JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

Right now, I have a few little design jobs all cooking on the stove at the same time. Some of them are tasty, some of them not so tasty. Here are some sketches for one of the fun jobs. The assignment is to design a cheesecake pinup-girl to be the icon character for a potential line of Boudoir clothing and accessories (which is why she is holding a handbag in a few of the sketches). This is the first time that I have designed a female character and had the client ask me to make the boobs and bum even bigger. Good times.

I’ll post some more cheesecake sketches later, once I scan them. My good scanner (a 2nd-hand Epson Perfection 3170) just up and died recently; one day it simply failed to even turn on, after being a great workhorse for about a year… So until I buy a new scanner (model suggestions anyone?) I am stuck with my slow All-In-One (fax/printer/scanner) which has lousy picture quality, though serviceable enough for rough Black and White sketches…

These are some of the illustrations for an English Language text book for Japanese readers. I drew them many years ago while I was working and living in Japan.

In the early months, my income was mainly from Teaching English, so freelance illustration jobs were a welcome distraction from my limitations as an English Language teacher…. I didn’t teach at a school (if you can call what I was doing “teaching” at all) instead, I put on a tie and an ill-fitting suit (bought from a shady tailor in Bangkok) and went to teach on-site at several businesses around Tokyo (including National Electronics and Toshiba) that had conversational English classes as part of the training program for their employees. I spent a lot of time travelling around Tokyo by train, going from job to job. Using Google Earth and WikiMapia I was recently able to figure out where some of my old teaching posts were.

This was part of a long period in my life where I rarely participated in a fluent conversation. In the evenings, my students mangled my own language (under my earnest direction) and the for the rest of the day I mangled theirs, as I tried to learn Japanese. Though I was a language-teacher at night, in the mornings I was a language-student myself, attending Japanese language classes. I am sad to say that I never got very fluent, despite my very best efforts (a Japanese friend tells me that I speak Japanese like a little girl) but I managed to pick up enough “survival” Japanese to get around, order food and have limited conversations with anyone patient enough to listen to me shred the verb conjugations of their language.

Thankfully, both for me and the well-being of my English-language students, I soon found a job that I was better qualified for; working in animation (at TOEI Studios, on a Superman TV series) and so I quit being an English teacher. Though the full-time job meant that I unfortunately had to give up my morning Japanese classes, it was a relief to be able to take off the baggy suit and neck-tie and draw all day. I continued to do freelance illustration jobs, in addition to the animation work, right up until I left Japan.

When I worked at Colossal Pictures we showed animated series ideas to TV networks every year. One of my pitches was about a magician called KOALA LUMPUR, who I saw as a tiny, mystical problem solver; a cross between Yoda and Mandrake the magician. His action-hero side kick, named Dr DINGO, was a flea-bitten Indiana Jones in a Goodwill pith helmet.

I felt that a duo comprised of a magic detective koala bear and an adventurer/scientist canine could go anywhere and do anything. Between the two of them there would be so many possibilities for funny episodes. Sluething out whodunnits, exploring watchamacallits and fighting a nutty assortment of baddies with an array of dopey invention-thingamajigs. I drew up some pitch-art and wrote out a list of episode ideas and then took the whole lot down to LA and hopped about the room as I explained it all to some network executives. But, as is the case with many a “good meeting” in LA, it ultimately didn’t go anywhere…

Then, few years later, someone in the Colossal Pictures interactive unit found the old pitch materials and thought that this goofy investigative team would be a good basis for a computer game. I knew nothing about computer games back then, or computers either if it comes to that, but I got involved in making a Koala Lumpur game because I thought that it might help get a TV show for the idea (networks are sometimes more interested in ideas that have already been brought to market in some form or other). So we pitched a game called KOALA LUMPUR: MYSTIC MARSUPIAL to a big game company who, lo and behold, actually gave the project a green-light.

After years of working on, and even occasionally directing, all sorts of projects that were dreamed up by other people, it was exciting to finally be directing an idea of my own. I was very pleased that a couple of my best friends were doing the voices for the main characters; Phil Robinson as KOALA and John Stevenson as Dr. DINGO. I had them in mind from the start and their voices were used to pitch the idea in rough assemblies of the game, yet the powers that be intended to replace them with professional actors in the final product… but came around to my way of thinking when they couldn’t find any voices that were better. John and Phil did a fantastic job of bringing each character to life. Koala had a jumbly accent that was part Hindi and part Australian and Dingo sounded like a blustery British colonel.

The timing of the production was unfortunate for two reasons. Firstly, while our game was being made the industry shifted quickly to 3D games, like DOOM, and by the time our 2D game came out it was already yesterday’s news. The second bit of bad luck was that Colossal Pictures filed for bankruptcy in the midst of production. This caused financial and legal rifts between the companies involved and the completion of production was stressful beyond belief. The end-product suffered as a result. It certainly didn’t come out as I had intended it. Anyway, despite all the hardship, the game came out on schedule, retitled “KOALA LUMPUR: JOURNEY TO THE EDGE” by some marketing genius, to mixed reviews and moderate sales in the USA. It sold better in Europe, Germany in particular, for some reason.

Not long after the KOALA LUMPUR game was released, Colossal Pictures finally went bust completely, and after 20 years of business, that great studio closed its doors for good. Suffice it to say that I look back on the project with a mixture of feelings these days. I learned a lot but many of the lessons were cautionary rather than inspirational. I came to realise that I just don’t have the stomach (or the brains, balls or spinal chord) for directing big projects, and it just wasn’t as much fun as I thought it was going to be…

On the other hand, I still smile when I think about the KOALA LUMPUR SHOW I saw in my mind in the first place, directing THAT could be fun… so maybe I haven’t given up on the idea completely….

Last weekend I put on my moth-eaten old suit and walked the few blocks from my apartment to the San Francisco Masonic Hall, to watch a screening of Ratatouille, the latest PIXAR film. Later, at the Wrap-party, I was surrounded by co-workers and friends, all dressed-up, wearing huge grins on their faces. It wasn’t only the champagne making them smile; they realized that they had somehow made yet another great movie.

I am curious to see how Ratatouille goes over with general audiences. If they like it as much as the Wrap-party audience then it might be the biggest hit of any Pixar film yet. Kids will no doubt enjoy the fun scenes of a rat-chef as much as I did, but will they appreciate the thematic sophistication? Will clean-freaks get beyond the “ICK-factor” and learn to love a little rodent (yes, even in the kitchen) as much as me? How will it play for the People of France and other Francophone people? Will they see the love-letter to French culture that I see, among the many layers of this film?

There were quite a few French artists on the crew. No self-respecting animation studio can compete without its fair share of French artists these days (they are as sought after in the corporate animation-race as German rocket-scientists were in the space-race) and I think that their participation in this particular project lends it an authenticity, right down to the distinctive Gallic gestures in the beautifully acted animation.

Paris is lovingly presented, in one beauty-shot after another. The scenes of the city seen through evening fog from the River Seine brought back memories of my own nocturnal wanderings along those banks. This is the new movie to beat in terms of animation design. Character-design, production-design, staging, shading, lighting… everything.

As someone who worked on it myself, I am not able to give an unbiased review of this film, so I shouldn’t even try. Let’s just say that if you are a fan of any of the other 7 Pixar films, then you are not going to be disappointed by number #8.

These days, many artists (even those still in school) have their own web-sites, with links to artists who have influenced them. Hop-scotching around the internet from site to site has been a great source of inspiration for me in recent years. You can see links to artists that I admire on my LINKS page, but some of those who have influenced me the most have been those that I have worked with personally, and in many cases they don’t have websites and are therefore unknown by people who have not worked with them too.

Part One: Early Influences
I didn’t attend art school. When I started working in animation, at the age of 17, I was trained on the job and there wasn’t time for much “proper” training in the midst of production. So, while a lot of people remember the early influence of their art teachers, I am grateful to those few artist/co-workers who took time to show me some tricks and give encouragement when I was starting out, and had even less idea of what I was doing than I do today. Here are a few of the cartoonists who influenced me early in my career.

JON McCLENAHAN is an American, but he entered the animation industry in Australia, which is where I met him, when I started out at Hanna-Barbera’s Sydney studio, as an inbetweener. Jon was already an animator and he was the first artist ever to take an interest in me and I owe him a lot for that. He gave me encouragement and help with some animation I was doing in my spare time, because I was getting frustrated with being an inbetweener. Partly due to that after hours experimentation, and Jon’s encouragement, I did eventually get a chance to animate. Jon was, and still is, a very focussed, hard worker and he got a lot of work done by staying in his chair all day and drawing, rather than yakking with co-workers, which was my habit back then. I have since acquired his ability to work hard, day after day, but sadly I have never been able to apply Jon’s straightforward approach to creativity; he doesn’t second guess himself, and forges ahead with his first idea. I admire that approach very much and tried to adopt it for myself, but sadly I am rarely happy with my first idea, and so my method is is to “noodle” and try alternatives and throw away a lot of work along the path to making something I am proud of. Years later, after Jon and his family had moved back to his home town of Chicago, I had a chance to work with him at his own studio, called STARTOONS. Fans of Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Tazmania and other quality TV cartoons from the 1980s and early 1990s may have heard of that studio because many of the funniest (and Emmy winning-est) episodes of those popular shows were animated by Jon and his crew.

Jon and I haven’t worked together for many years but we are great friends to this day.

Simon and Chris. These guys are often mentioned in the same breath by people who know them, because they are such complementary friends. When I first started working, they were like the big brothers I never had as a kid. In addition to picking up a cynical sense of humour that I hadn’t really earned yet, I learned a great deal about animation and cartooning from watching these two blokes:

CHRIS HAUGE has animated on the influential Gorillaz videos, including that first one for “Clint Eastwood” that blew everyone away (I must have watched it about 100 times). He did those when working in London for Passion Pictures. Before being part of that buzz, years and years earlier, Chris turned on a light bulb over my noggin when he was the first animator who explained to me that animation wasn’t just individual drawings or even pretty drawings… it is the relationship between those drawings that is important; he made me think about TIMING, which is something that he excells at himself. Chris showed me how to plan out the action in thumbnails first so as not to jam too much “stuff” into a scene, and ensure that the drawings each had enough screen time to “read” for the audience. That may seem obvious, especially to those of you who have had formal training, but it was a revelation to me when I was 18. (He later tried to teach me to surf, with much less success. My thrashing and splashing around made him look “uncool” in front of his surfer peers). As well as enjoying working with Chris at Hanna Barbera in Sydney, I also learned a lot from him when we both worked on commercials at Colossal Pictures in San Francisco (my favourite company I ever worked at). Chris now has his own animation studio in Sydney called HALO PICTURES with not only a great showreel but also a great location; near the beach. (Being close to the surf was one of the major factors in choosing a studio location for Chris).

Chris is the only of my art-pals on this list who actually does have a website, so please check out his animation for GORILLAZ and various other bits and pieces of coolness.

SIMON O’LEARY has worked on projects such as Disney’s Tarzan (in the Paris unit) and now directs commercials in Sydney. His cartooning ability, dry sense of humour and unpretentious approach to working were all major inspirations to me when I started in the animation industry and he inspires me to this very day. He is one of those guys who can do FUNNY drawings… drawings that’ll make you blow your coffee out your nose; you are laughing so hard. This is especially so when he busts out a savagely accurate caricature of a co-worker (or YOU) or a funny doodle based on something that happened at lunch hour. For 25 years or so Simon has both written and drawn a comic strip called Fred Gassit which runs in the Australian Motor Cycle News magazine (and several other motorcycle magazines around the world). While the strip is ostensibly related to the world of motorcycling, the humour is really about Simon taking pot-shots at the world in general, via the persona of Fred; a sarcastic dog-like character who is a cantankerous bastard but appealing none the less (much like Simon). Both the humour and the artwork are vulgar yet sophisticated (much like Simon), which is a winning combination for me; the hardest laughs happen when neurones within the low-brow and the high-brow are firing simultaneously. I have a collection of these strips that is a treasured possession I look through when I want a laugh or need to swipe ideas on how to draw a vehicle, a goon, a bikini babe, or anything for that matter. To my mind these cartoons are insanely funny and I wish that Simon was rich and famous as a result, but the fact is that he doesn’t even sign them let alone “promote” them. Self-promotion is not what Simon is about. Which explains why he doesn’t have a website and why you probably haven’t heard of him.

I have worked with Simon in Sydney, Paris and San Francisco and I look forward to working with him again some day.

DEANE TAYLOR may best be known as the Art Director on the Nightmare before Christmas (and a spin-off game). He also did design work on the animated shows Cow and Chicken and I.M. Weasel by Dave Feiss (yet another animation hero of mine, from later in my career). But years before that, Deane ran the layout department at Hanna Barbera in Sydney. After I had been animating for a few years, Deane offered me a chance at learning layouts under his supervision. Consequently, most of what I know today about composition I learned from Deane, or picked up by working with him and watching him go. He was the most prolific artist in the department. He has a very dynamic drawing style, featuring a clever use of shape and silhoette, that many of his trainees tried to copy, but nobody ever matched Deane for graphic dynamism and energy of line. He taught me some simple compositional guidelines that I learned to apply over and over again, but apart from art tricks, he also showed me quite a bit about work ethics and attitude. Even though the shows we worked on were pretty crappy in those days, and many people just went through the motions when making them, Deane was one of the few who tried his hardest on every show, no matter what. He took pride in his work. He respected people who did a good job on whatever they were given to do, rather than those people who will work on only 2 cylinders, saving themselves for the big deal job on the distant horizon.

Deane taught me to always think of how to “plus” the material that came across my desk. That is certainly what he always does.

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I am very lucky in that I have worked all over the globe, at some really great studios, on some quality productions, with loads of amazing artists over the years… but these guys listed here had a huge influence on me, disproportionate to the quality of the projects we worked on together. In many cases the stuff we collaborated on was a lot of crap, yet these artists are still some of those that I respect the most.

I am still working at SONY PICTURES, which is on the properties of what used to be called UNITED ARTISTS, MGM and COLUMBIA. One of the novelties of working at this particular animation studio is being across the road from a real Hollywood movie backlot, the CULVER STUDIOS, where a lot of classic films have been shot, including “Citizen Kane” the original “King Kong” and “Gone With the Wind”. Sometimes we animation geeks go to the backlot to have lunch in the studio cafeteria, where all the movie crews and movie extras get their lunch. (I guess the big wig directors and movie stars get fed elsewhere) Supposedly a TV show about LAS VEGAS is currently shooting and sometimes the cafeteria is frequented by extras dressed as dancing girls in skimpy costumes. So far I haven’t been fortunate enough to witness that spectacle myself.

This part of Los Angeles, known as Culver City, is where a lot of the earliest studios set up shop when LA started to become movie land in the 1920s and is consequently full of movie history. Not far away is the Culver Hotel, which was once owned by CHARLIE CHAPLIN and accommodated the midgets who were cast as MUNCHKINS while the movie THE WIZARD OF OZ was being filmed. According to the local lore they were a pretty rowdy and raunchy mob. Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy shot many of their films in the streets around where I work. The HAL ROACH studios used to be nearby but I haven’t figured out exactly where yet. the TOM AND JERRY cartoons were made a few blocks away on another SONY backlot (what used to be the MGM lot).

Although I am slowly starting to find some of the charms that Los Angeles keeps so well hidden, my initial impressions of this town were anything but positive. The very first time I came to LA was as a tourist, years before I ever settled in the USA. I was visiting my pal TONY in San Francisco and we took a greyhound bus to LA, arriving at 5 AM at the downtown bus station in the heart of the notorious skid row; a place which makes San Francisco’s Tenderloin seem quaint by comparison. The scene around the LA bus station I will never forget. Bewildered foreign backpackers huddled within the light of the run down and filthy bus station, as a horde of predatory lowlifes swarmed around outside in the dark, like zombies on the make. We had to plunge into the seething filth and wade several blocks to connect with another downtown bus line, and I simply could not believe the desolate scene that we passed along the way. It was so decrepit, creepy and seedy that it could have been a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie, such as Escape from New York. But this was no movie set; it was a real place in the town where they make those movies. We passed buildings bashed to pieces, their scraps used to make bonfires that raggedy people hunched over in the morning cold. We were shadowed by a sinister little band of scumbags trying to sell everything from heroin to useless pieces of old bicycles. By that point in my world travels I was certainly no stranger to poverty and decrepitude, having spent several years traveling in a lot of the 3rd world. But that scene in downtown LA rates as one of the grimmest I have ever seen.

Consequently, the first time I ever worked in LA (about 10 years ago) I was absolutely dreading coming down here. My initial bad impressions had by then been fortified by years of living in the Bay Area, where one of the favourite pastimes is LA-bashing. Surprisingly, I enjoyed those several months in LA, but I think it was because I spent the whole time in Santa Monica, which is an easy part of town to deal with for those of us who cannot drive; there is a decent enough public transport system and there are several neighbourhoods were you can get around just fine on foot, which I did a lot of. I spent most of my free time walking around, because I didn’t really know anyone down here back then.

This time however, I have quite few friends living down here, mostly cronies from my years spent working at Colossal Pictures and ILM. Although quite a few of them used to participate in the LA-bashing game, they all seem to be living happily down here now, and in one case there is even some San Francisco bashing going on (”San Francisco is SO provincial”). Hilarious.

Along with Tony and Gale and old pal Anne, I went to see the Scottish comedian BILLY CONNOLLY live on stage in a one man show. He opened his act by addressing the issue of rampant LA-bashing, noting that he has never understood why everyone hates the place so much. Thereafter, he stood up and rambled on for over two hours in a shapeless but hilarious, meandering performance that was really no more than a long winding string of reminiscences and parenthetical observations evoked by those memories. Normally, I am a fan of these sorts of things having some underlying structure, but he made the whole thing hang together just through the force of his charming storytelling. I later found out that his show was different each night, but the performance I attended ended on the strongest laugh of the show. His story of the time he was trapped in a sleeping bag with a faulty zipper, along with a girl he had been planning to get physical with, but who was going into the tell-tale mini convulsions that indicate someone is about to puke… his description of his frantic, and futile, attempts to flee the scene had me laughing so hard that my face hurt. It felt like I had been sunburned.

Thanks to ANSON JEW, who kindly drove me all over the place, I was able to see some great art shows. This past weekend we attended the Society of Illustrators show, and the weekend before that we saw a MARK RYDEN show at a gallery on Melrose where they had some really huge paintings on display. The biggest of the paintings on show (pictured here) sold for $800,000. The brushwork and finish on these pics was really something to see. Many of them had some very elaborate and whacky custom built frames.

Then we went to La Luz de Jesus gallery and then on to Alhambra to visit the GALLERY NUCLEUS, which is actually a bookstore but with a good portion of the space devoted to art display. That night the place was jammed full of hipsters throwing money around, at a book launch by some of the Pixar crew. LOU ROMANO, DON SHANK, NATE WRAGG and SCOTT MORSE have just put out a book called THE ANCIENT BOOK OF MYTH AND WAR. I was happy to see them and some other Pixar friends who had come down for the weekend.

For my slice of LA outdoor splendor I made sandcastles on Santa Monica Beach with the daughters of my friends John & Carol, and last Sunday Anne introduced a group of us to the huge, yet lovely Huntington Gardens near Pasadena.

I am still trying to wrap my mind around what (or even where) Los Angeles actually is… but I have begun to see it as a group of smaller cities rather than one big one. This vast urban sprawl without a focal point is mostly bland and in many cases even downright ugly, but there is a lot of history and culture here if you know where to look. I am beginning to think that is a terrible place to visit but it might be not a bad place to stay, once the ground-rules have been figured out…

There are quite a few pics in the Elephant book that deal with grim subject matter in a ghoulish manner, this one about an elephant handler getting crushed at London Zoo being an example. The pencil sketch for this illustration was posted earlier here.

For the past few weeks I have been having fun working in Culver City on a feature animation project being directed by my two friends Tony Stacchi and Dave Feiss. When not at work I have been trying to figure out how to get around in Los Angeles without either a cell-phone or the ability to drive a car…

I have worked in three main types of work-spaces: at home (which is what I am doing now) in a big, company studio (either as a freelancer or on staff) and in a shared work space with other freelance artists. Each has something to be said for it. For me, the best thing and the worst thing about working in animation is that it is a collaborative medium. It is genuinely a great experience to be working in a team where the end result is greater than any of you could have achieved alone. Yet sometimes I do need to be able to close the door, have some thinking time, and get away from the politics. I have learned that a certain amount of “alone time” and communal time is required for my best work, and finding the balance between the two can be very tricky.

Working at home
My apartment is my studio these days and there is certainly plenty of freedom and alone-time but I generally don’t enjoy it very much. Part of the problem is not having any separation between work-place and living-place (sometimes I never change out of my pyjamas all day) but the main issue is the lack of inspiration that comes from the company of creative human beings. No structure and no stimulation makes for some pretty powerful stagnation sometimes… In a perfect world I would be one of those creatively self sufficient people, but I’ve learned that just isn’t me… I like seeing other artists working around me as I work, and that is just as true even when I am working on my own personal projects.

Working at a company
I have spent a lot of time at big animation studios and for the most part they can be really fun places to work, even in those places where the quality of the work itself isn’t so great. I recently read an essay by BRAD HOLLAND (actually, his introduction to an old edition of LOVE and ROCKETS) where he theorised, in some very funny writing, as to what kind of hack would choose to work in a factory like an animation studio… which made me laugh even though I am the butt of this particular joke. (By the way, many years after he wrote that piece, I worked with Brad Holland briefly at Colossal Pictures. He had illustrated a print campaign that we were turning into animated commercials. His horror at seeing we animation monkeys attempt to ape his painting style was palpable…)

The very first animation studio I worked at certainly felt like a factory, but even so, It was exciting to be surrounded by other people who were drawing, painting and making things and ever since then I have really enjoyed working in studios surrounded by other artists, hacks or otherwise, because I find it very inspiring to see other artists’ way of working. I have learned so much just from having the chance to see how other people work and it never ceases to re-energise me.

For me, the downside of working in big studios is the inevitable politics that exists wherever there are more than 2 human beings… those little frictions and micro-dramas are the small price you pay for the many benefits of human company. Also, immersion in company culture can sometimes wear me out over time. I start to take the deadlines so seriously that I can lose perspective on life… For example:

Years ago, I was working at a studio making TV commercials, while my brother Jo was working in Mombassa, Kenya. Every few months he would propose that I should visit and accompany him on another of his adventures. Each time, I very much wanted to go but would put it off because of the “very important” work on my desk… That went on for almost two years until my brother finally left Kenya… so I never ever went. Now, these many years later, I cannot remember what was important enough to trump an African adventure with my brother… Probably a long since forgotten commercial featuring dancing sausages or singing candy… But if I had gone to Kenya and seen Kilimanjaro with my bro’ I would surely have remembered that experience for the rest of my life…

So while solitude leads to stagnation there can be problems working in a creative “village” as well… Sometimes a bit of detachment is a GOOD thing… it can give you a much needed perspective. I like working in big studios very much indeed, but sometimes I need to make sure that I can walk out the door and leave work AT WORK.

Shared workspace
The best balance I have ever found is to share a work-space with other artists. There is some of the camaraderie and creative stimulation of a big studio but with a minimum of the company-politics to deal with. There is a measure of detachment, as you work on your separate projects, yet there isn’t too much isolation. There is the freedom of being “freelance” but with a certain amount of structure. There is also the stimulation of other artists and the networking that comes from their contacts. When it works well, there is also a great blend of working on paid jobs and personal projects (working on your personal projects while at at big companies can lead to intellectual property grey areas). When the mix of people is right this is my favourite working situation. You can also get the best of both worlds if you do some freelance work at a big studio but have your shared workspace to go to for your personal work.

There are a few things required to making this work. The first is to get the right mix of people. Hopefully you have a shared understanding of the Manifesto (Artists tend to hate the word “rules” so I think of it as the manifesto) which means that you have to have some overlap in what you consider the ground rules to be. Is it OK for me to have my buddy sleep on the couch at the workspace or hold a party there… that sort of thing.

The other thing to think about is the right ratio of people to the size of space that you are sharing. If it gets too crowded then it can become a raucous place to work and also you have to worry about the infrastructure stuff.. the chores.. who paid for what, who took the trash out etc… that can be a hassle. My experience is that the more members there are the more of a grey area that becomes..

But some of my best work experiences have been in shared work spaces. I hope to do it again someday.

Recently I was working very hard. As I was riding the train into work early one morning, already feeling beat-down tired before the day had even begun, I tried to put that particular schedule-crunch in perspective… It was not the hardest that I have EVER worked, but certainly the hardest I have worked in many years.

After some reflection, I realised that the hardest I ever worked was on the worst stuff I ever worked on. Namely some really wretched Saturday morning cartoons in the late 1980’s. This shouldn’t have surprised me… It had already occurred to me years ago that it takes just as much hard work to make a bad show as it does to make a great one… but I guess I had forgotten that lesson over time.

When people express their displeasure with a film that they do not like (or a comic book, or what have you) they frequently bad-mouth the people who worked on it, as if only lazy talentless morons could be responsible. In some cases that may indeed be the explanation… but not always. In my experience, the sad reality is that there are a lot of smart, talented people absolutely busting their backs to produce the entertainment that you hate. I know, because I have worked with them when I work on it myself.

Its a bit counter-intuitive, isn’t it? I think the best analogy may be a tug of war; on the projects that don’t turn out so well, everyone is working as hard as they can but the rope is barely moving at all, because all the effort is at cross purposes and towards different directions. When I was working on that stuff, the love of the job itself and the company of my co-workers kept me going, even though I knew the stuff we were working on was ratty… PLUS, it was the best that I could find at the time…

So next time you watch a complete mess unfold on screen, by all means wonder at the strenuous effort taken to go nowhere, but don’t hate the crew.