Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Reliability in LA
Where have all the good guys gone?...or girls for that matter? After living in LA for many years and dealing with people in the biz you come to realize that the only person you can truly count on is yourself...and for some of the people out here, clearly they can't even count on THAT person...LOL...
I'm working on a spec pilot for a kids show...I've gotten really good feedback on it and I can honestly say it's a really cute project with a lot of promise...Promise that is, IF we can ever finish it. Believe me, if I could figure out animation and rendering I would have had this done months ago...unfortunately I decided to put my trust in people...other people...LESS THAN RELIABLE PEOPLE. And yes...these people, some of them, family friends even.
Let me back up...I had written a script for a kids show and was contemplating using puppets a la Seseme Street or animation with live action ala Blues Clues (in 3D not 2D though). A family friend said..."hey! my company can do that for you...we've been looking to break into 1/2 hour and this would be a great opportunity for us" I thought..."terriffic". Little did I know this would start the journey that would lead to me wanting to pull out all my hair, become an alcoholic and become an eskimo in some remote village where I would never be heard from again!
Pathalogical Liar. That pretty much sums it up. Not only did they breach their contract and do NOTHING that they said they would do...but they wasted a good year of my life. A very good year I might add indeed... Since then, we "fired them" (I say this loosly as they could care less and think they actually deserve the money I paid them) and hired another tech person that my other producer new from college... Now I wont say that he is not doing work because I THINK he is :-) But trying to communicate is very difficult. It's like these technical people come up for air once a month or something and then go back into their little hole for a while...I dont work well with the "hole" people...
Now let's talk about the amazing animators that I have working on this. They are interns and have been producing a lot of GREAT stuff...until now where they are dropping like flies. Now on the one hand I can't blame them. A few have been working on this for a good while, others not so much but hey Free is Free...Everyone has to pay their bills. The downside is that we are almost done and if they all quit...well, they did all of their work for nothing. Not done is Not done... But you can't get blood from a stone and unfortunately until I can recoup my loss from the pathalogical liars I really dont have the cash to pay everyone to stay. I do know that I will do my best to hire any of these wonderful people once the show gets sold...although if they already know about realiablity in LA they may not believe me...(I however am NOT LA...although only my track record will speak for itself soon enough I hope)Let's hope they see me for me and know the difference from me and THE OTHERS ;-) (wish I did before now)
So...moral of the story? I'm still working on it, but I can tell you that I will NEVER trust anyone without a VERY long track record with me again!!!!!!
I'm working on a spec pilot for a kids show...I've gotten really good feedback on it and I can honestly say it's a really cute project with a lot of promise...Promise that is, IF we can ever finish it. Believe me, if I could figure out animation and rendering I would have had this done months ago...unfortunately I decided to put my trust in people...other people...LESS THAN RELIABLE PEOPLE. And yes...these people, some of them, family friends even.
Let me back up...I had written a script for a kids show and was contemplating using puppets a la Seseme Street or animation with live action ala Blues Clues (in 3D not 2D though). A family friend said..."hey! my company can do that for you...we've been looking to break into 1/2 hour and this would be a great opportunity for us" I thought..."terriffic". Little did I know this would start the journey that would lead to me wanting to pull out all my hair, become an alcoholic and become an eskimo in some remote village where I would never be heard from again!
Pathalogical Liar. That pretty much sums it up. Not only did they breach their contract and do NOTHING that they said they would do...but they wasted a good year of my life. A very good year I might add indeed... Since then, we "fired them" (I say this loosly as they could care less and think they actually deserve the money I paid them) and hired another tech person that my other producer new from college... Now I wont say that he is not doing work because I THINK he is :-) But trying to communicate is very difficult. It's like these technical people come up for air once a month or something and then go back into their little hole for a while...I dont work well with the "hole" people...
Now let's talk about the amazing animators that I have working on this. They are interns and have been producing a lot of GREAT stuff...until now where they are dropping like flies. Now on the one hand I can't blame them. A few have been working on this for a good while, others not so much but hey Free is Free...Everyone has to pay their bills. The downside is that we are almost done and if they all quit...well, they did all of their work for nothing. Not done is Not done... But you can't get blood from a stone and unfortunately until I can recoup my loss from the pathalogical liars I really dont have the cash to pay everyone to stay. I do know that I will do my best to hire any of these wonderful people once the show gets sold...although if they already know about realiablity in LA they may not believe me...(I however am NOT LA...although only my track record will speak for itself soon enough I hope)Let's hope they see me for me and know the difference from me and THE OTHERS ;-) (wish I did before now)
So...moral of the story? I'm still working on it, but I can tell you that I will NEVER trust anyone without a VERY long track record with me again!!!!!!
