Design Work 
I Really Need a Vacation…
So yeah… have you ever worked with one of those clients who come to you at the very last minute… and expect you to deliver the world to them pretty much on the spot? Recently, my friend Roy and I have, and I can say that it was a very trying experience.
So, what exactly happened? Where do we begin…?
It pretty much began one day when Roy got a call out of the blue asking if he did multimedia presentations. With his business senses a tingling, Roy of course said “yes” and would worry about delivery later. So he set up a meeting with this potential new client and gave me a call, wondering if I would be up for some work over the holidays.
I was a little hesitant at first, as I hadn’t had a break the past 2 months dealing with my own clients, but at the same time, I really could use the money to help pay off my school and my computer… also, I really needed a laptop if I’m to be able to work remotely from anywhere my clients needed me, so I said “Sure… why not…?”
Little did I know what I was getting myself into.
So we met with the potential new client and we discussed the details of the project, our past dealings with our own past and present clients and overall, just had a nice chat to get to know each other, though most of the talking was done by Roy. I remained more the quiet observer taking in all the details of the project and wondering whether or not I could deliver on time.
Everything, when we discussed it, seemed easy enough. Straight forward flash presentations with voice over work, images and text. But then… came the bomb. They wanted their product animated. They had no video and no schematics… but they wanted their product animated.
The quickest solution I could think of would be to have it done in 3D. There’s no way we could go to Hamilton to shoot our own footage of the product, and live footage doesn’t exactly give us the flexibility to change things if the client is unhappy with the shot. 3D gives us the freedom to control what angles we want to show and the movement of the product in question. So now comes the next question… where do we find someone on short notice and willing to work during the holidays. The first person to come to my mind was my buddy Phred, who is an animator at Guru Animation, so he’s a professional 3D artist/animator. Only problem was that he was in Montreal for the week visiting his family. Roy also had some friends who worked in the 3D gaming industry, but I guess they were also incommunicado since we didn’t end up using them. What ended up happening was that we had to Google for someone in the Toronto area and was willing to work on such short notice.
And we found someone… just that he charged an arm and a leg, though it was perfectly understandable. Who wants to work during the holidays and on such short notice?
Anyway… continuing on…
I was pretty much working 15-16 hour days for the next 5 days after Christmas. While everyone had their time off, I was slaving away in front of my computer. Working day in, day out. All the “minor changes” from the client, of course, always meant “Ron… you’re not getting any sleep again tonight.”
Any plans I may have had for the break were pretty much ruined and by the time the project was finally done, I clearly wasn’t the most pleasant person to be around. Hell, I even missed fight night, which I had been looking forward to for months, but in the end, I had to follow the play-by-play for UFC 66 on sherdog.com.
And then… the following Tuesday… when everyone was in “back to work” mode… I had to go to a meeting over “some small changes”.
The changes weren’t small.
And I’m gonna make them pay.
Oh yes, they’ll pay…
But for now… I’m gonna get some sleep…
I really need a vacation…
