I was asked to do this animation by the friend of a friend who is a sports drink salesman. The understanding was that I would be paid for the commercial, and every day was told to hurry it up because they needed it ASAP. After sending a nice letter with the link to the vid, I was told that they had already hired a “marketing guru friend with sports drink industry connections,” so I wouldn’t be paid for the commercial. Instead they say I’ll be getting a case of this sports drink.
So, since it took two weeks to make this commercial, and I do feel it’s some of my best animation to date, I’m not going to delete it. Instead I turned it into an ad for future freelance work. But I’m going back to working on my lonely sci-fi movie pet project. Freelance is a giant waste of time.
But, if anyone does want to hire me to do a small freelance thing for their project in the future, I’ll need a Retainer. Although you do get a case of a sports drink that will remain nameless…:yes:
I mean that you got shafted. The animation was good! Odd that it was 50 seconds… was it for a 30 second or a 1 minute deal?
Its one of those things – I have had it a dozen times… “Hey could you do a 30 second thing… I’ll pay you a few bucks…”
They have no idea that a 30 second thing requires 3 weeks of work probably, at a minimum, between modelling, rigging texturing… It’s crappy. I am in business with a partner, we have had it a dozen times.
THANK YOU for sympathizing, Daren. It means a lot to me. I was feeling like the dumbest animator on the planet. And I appreciate the compliment on the vid. I still think it’s good too. And my roomate, the guy who set all this up in the first place (he did the voice of the SEAL yelling “Kill Cliff”) kept telling me how good of a vid he thought it was today as he apologized for his friends not even bothering to write me back or tell me that they hired a Marketing guy instead three days into the project, letting me slave for another week and a half for no reason. The explanation for that one was choice: “Well, you have to understand that there are a LOT of people who do what you do, making little things on their computer. But this guy can do a LOT of things that you can’t: he has connections. He’s even talking about making a COMMERCIAL!” (I have a special look I give people when they say something that is so far beyond obvious that I have no words for them…)
I am really sorry to hear that this same thing has happened to you many times. That’s why I’ve decided that, before I even devote a MINUTE worth of thought about what project I might do for someone, let alone even begin work on a single CUBE, I WILL GET A RETAINER FEE.
I hate the minds of uncreative people. They never have ideas, they always promise to pay, and they never bother to think about any of the work that goes into this sort of stuff (which they never pay for.) It’s just money to them. I can’t see any other function they have on this planet other than to fill bank accounts with money (THEIR’S, not your’s.) I don’t get it all.
(Oh, and there was no mention from them about duration (nor anything else for that matter.) I was simply told, “Do the best you can, they want to see what you can do, and the more they like it, the better they’ll pay you. This could really be the start of something big for you.” I had simply told them my basic skit idea for the vid, and there were big grins and a lot of excitement about my idea. But, the second you start talking about anything regarding technique, the eyeballs start to glaze over and they are late for the nightly barhopping.)
Freelancing is a tough row to hoe, we (I should say he, I am an associate) has a man, we call him the boss, basically, he handles billing and stuff, so we can be in touch with the contact on friendly terms, but blame the boss when there is no financial backing and therefore we won’t work on the project (we can say something like, “Look, I can’t work on this till Sam gives clearance, so you should probably get in touch with him”) it works out fairly well. But this is not at all uncommon for any freelancer. I just had another friend on Facebook gripe pretty much the exact same story you just did, though with a few more expletives.
I heard an animator for Pixar speak once, about his experience, and it was completely counter logic “typically, the bigger the project, the more reasonable the terms” It’s becasue they know what is involved with these kinds of things. Small, locals, they see a 3D animated movie, and they think well sure then, 30 seconds can’t be that hard…
Exactly. People who are in charge have no creative ability, they just have friends, connections, and have a loud voice for barking orders. But, yeah, the bigger the show, the more there is likely to be someone involved who has actually done creative work before, like animation, and knows that it isn’t just something your machine does for you with no effort on your part.
I hate capitalists.
Well, I wouldn’t go so far as hating capitalists, I mean, I am one, I wouldn’t mind finding a niche and making a few dollars (or yen, if need be) as I fill it. It’s just, like you say, clueless people calling the shots. And dishonest ones not sticking to their word.
Totally sucks to get burnt. I get a lot of jobs (a lot = 4 or 5 a year) through craigs list (meeting with a potential client today as a matter of fact). Mostly for Flash work, but some 3d and video work. My terms are:
25% to start.
25% when I deliver a storyboard, script, project plan, design etc…
25% when I deliver the rough
25% when I deliver the final project.
My terms probably lose me a few jobs, but it saves me a lot of problems too.
You guys all have a lot of great advice here. I appreciate it. If I had thought this way, I wouldn’t have wasted all this time trying to impress people who are complete knobs.
If I do anything like this in future, I’ll definitely do all these things.
On the other hand, I haven’t worked on my sci-fi film for several months now, busy as I’ve been with other people’s idiotic product ideas. Over the past two days I’ve deleted everything on my computer that has nothing to do with my own film project. I was impressed with how many gigs these dbags have occupied on my machine, without even having seen any of the work I’ve been doing for them, without paying me a penny.
Feels good to get back out into space again, and work on my own thing.
And not have to care what uncreative, unimaginative, greedy dbags promise and never come through on.
Thanks for watching, for the great comments, and, most of all, for being artists and having creativity (instead of just treating other people like slaves the way these f***wits do.)
I got my case of KillCliff yesterday from UPS, the only “payment” I’ll ever get for the two weeks it took to make that ad. My roomate came home and saw it and said: “I bet you’d love to shove that up someone’s ass!”
“Yeah. Want some KillCliff?” I said.
Sorry to hear that adam, I make freelance myself and do suck often, people have some problems in understand things. About the video, i think that it need a lot of work in order to make it good to marketing porposes, I say that because I worked with commercial creations, this would not sell, I know that you had the best intentions but, for this kind of project, you need a complex planning in order to do it, first a story board then se what fonts use for the text, never, in any case, put the text above the film behind, in a time of outstanding quality animations, you would learn a little more about rendering and compositing, I m not used to render anithing, I work with games, but I try somethimes, you dedicated on this vídeo and this is very good but for marketing s point of view you need to work in a different direction.
I know its boring to read this kind of comment, but I m friendly saying that you need to improve for this kind of job, you need to watch good commercials made by other companies and see how the distribute the words on the screen how everything is harmonic on that, i think that s why they refused your project, i hope I help with this comments I dont want to bring you down just to make a point.
Good luck with yoour projects.
All of the text you’re seeing on the screen was not part of the original video. I put all that on the vid later, after I found out that they were renegging on paying for it. I figured, “Screw it, they aren’t paying me, I don’t EVER want to do freelance again, and if I put some snarky comments on the vid, no one will ever waste my time again unless they realize that they had better pay me first.” The text was even meaner when I first created it. I’m a nice guy at heart, and I don’t enjoy being a prick. I toned it down. But I was still really pissed off. Still am.
If you click the little red comment bubble at the bottom of the player, the text will disappear. Those were all just Youtube annotations.
And they refused the project because, as they had not bothered to tell me, they had hired a “Marketing Guru” who had “connections” in the sports drink business a couple of days after I started the project. At that point, they felt they didn’t need a commercial, because this guy could make them a lot more money by talking and flashing his sports car.
Well, aniway, if I where you I would attend to those points that I told you, it was a friendly advice, because friends usually are suportive and say that everything we do is great, and not allways is. Marketing is hard to do these days since the competition is huge, and I would prepare for that, just that, if you want to believe me its up to you, I was being sincere with my comments and I wish you good luck in your projects.
Well, thanks. But like I said, I don’t really intend to do anymore “freelance” work. I have my own projects I’m much more interested in. The Marketing world always seemed extremely arbitrary to me and, well, quite whorish. I don’t like the feeling of “working for someone else,” especially when that someone else is a self-appointed prince of capitalism (oops, sorry. I meant: “Job Creator”) and has no qualms with having you change everything you’ve done based on a whim or some vague notion of “what would sell,” or based entirely on “focus groups,” demographics, or what shoes and handbag their wife wants to see on some character.
I want to tell interesting stories. And the products any commercial ever tries to sell are often not worth having for free, much less paying money for. The case of sports drink I received will sit in the den until I run out of Coke. Unless you want some sports drink…
Well, if you don’t work as a freelancer, you will have to either work for a studio, or, create your own company and make other people work for you. In any case, you are still either working for the Job Creator ( as you have put it) or you become the Job Creator yourself.
Work is hard in any case, and in any case, you get little time for your other activities besides work and learning.
I think I’d prefer to become a “job creator” myself. However, I would simply be one of those “small business owners” that everyone is talking about these days. The ones who are supposed to save the country.
That’s opposed to being a JOB CREATOR. The ones with CEOs who get multi-million dollar bonuses, destroy the environment, and pay very little in the way of taxes. Which the bad guys are saying are untouchable. And who don’t seem to be hiring anyone anymore.
wow this is like the crappy tax max commericial except this is worst lol no offense and modeling goes a loooong way so take it looking into that also use better textures cg textures is free somewhat
