In the middle of the final render for “Mess It Up” so, time for a blog. New York was a blast. Hung out with old friends, went to Stephen’s gig, met a number of great animators, checked in on the progress of the Flipron “Book of Lies” promo at Asterisk, and met several video commissioners, all of whom seemed to not care – nay, even prefer – that I had no rep or production company. They seemed to think my true-indie status represented better value for money for them, in this rather depressed economy. My one sort-of meeting with a rep went hilariously wrong, with the woman taking me out to lunch on Friday and oohing and aahing over my reel. I send a follow up email/thank-you on Saturday, as you do, and lo and behold sometime between a 2pm lunch with me and the end of the day, she left the company. So why did she meet me and not say anything about her status, unless her company totally fired her on a Friday afternoon, which - by the way - is capital-e Evil? And so far the colleague listed in her email as contact after her departure has failed to do me the favour of a response. This is not a bunch of cowboys, mind you – this is a very well respected animation rep, and I’d been hanging out with some of their directors a couple nights before. Sigh. Whatever. Rawhide!

I also received confirmation last week from my US indie artist’s label that they had greenlit my big London video for her. This means soon I’ll even be able to tell you who it’s for! I had taken the opportunity to meet up with her A&R guy and the label’s video commissioner in New York while I was there. It’s always nicer to work with people you’ve met face to face. Plus, they were able to air their desires and concerns about the project in a more informal way, which I think reassured them and contributed to my clinching the project.

I barely had time to rejoice, as I’m deep in production on the two Flipron videos and having to haul ass to London in 2 weeks means I’m going to be working 14 hour days, 7 days a week to get those projects in hand before I go. All this week I’ve been cutting and prepping the base footage that I’ll paint over for “Mess It Up”. I’m cautiously optimistic about it; so far it’s better than I dared hope. The footage has a satanic Marc Bolan-meets-David Frost vibe that I’m really enjoying.

I’m back in London and in production on Big Live Action Video from 4 August. Sadly that means I’ll miss seeing my 2007 promo “Apart of Me” screen in the music video programme of Rushes Soho Shorts. I still get a vicarious delight pageing down the list of videos selected for this hugely competitive festival, and seeing the company I’m in. Look at all those big production company names in parentheses after every other video! Only the very talented Shelly Love’s Turin Brakes promo also lacks parentheses. Up the sisters! Yay, my £1,500 video up there with work by all the big names!

Saying that, I’ve realised recently that nobody cares how many miracles you pulled off or how low your budget was. They’re just going to judge your video in the great continuum of other videos released at that time, some of which might have been made by Michel Gondry for a hojillion dollars. So if your lighting’s a bit flat or your edit’s clunky, they won’t call… even if you pulled off some sweet crane move via a jury-rig you built yourself out of common household items. Took me a long time to realise this, even though it’s probably blindingly obvious to everyone else. So, yeah. From now on I’m going to shut up about my budgets, because whenever I say how small they are it’s like I’m making an excuse, or leaving the price tag on a gift.

Woo! Render’s done already. I love rendering miniDV. So quick! Now let’s see how many frames I’ve foolishly agreed to hand-rotoscope for this video… um… here we go… oh, up yours, Quicktime, give me a frame count…

HOLY PAINTER’S CRAMP, BATMAN! 2,599! Two thousand, five hundred and ninety-nine frames to hand paint!! Oh, dear Lord, what have I done… Tune in next week for tales of summer, when a young girl’s thoughts naturally turn to purchasing hugely expensive 35mm cameras. Also, painting. Lots and lots of painting.

EDITED TO ADD: The woman I had lunch with contacted me to say she didn't know she was leaving the company when she had lunch with me. Well, clearly - otherwise a) she wouldn't have taken the meeting; or b) she would have grabbed the company credit card on the way out and we would have gone somewhere a lot more expensive for lunch. Somewhere that perhaps served margaritas. Still no contact from the actual company.