charles white when working in commercial effects was the process in creating for a client linear
or were you developing parts for multiple commercials concurrently
how did the pipeline work so when they say linear they mean make a piece get it approved make
another piece get it approved make another piece get it approved every client is different and
clients forgive me if you're a client we're all clients at some point clients can be surpassingly
stupid about the mechanics of what you're doing i don't mean that as an insult i just mean that
sometimes they're coming to you and they have no idea what they want and some people just want
to hire you to keep getting it wrong while they yell at you that's certainly one type of client
some people want you to guide them through the process some people
are going to be great in the beginning and terrible at the end but that is really rare
and here is where i want to talk about a great thing that jamie heinemann gave me a long time ago
i had been working at m5 for about two or three years at that point so i was now occasionally
taking calls from clients and working on bids for jamie and this bid came in for uh build
and they and so part of making a bid is you know someone comes to you and says i want a thing
but it's undefined they want an effect but they don't know how they want it to occur
they want it to look a certain way there's always compromises to make so the process of doing a bid
is a process of doing drawings and comparisons and having meetings and making sure you're all
on the same page and this client that i was doing a bid for it was tons of back and forth
every time i sent them a new thing it was wrong it was not the right thing it was awful and this
and what like i kept on checking with jamie like i would work on the set of drawings and
presentations for the client take them to them and ev was everything was like go back and do it
again go back and do it again go back and do it again and after about three weeks of this jamie
said call them and make this job go away and i was like what and jamie was like let me tell you
about jamie's first rule jamie's first rule is however a person is during the bidding process
that is exactly how they will be in the execution process and this claim is such a pain in the ass
of the bid process i have no interest in them being an actual client paying me dough they're
going to make this a grind they're never going to be happy let's make this job go away and so i did
i passed them on to uh josh and gray over at acme scenery josh called me later and said hey listen
dummy you should call me when you're sending a pain in the ass client my way and let me know
that they're going to be a pain in the ass and he was totally right i i really should
have called him again i was very green at that point the fact is is yeah you're going to learn
most of what you need to about your client in the bidding process um but you asked about the
creating for a client isn't linear um it is whatever the client needs to get the job done
some clients want all the stuff up front they want it they want to see it all halfway done and then
they want to see it done some clients want to be part of the process you got to just adjust your
delivery to the proclivities of that client you got to make them happy i mean you want them to
finish the job with the story in their head that that was fun and i got what i wanted that's that's
the story you're spending in their head that may not be the case and it may not be your experience
of it that doesn't matter your experience immaterial to what the client's experience is
and i have rarely found that i have rarely found the jamie's first rule i've rarely
found an exception to it however someone is at the beginning is the way they're going to be all the
way through yeah uh last question here we go nick merriweather do you have any tips for managing and
anxiety when asked to deliver creative work on a deadline he says i'm a big fan of karita kent's
idea that creation and analyzation are separate processes i hadn't actually thought of that but
i'm going to have to look up karita kent and read into that because that's an interesting frame
um he says i he says uh he finds that the idea of separating creation and analyzation goes out
the window when tasked with delivering work quickly yeah it certainly does
managing anxiety i think the biggest issue about managing anxiety is realizing that
sometimes you're going to manage it and sometimes you're going to fail
and you've still got to be able to work through it
that's for real
institutional knowledges institutional knowledge is one of the ways one manages anxiety
at this point in my career having worked on hundreds and hundreds of different jobs for
different clients and different companies big and small and people awesome and terrible i have
a bit of a thousand yard stare when it comes to looking at a job and assessing how doable it is
uh and thus i think it would be the very rare gig i would get into that i would find anxiety coming
up in fact i kind of joke that one of my careers is that i paint myself into corners and then i
film myself getting back out of them and you know on stage at the smithsonian trying to put together
45 separate some odd parts from all over the world to build a apollo command module door that
absolutely there's pressure to finish it that day but my institutional knowledge was enough to give
me comfort that i could look at a group of things and say this is doable by the end of today and i
can stop worrying that i won't get to something that is a viable ending by the end of the day
another way to deal with anxiety is to have someone else going through it with you
seriously um
yeah burdens shared are lighter there's nothing like having help to go through something even
if it's someone you can call in the middle of it so this is this is the this is the thing
i'd love to leave you with uh again with all the caveats of my personal experience being my
personal experience and it might not track for you for all sorts of different reasons
talk about what you want to do and tell your supervisor what you're interested in show
people what you've made and tell them what you're interested in doing they'll remember they'll pass
it on at key moments this is how life comes back to you with surprises at key moments opportunity
uh uh i think edison said opportunity is missed by most people because it's usually dressed in
overalls and looks like work and that is super super true the first step towards
any viable employment is learning how to bust your ass unequivocally to get the job done um
and lastly the last thing i want to leave you with is being nice to work with
we are all human beings we all have our various experiences plus and minus when you're in a
relationship with someone and you're sharing your life with a partner you're sharing your
whole life with that partner the good the bad the angry the happy the sad the uncomfortable
the pleasurable right all of those things and you don't try and shield your partner from those
things you're going through them together work is the same but it is incumbent on each of us
when we're working together to work together and it's important to keep asking yourself how easy
am i to work with and to strive to be easy to work with because you would like to work with
people who are easy to work with it is really important that you be one of them so ask your
supervisor for feedback ask your co-workers for feedback ask your partner for feedback
at one point my wife and i were measuring uh parts of our house and she was like you want
me to help and i was like yeah if you'd hold the tape measure and i'll give you some instruction
and then i was like okay put the timbers over there i'm gonna get this number
i just i went into supervisor mode and at the end of 20 minutes my wife was like
damn is that the way you are at work and i was like i guess and she was like that was kind of
intense and i'm like well i turn on my let's get this done mode and i just start getting it done
but that was a great perspective to have from her that there was an intensity to that that
i didn't track from inside me i literally want my tombstone to say i was easy to work with seriously
and i'm not always easy to work with i am moody i am high strung i am type a i am
complicated like any human being and i don't think that i hit my marks every single time
at all and i'm sure many of my team are like here and there as they listen to me talk about this
but the goal is that we're all having fun while we're doing what we're doing and living our lives
that's the goal that's my goal my goal is that i want the people around me to enjoy their work
feel satisfied by it feel fulfilled by it and also enjoy doing it uh
and that's also what i want for myself i want to enjoy my work i want to find it fulfilling i want
to feel like i'm contributing i want to know what the big picture is um i hope that some of
this has been useful i know i keep saying the last thing is but the last thing is pay it forward if
someone gave you advice at the early part of your career reach out and give advice to a young person
even if you are venal even if you only want what you want for yourself that is
still the right thing to do because it pays dividends in the future
being generous with your time and your knowledge and your energy and your advice is an investment
it's an investment in the future uh if you're a venal and you want to look at it that way go right
ahead capitalism man it doesn't matter to me but being easy to work with is one of the best ways to
stay employed i can possibly think of i have met people who were genuinely like not the sharpest
tools in the shed but so delightful to work with they kept their jobs for years and years and years
because they slotted into the place they were in the right way that got everything done
and everyone was cool about it thank you guys so much for watching that video if you'd like to
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