Executives

I dug up all these sticky notes from the back of my desk the other day, then typed them all out, thought I'd share them with you all. These are quotes I've collected over the years, I've either heard them personally or from someone else in the design and animation field.

"I want it to look sexy, and androgynous, you know, nice sharp angles with sexy curves. I want to see something new and fresh, something original, know what I mean?"
(Producer, talking to animators hired to design and develop new animation series pitch ideas).

"I want you to surprise me with something I've never seen before - I want you to invent the wheel, just visually".
(Producer, talking to animators hired to design and develop new animation series pitch ideas).

"If I give you approval, what can I still change?"
(Client, talking with Animation Director)

"Can we hear it before you record it?"
(Client, e-mailing the Voice Director)

- "The model sheets are great except for the designs and colors."
- "But we duplicated the design and color style from the models you sent us."
- "Yes, we don't like those."
(Producer, in reference to viewing the first batch of models for a series beginning its 2nd season of production)

A Producer, after viewing the first 30 seconds of a 7 minute animatic:
- "Ok, stop, stop, stop, hold on...um.... is it possible to change the angle of the entire episode, to make everything a lower shot, to make it more spooky looking?"
- "Um, no.... that would require us to re-draw all 200 pages of this storyboard, that would cost a lot of time."
- "Yes, I see, but this IS the Halloween episode, so could you maybe just do an effect here in the computer software to change the angle slightly?"
-"Um.... no, you see... all these panels were 'drawn' this way, all the angles the story artist drew on these pages would have to be re-drawn to reflect this change, it would put us back 2 weeks.
-"I just don't understand what the problem is, could you please just change the angle ever so slightly for all 300 scenes in this animatic so that it can be a spookier looking? I don't think I'm asking for too much here."

On a similar note, if you work in animation, puppetry, or any aspect of film or television you'll relate to John K's rant on the subject of executives:
Crackpot Executive Beliefs