothing done to my documentary this week – except that I’ve volunteered to show some of it at the 10x10 documentary evening in London on the 7th. It’s a great forum to show your half finished documentaries, and get criticism from other documentary makers. However, you need something that’s in a good enough shape to watch, and right now, what I’ve got is a collection of clips and snippets of voiceover. I’ve no idea what I’m going to show or when I’m going to get to edit it….
The main reason is that I’ve had a couple of jobs come in that I really needed to spend time on. One is the yacht safety video from last year, which now needs a few tweaks (tweaks which are taking far longer than I thought they would). The other is that following last week’s autodesk press launch, I got an email from the editor of a brand new magazine for 3d artists. He was looking for freelancers and had some reviews which needed doing for an issue due to go to press on Monday.
it started off as three small reviews, but by today, that had grown to four pages of copy – two of which are on Softimage – one of the most complex pieces of software on the market which I’m not up to date on and which didn’t arrive until Friday afternoon.
Deadlines aren’t always this tough, but sometimes events conspire against editors and freelancers….
Anyway, that’s why I haven’t done any documentary work this week!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve gone to two software company dos – Adobe’s and Autodesk’s. These are both well worth attending for me as the companies tell me all about what they’re adding to the new releases of their software… it’s very enlightening and it’s also a good chance to catch up with people I work with or for, but only ever see at press events.
They’re also usually a chance to eat minaturised versions of proper food arranged painstakingly and artistically onto little china spoons or cut into bite sized cubes…
Plus I get to hear about all the free foreign trips other, better connected journalists are getting to go on, and, in recent cases, see how the credit crunch/recession/depression/global armaggeddon is affecting the various bits of the industries I’m connected to.
The answer to that last one is that it’s affecting them pretty badly, or at least most people are expecting it to. The media seems to be locking down right now with nothing much going ahead anywhere (although I’m not close enough to it to really be able to say that with any authority).
On the other hand, I’m choosing to see a couple of positive sides: Firstly, everyone in the creative industry has a whole list of personal projects they’d really like to be getting on with if it wasn’t for all this damned paying work.
Now the paying work is drying up, those exciting projects should be coming out of the closet and everyone in the industry should be working for free on what really fires them up…. At least if they’re not having to get jobs as waiters, that is.
Secondly, if you’re able to be a shark (see my previous blog), there should be new opportunities appearing around every corner as things change suddenly.
Personally, I’ve taken a quick dart back towards writing articles and proposed a few pieces for magazines which should support me for a couple of months (along with all the other bits and pieces I’ve got on).
Voiceover
I’ve recorded the first part of my voiceover for the Vegas documentary. It’s a big test for me as it’s the first time I’ve done my own voiceover work (or, the first time since I did a couple of packages for BBC radio 5 years ago and had my confidence as a presenter shaken by a producer who quite rightly didn’t think I was up to the job).
Anyway, my two big personal projects for this year, really do depend on me being able to be a strong and credible presenter, so recording the voiceover for the vegas documentary is crucial
What do I think of my performance? Well it’s hard to judge. I’m not at all sure I’m any good, and even if I am, I still need to find a tone of writing and a tone of speaking that work together. I feel a little like I’m PRESENTING too much and need to be more energised and conversational. At the same time, I feel I need to slow down and enunciate better – and I think the two are contradictory. You don’t have conversations at 60 words per minute, do you?
Anyway, until it all gets edited in, I won’t know. In fact I still won’t know then until other people hear it.
I guess the real problem is that even if I do get to be good at presenting, I’m going to be critical of myself as I edit, so I’m not going to have full confidence in the project…. Hmm… I need to get over it.
They’re also usually a chance to eat minaturised versions of proper food arranged painstakingly and artistically onto little china spoons or cut into bite sized cubes…
Plus I get to hear about all the free foreign trips other, better connected journalists are getting to go on, and, in recent cases, see how the credit crunch/recession/depression/global armaggeddon is affecting the various bits of the industries I’m connected to.
The answer to that last one is that it’s affecting them pretty badly, or at least most people are expecting it to. The media seems to be locking down right now with nothing much going ahead anywhere (although I’m not close enough to it to really be able to say that with any authority).
On the other hand, I’m choosing to see a couple of positive sides: Firstly, everyone in the creative industry has a whole list of personal projects they’d really like to be getting on with if it wasn’t for all this damned paying work.
Now the paying work is drying up, those exciting projects should be coming out of the closet and everyone in the industry should be working for free on what really fires them up…. At least if they’re not having to get jobs as waiters, that is.
Secondly, if you’re able to be a shark (see my previous blog), there should be new opportunities appearing around every corner as things change suddenly.
Personally, I’ve taken a quick dart back towards writing articles and proposed a few pieces for magazines which should support me for a couple of months (along with all the other bits and pieces I’ve got on).
Voiceover
I’ve recorded the first part of my voiceover for the Vegas documentary. It’s a big test for me as it’s the first time I’ve done my own voiceover work (or, the first time since I did a couple of packages for BBC radio 5 years ago and had my confidence as a presenter shaken by a producer who quite rightly didn’t think I was up to the job).
Anyway, my two big personal projects for this year, really do depend on me being able to be a strong and credible presenter, so recording the voiceover for the vegas documentary is crucial
What do I think of my performance? Well it’s hard to judge. I’m not at all sure I’m any good, and even if I am, I still need to find a tone of writing and a tone of speaking that work together. I feel a little like I’m PRESENTING too much and need to be more energised and conversational. At the same time, I feel I need to slow down and enunciate better – and I think the two are contradictory. You don’t have conversations at 60 words per minute, do you?
Anyway, until it all gets edited in, I won’t know. In fact I still won’t know then until other people hear it.
I guess the real problem is that even if I do get to be good at presenting, I’m going to be critical of myself as I edit, so I’m not going to have full confidence in the project…. Hmm… I need to get over it.
Friday, March 13, 2009
The last couple of weeks feel quite bitty – as though I’ve done lots of work, but it hasn’t really got together into anything substantial.
I’ve got a little further forward with the documentary – and I’m now writing a first draft of the commentary. This started off being quite tough to do, because I haven’t really edited yet – I’m at the stage where I know what all the stories are that will combine into my finished programme, and I know broadly what shots and voice clips I’ll use to tell those stories. It’s now time to write the first draft of the linking narration.
However, once I really convinced myself that this wasn’t a final version of the narration, writing became much faster. I know I’ll have to add to it and change things, but that will come much easier I think, once I’ve got a roughly working programme.
I hope….
Anyway, my plan is to finish writing the narration next week and record it using my own voice. This will be a bit of a test for me. I’ve half decided to go with my own voice for the narration this time, because the whole programme feels like it needs to be me talking. I can’t quite explain why, but my previous two productions have felt like they needed a dispassionate narrator, whereas this one somehow feels as though the camera is more part of the action…
So, this is a test of my narration skills as much as anything, and it’s a test I need to do because I’ve got a couple of other projects in mind (one of which I did a treatment for this week). And these other projects will NEED to have me as a narrator.
I’m actually really excited about the project I wrote the treatment for, but it’s big and ambitious ( a feature length doc – which has elements of a drama to it) and most significant of all, it will depend on my ability to be a convincing narrator….
More of that later….
Still no work
Still no work from either of the mailouts I’ve sent – which is a bit worrying. Still, it’s promising that despite having turned off my advertising I’m still getting (around) 50 visitors per day to www.anachronistic.co.uk.
I’ve got a little further forward with the documentary – and I’m now writing a first draft of the commentary. This started off being quite tough to do, because I haven’t really edited yet – I’m at the stage where I know what all the stories are that will combine into my finished programme, and I know broadly what shots and voice clips I’ll use to tell those stories. It’s now time to write the first draft of the linking narration.
However, once I really convinced myself that this wasn’t a final version of the narration, writing became much faster. I know I’ll have to add to it and change things, but that will come much easier I think, once I’ve got a roughly working programme.
I hope….
Anyway, my plan is to finish writing the narration next week and record it using my own voice. This will be a bit of a test for me. I’ve half decided to go with my own voice for the narration this time, because the whole programme feels like it needs to be me talking. I can’t quite explain why, but my previous two productions have felt like they needed a dispassionate narrator, whereas this one somehow feels as though the camera is more part of the action…
So, this is a test of my narration skills as much as anything, and it’s a test I need to do because I’ve got a couple of other projects in mind (one of which I did a treatment for this week). And these other projects will NEED to have me as a narrator.
I’m actually really excited about the project I wrote the treatment for, but it’s big and ambitious ( a feature length doc – which has elements of a drama to it) and most significant of all, it will depend on my ability to be a convincing narrator….
More of that later….
Still no work
Still no work from either of the mailouts I’ve sent – which is a bit worrying. Still, it’s promising that despite having turned off my advertising I’m still getting (around) 50 visitors per day to www.anachronistic.co.uk.
Friday, March 6, 2009
The recession has hit
Ok – there’s no getting around it. The recession has well and truly hit me. Having decided at the beginning of the year to plough money and effort into advertising my work in an attempt to grow my business, I find myself at the beginning of March with little to show for it.
By putting a huge amount (£40 per day) into advertising on google (my best source of business so far), I’ve got one job, and a few positive enquiries from January, but nothing at all of any use in February.
I can’t keep up that level of spending, so I’ve taken the decision cut it right back. Which in turn means no chance of getting the work that is out there.
The other strands of my advertising are more positive, but not any more promising. I’ve now had two email mailing lists compiled:
One of 2,000 museums to which I’ve sent a note letting them know I’ve written a guide to commissioning animation. This is a very “soft sell” – I’ve offered them a feature they might find interesting along with a note that they can contact me if they need any animation done for future displays. From this, I’ve got lots of people saying how much they like my work, and that they’ll keep my details for the future – but no actual work right now.
The other, of 500 aquariums to which I’ve offered a very specific animation idea – to create a “virtual fishtank” containing animations of extinct, or un-exhibitable sea creatures. It’s a much more direct offer (albeit one at quite a high value), but the response was pretty similar “love your work, but haven’t got any money” was the overwhelming view.
Although the responses I’ve received have all thanked me for sending my email - I also did a little checking, and am worried by the legalities of sending out mail unsolicited – (something I hate doing – but running I’m a little short on ways to make people aware of my work). It turns out that generally, you can send out emails to companies as long as you give them a valid email address to respond to and tell you if they don’t want your emails. You also have to not disguise who you are.
The one problem is that you can’t send emails to named individuals. Only there’s no way of knowing whether you’re talking to a company or one individual trading as a company, so it’s all a bit confused.
Anyway, this means I have to worry about the legal side of emailing, but it doesn’t mean I can practically do anything about it.
In addition, the company I’ve employed to build up my website traffic by writing a couple of articles about my work and putting them on sites which link to mine have come back to me with the articles to check – and they’re awful! They’re really badly written and say absolutely nothing of any value. I wouldn’t be happy having my work associated with them at all, so it doesn’t look as though that avenue is going to work either.
To make matters worse, my website stopped working this week – somehow it’s code became corrupted (possibly as a result of someone hacking into it), and it’s taken 3 days to get it working again and I’ve changed all my passwords.
All in all, I’ve been a bit despondent - there’s not a lot of work out there. By the looks of it, there isn’t going to be for a while, and I have to re-think my strategy. And this is not going to be a cheap year – either professionally or personally…
Solutions!
I’ve worked out that if I finish the documentary project I’m on now, and manage to keep the monthly newsletter I write for Pinnacle (there seems no likelihood of that going under – in fact it may expand) and I get a few more pieces from magazine articles, then as long as the images I’ve got on stock libraries keep generating income, I’ll make enough to survive.
This also depends on the tenant in my property in Manchester starting to pay his rent again (he hasn’t been able to pay for 6 months now and the council are being scandalously slow in processing his benefit claim. I may have to evict him.
So what else can I do? –well, my new plan is to develop a series of emails making different offers every month to different sets of people… the next one will be a very low-cost offer (just a few dollars for giving video footage a certain “look”). It’s not something I can make a lot of money at – more of a “loss leader” but my thought is if people aren’t buying high-cost projects, might they go for something much lower cost initially?
There are a few other low cost, small projects I can pursue – like writing articles and doing one off illustrations… but I still need to get the work.
Relentlessly optimistic
Ok, so to be optimistic about it. The good thing about having no paid work is that it means I should have the time to work on some of my own projects that nobody’s going to pay me for anyway. Having no other work means working on personal projects isn’t taking time away from paying ones, so if I’m organised, I should be able to do some of the things I’ve really wanted to do:
A feature film documentary idea about something I think is really important… and a children’s animated series. Both, huge undertakings, but if other work is short… I’ll do a breakdown of just what it would take to get these projects off the ground…
Hmmm….
Ok – there’s no getting around it. The recession has well and truly hit me. Having decided at the beginning of the year to plough money and effort into advertising my work in an attempt to grow my business, I find myself at the beginning of March with little to show for it.
By putting a huge amount (£40 per day) into advertising on google (my best source of business so far), I’ve got one job, and a few positive enquiries from January, but nothing at all of any use in February.
I can’t keep up that level of spending, so I’ve taken the decision cut it right back. Which in turn means no chance of getting the work that is out there.
The other strands of my advertising are more positive, but not any more promising. I’ve now had two email mailing lists compiled:
One of 2,000 museums to which I’ve sent a note letting them know I’ve written a guide to commissioning animation. This is a very “soft sell” – I’ve offered them a feature they might find interesting along with a note that they can contact me if they need any animation done for future displays. From this, I’ve got lots of people saying how much they like my work, and that they’ll keep my details for the future – but no actual work right now.
The other, of 500 aquariums to which I’ve offered a very specific animation idea – to create a “virtual fishtank” containing animations of extinct, or un-exhibitable sea creatures. It’s a much more direct offer (albeit one at quite a high value), but the response was pretty similar “love your work, but haven’t got any money” was the overwhelming view.
Although the responses I’ve received have all thanked me for sending my email - I also did a little checking, and am worried by the legalities of sending out mail unsolicited – (something I hate doing – but running I’m a little short on ways to make people aware of my work). It turns out that generally, you can send out emails to companies as long as you give them a valid email address to respond to and tell you if they don’t want your emails. You also have to not disguise who you are.
The one problem is that you can’t send emails to named individuals. Only there’s no way of knowing whether you’re talking to a company or one individual trading as a company, so it’s all a bit confused.
Anyway, this means I have to worry about the legal side of emailing, but it doesn’t mean I can practically do anything about it.
In addition, the company I’ve employed to build up my website traffic by writing a couple of articles about my work and putting them on sites which link to mine have come back to me with the articles to check – and they’re awful! They’re really badly written and say absolutely nothing of any value. I wouldn’t be happy having my work associated with them at all, so it doesn’t look as though that avenue is going to work either.
To make matters worse, my website stopped working this week – somehow it’s code became corrupted (possibly as a result of someone hacking into it), and it’s taken 3 days to get it working again and I’ve changed all my passwords.
All in all, I’ve been a bit despondent - there’s not a lot of work out there. By the looks of it, there isn’t going to be for a while, and I have to re-think my strategy. And this is not going to be a cheap year – either professionally or personally…
Solutions!
I’ve worked out that if I finish the documentary project I’m on now, and manage to keep the monthly newsletter I write for Pinnacle (there seems no likelihood of that going under – in fact it may expand) and I get a few more pieces from magazine articles, then as long as the images I’ve got on stock libraries keep generating income, I’ll make enough to survive.
This also depends on the tenant in my property in Manchester starting to pay his rent again (he hasn’t been able to pay for 6 months now and the council are being scandalously slow in processing his benefit claim. I may have to evict him.
So what else can I do? –well, my new plan is to develop a series of emails making different offers every month to different sets of people… the next one will be a very low-cost offer (just a few dollars for giving video footage a certain “look”). It’s not something I can make a lot of money at – more of a “loss leader” but my thought is if people aren’t buying high-cost projects, might they go for something much lower cost initially?
There are a few other low cost, small projects I can pursue – like writing articles and doing one off illustrations… but I still need to get the work.
Relentlessly optimistic
Ok, so to be optimistic about it. The good thing about having no paid work is that it means I should have the time to work on some of my own projects that nobody’s going to pay me for anyway. Having no other work means working on personal projects isn’t taking time away from paying ones, so if I’m organised, I should be able to do some of the things I’ve really wanted to do:
A feature film documentary idea about something I think is really important… and a children’s animated series. Both, huge undertakings, but if other work is short… I’ll do a breakdown of just what it would take to get these projects off the ground…
Hmmm….
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