Calm at work! We lost a couple of projects one way or the other, so for my bosses it's a worry, maybe, but for all of us working here it's a breath of air, some time to regroup. Teambuilding this weekend, company retreat I mean, there will be acoustic guitars (half of the team are former musicians), Mafia game (I'm looking forward to see how they like it - so far they haven't heard of this game), bowling or billiard or some thing or other. It's a 4-star SPA hotel, sounds promising to me.
It has been going on in the same vein as my previous posts. So as much as I feel like updating here, there's really not so much to say.
The little time I had on my hands, I spent complaining to Frost on ICQ about the work frenzy. No, today I'm really pissed. When even the director - a very reasonable and calm person, working for himself (as a freelancer) on these projects, and incredibly durable (worked for 48 hours straight on the last tvc - filming, then editing during the night, then re-editing to match client's corrections...), now, when this person is pissed off, then you know there's something fundamentally flawed with this kind of work.
To outline current developments, we lost a pitch to our competitor, and although we lowered our budget a lot under the agent's insistance, we didn't lower it so much so we'd cost less than the competitor. The client chose the competitor, no doubt under the recommendations by same agent. Competitor screwed up at the filming, as it turns out they hadn't calculated their budget based on real offers, and they hadn't secured the filming. Great scandal follows, good for us. They filmed yesterday anyways, we'll see the final product and judge for ourselves. In the best case they're doing it at a loss.
Yesterday evening I get a call from my boss. We've been chosen to film the next tvc for the same client. No pitch this time, it's us directly. The tvc has to be filmed on Thursday. It's Tuesday today. I was to look for locations again. I called the director to find out his requirements about the location. He was almost hysterical on the phone and said he can't work at this pace. He talked to my boss and the most they could achieve was the filming to be postponed for Friday.
Now, this is bullshit. Production organised and realised for 4 days? Come on. Not that we can't do it. We can, but it's not the point...
And I just received an e-mail by said agent. Gorram bitch dares to critisice our budget again. It's rude and it comments on things that aren't her job to comment on. The budget is our responsibility and ours alone, she just has to pass it on to the client. She refuses to do that lest we lower it considerably - again, she thinks it's too high (higher than "normal").
It's really making me crazy. It's offensive and degrading to work this way.
In addition, because of this urgent project, the Friday filming made it impossible to go on that long-planned team-building of ours. Everybody was so looking forward to it. Now it's postponed for the second week of November, to be confirmed, and unfortunately my boss won't be able to come (he only had one weekend when he could have somebody to leave his daughter to and come along with his wife).
...Have in mind the above ranting is only about production. Regular work goes on regularly. I can rant about it, too. Ultimately, it all comes to a single company I want to stop working with. A big client, but more arrogant and more unnerving than I can tolerate any longer. I prefer a lower salary than having to deal with them.
A representative of a London agency was scheduled to arrive today at the office in order to be present for the editing of a TVC produced by them.
I went to work late. My coworker Ch. came late too, he'd waited for the bus for half an hour. It's because it is Monday + rush hour + it's raining. My other coworker Z. overslept and called me at 10, just awaken, asking whether there was anything urgent; I told him to come right away. My boss got nervous. The agency representative came late, too (fortunately). Z. hadn't started his pc yet, which made my boss even more nervous because the source files are there. In an act of demonstration, he resolutely headed upstairs to the office on the 5th floor (where the Z's computer is) to solve the problem himself. The elevator stopped him at fl.4 then went back down to the cellar - yes it does that sometimes, we have a stupid elevator.
Finally the PC was on, Z opened the project on a computer downstairs, and we started demonstrating the TVC tag to the agent. As we were watching and discussing it, the electricity went off. The computers remained on for some time so we could finish our discussion on the tag, she was happy with it, but she wanted to see how it looks when it is put together with the re-edit of the TVC.
This proved impossible because the pc with the re-editing project had its mouse and keyboard out of function, probably because of the power failure.
The agent wanted to see the storyboard for the other tag. It was on the same computer and there was no way to make a printout.
The pcs finally went down too. We went to the coffee shop to have a juice and to wait in a more civilised place.
When the power went on (probably an hour later), some time went until the server started again and the network was restored. We tried to print out the storyboard, but the printer would remain idle for half an hour before printing each individual page. Sometimes it wouldn't print it at all. Some LED lights would blink (or not), I'd press a button (or not), and it would print, or not. It's the usual way our printer behaves. It prints if it's in the mood for printing.
In the meantime we put together the whole project (the re-edited TVC + the tag), rendered an mpeg and sent it to the client for approval.
Some time later the client sent an e-mail to the account, so she wanted to check her e-mail from one of our computers. This was exactly when the internet connection went down.
I started dialling the support nr. of the ISP. The phone wasn't working (there was no tone after I dialled - not busy, not free, nothing, just silence). I dialled from my GSM, heard "You have reached our support line", then again nothing (silence).
After several attempts I got through and heard "Your call is 9th on the queue". I hanged up, there was no meaning to wait.
In a while, the internet connection was restored, and the account was able to check her mail.
The client wanted some changes to be done: instead of showing services A, B, C, D, and E, he had reconsidered and decided he'd like to advertise services A, B, F, G, and H. We changed the animation and the text inserts and the account sent him a new preview.
In the meantime the printer had printed out the storyboard and the agent approved it. The agent and the account went to the audio studio to arrange the music editing, the VO and the mastering.
Around 19:00 we received an mpeg with the sound composed on the video. The animation needs some reworking to synchronise it to the beat of the music. Z. is working on it as I type.
We're sending the new preview in a minute.
I'm missing a meeting at the Chillout. It was at 20:00 but it's 19:57 at the moment.
I've printed out a draft of a contract that was sent to us regarding another project. My boss had asked me to read it carefully tonight and to come with comments tomorrow (I am to mark points for discussion with our lawyer).
Also, I worked during the weekend.
So this is it. I think I'll start tagging my office entries.......
I just can't figure out, are these clovers, or are they strawberry leaves?
