Mailer ideas that didn’t make it.

Whenever I sit down to make a new mailer I go through four or five ideas working them up with sketches and rough copy. After a day or so it usually becomes clear that one or two of the ideas work better than the rest. However, there are rare occasions when a mailer will get almost finished and then shelved. This was the case on my last mailer.

When the process began I thought it would be nice to commemorate the first year of business under the name SDA so I began sketching ideas with some of the characters that had been produced and created at SDA in 2012. What I ended up with was the image that is posted below. After living with it for a few days I decided it didn’t quite represent the scope of work that SDA produces. It was a fun idea but, it wasn’t quite right for a mailer.

Sometimes you have to go through a few versions to figure out what works best!

Thanks

Tim Stevens: Directing Animator

New Mailer

The new mailer is out. For everyone on the mail list, you should be recieving it in the next few days. If you want to get on the mail list send your information to tstevens@stevensanimation.com .

Tim Stevens

Directing animator

Stevens Design & Animation, LLC

Audio: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly…

Who can forget watching a Sergio Leone film and seeing those epic gunfight scenes. Two men staring each other down in a series of building cuts and shots: a “symphony of violence” as the director called it. Symphony was correct. In most of the gunfight sequences there is a lot of sneering, a few extreme close-ups, and usually two gun shots accompanied by an over the top score. What really created the mood was the sound. As George Lucas has always said, sound is half of the film, or in our case, half of the commercial.

So for all of the advances in sound design and capture I still hear clients say that most people just don’t understand audio as well as they use to. Now of course, I have worked with some great audio engineers and those guys really do know how to create a good mix. But more often than not, because the technology is available, a lot of spots get mixed by the editor or even the compositor because they are the last ones in line.

But fear not – this can be averted

Discussing audio from the first days of production can save your spot from being mixed by “the last man in line.” With a little bit of planning most audio, even on lower budget spots, can be done well. I’m not saying that Bob’s Discount Auto Mart will sound like Star Wars, but it can sound good. The best productions will always have the best pre production and audio is a critical component in that.

So the next time you sit down to discuss a script with your producer take a few minutes to think about the audio. After all, it is half of the spot.

Tim Stevens, Directing Animator, Stevens Design & Animation, LLC

What does an animator do after work?

Everyone has something that takes them away from the stress of work and everyday life. More often than not, post-work hobbies are dissimilar to what a person’s day job is. You might find a lawyer who toys with the idea of fighting in the octagon or a teacher who moonlights as an extra on a movie set. But animators… we like to blur the lines between work and play.

If polled, I suspect that most people in the industry might have a graphic novel, short film or illustration project going on after their day jobs have come to a close. My post-work activity of choice is drawing unsuspecting customers in coffee shops (I have my fair share of ideas for short films but, I will save that for later postings).

Yes – I am that guy who occasionally stares at you too long while trying to determine if your face is square or diamond shaped. I mean you no harm because, after all, this is my version of post work training. I would even say that it is an ongoing education in art. But unlike the classroom, the coffee shop comes with a factor of unpredictability.

On rare occasions I will get caught staring at a face, a nose, or even a behind that can’t be looked away from. On the off chance that I have been caught staring too long, my subject might leave for another table or turn a cold shoulder to me. That is OK: I can draw them from the back as well! On even rarer occasions someone might come up to speak to me. Normally the questions range from “what do you do for a living” to “how long have you been doing it.” I have even had people comment on how interesting it is to see a person wield a pencil and a sketchbook instead of an I-pad or a Mac. I remind them that the local office store still has a large chunk of space dedicated to writing implements designed to hold a lead.

If you should see me in your local coffee shop holding an aforementioned “lead based writing instrument” please feel free to ask questions, but try not to move: I might be in the process of drawing your nose!

Thanks

Tim Stevens

Directing Animator & Coffee Shop Sketcher

The End-O-Summer…

As we move in to the end of the summer, it seems like everyone has been heading out on vacation: creative directors, clients, animators, school kids, families. Everyone is out at the end of August. Since the beginning of the week I have heard from 2 clients and 2 different animators that they will all be out. One lucky individual will even be spending the final days of summer in Italy. What does this mean? It means that we are at the traditional End-O-Summer when the industry takes one last breath before the advertising world prepares for 4 months of sleep deprivation, all night meetings, and caffeine fueled creative. Stevens Design & Animation is going to get busy! You might think that this sounds a bit like pure speculation – it is. And you might also think that this would be wishful thinking in an economy that looks slower than the Jamaican Bobsled Team – it could be. However, as we all know, the Jamaican Bobsled Team had spirit and spirit can go a long way even when you are flying down the ice upside down!

As I have mentioned, the ebb and flow of advertising is highly unpredictable these days. But, the up tick around the holidays is still one of the few reliable times of the year when we can all hope to get a boost in business. With a new mailer going out this week (that one that I have been talking about for the last several months) and the holiday season arriving soon, I think SDA is poised for a boost. Even though many of the prognosticators are sticking to a tepid outlook on the economy, they can’t deny that the holidays are always a high point. For ad agencies and marketers, Christmas morning begins sometime in September and doesn’t end till the final spot and the last ad are delivered for the holidays. A joyous time it is!

So it is with much anticipation that I await the return of my colleagues from their vacations. We are all ready to go.

Thanks

Tim Stevens

Directing Animator

Stevens Design & Animation, LLC

Progressive Production: The Rise of HD

I can still remember when a handful of commercials produced in the US were mastered on 2” reel to reel video and my mentor use to talk about the days of releasing on 16mm. Eventually all of that was replaced by 1” video and then came the tape formats like Betacam SP and a handful of short lived digital formats with names like D1, D2, and D5. While most of these formats improved what we saw from our couches, it was still the same old low-resolution signal known as NTSC or standard definition. However, some time in the early eighties, people started talking about High Definition. Fast forward the tape-deck to the turn of the century and the dream of a few technical engineers had become reality. However, even with HD TV sets rolling in to the local Sears, there wasn’t much that could be watched on one until just the last few years.

Today, nearly all TV shows are produced in HD and a recent poll by Leichtman Research Group says that 69% of US households have at least one High Definition set. So if this is the case, why aren’t all commercials being produced and released in HD?

This is where it gets complicated. Many local TV channels still don’t have the equipment or the broadcasting power to deliver the HD signal and in most markets those channels have only recently settled on HD standards agreed upon by the local broadcasters. This leaves commercial producers in a strange situation. Do we produce in HD or in the out dated NTSC format? The current way of thinking is to do both.

Though it can be a pain, most of the spots that we are producing at Stevens Design & Animation will have multiple masters for both standard definition and HD. I have recommended to all of our clients that, even if they can not use an HD master in their marketplace, they probably ought to design the spot for HD with a re-cropped SD version. We have even been able to re-constitute some older spots at the full 1920x 1080 resolution. 

The transition to HD has been much slower than we would have predicted a few years ago but, it has finally made its way here. We have come a long way since releasing commercials on film and reel to reel video. However, I suspect that HD probably won’t be the last format that we have to master in. Let’s hope it stays around longer than BetaMax!

Thanks

Tim Stevens

Directing Animator

The new Mailer is on its way!

It has been a few weeks since my last post but, that is a good thing since production has been keeping everyone busy around here. Since I have been going on about the importance of advertising, I figured I would preview the new mailer going out in the coming weeks. I must admit that designing my own characters for company use can take a bit of time. This character (I am calling him Dr. Snark) was no exception.

In the initial stages I wanted to have something to kick off the start of the company that was a play on the classic Dr. Frankenstein line “It’s ALIVE!” As I do with all of my character designs, I begin the process with a little research and a fair amount of staring at the ceiling while trying to arrive at a concept. The proto Dr. Snark started his life as a series of random sketches with varying influences from Peter Seller’s Dr. Strangelove to the mad scientist in Jean Jeunet’s classic film The City of Lost Children. After several pages of sketches, and consultations with friends and colleagues, I settled on this design. I think Dr. Snark was just the right mix of evil and cartoony without being maniacal. However, once I finished the piece, I came to the realization that Dr. Snark bore a striking resemblance to my neighbor. So much for all of that research!

As Ted Turner Says…

“…Early to bed: Early to rise: Work like hell and advertise!” It would seem like there is a lot of the first two going on these days but not nearly enough of the third. For decades advertising was one of the only recession proof industries. Even when budgets got slashed, and client meetings took place at the corner McDonald’s instead of the local bistro, the clients still had to have a presence in the market place. 

Oh how things have changed. This recession has made even the staunchest believers in Mr. Turner’s words for success take pause. However, all businesses would do well to take his advice. In a down turn like this, most companies can guarantee that their competitors will drop their advertising budgets to save a few pennies here and there. However, the smartest of the business owners know that you have to stoke the fire to keep warm by committing a percentage of profits, regardless of sales, to advertising and marketing. When the economy comes back, consumers will go to the business that is top of mind. 

Mr. Turner knows what he is talking about. 

Tim Stevens

Directing Animator

A Very Good Year…

Do you ever have one of those years where you sit back and wonder if bagging groceries would pay better than being in advertising? For a lot of us 2011 was that year. I heard more than one person talk about retiring as well as hearing about larger ad agencies letting go of in house creative in favor of freelancers. So when it came to opening Stevens Design and Animation we consulted a lot of sources from veteran colleagues to the Magic 8 Ball. Unfortunately the Magic 8 Ball’s prognostications are about as good as they where when it came to choosing dates back in college. However, many of my veteran colleagues gave us the extra push that we needed to pursue our dream of running a production company. For the first 5 months of the year I am happy to announce that things have gone well. Old clients want to produce and new clients are on the way. From Florida to Maryland and back to California, producers are developing new creative.

Hopefully everyone is experiencing the up tick in production and advertising. Let’s face it: even a bad day in advertising and production is better than a good day bagging groceries.

Tim Stevens

Directing Animator

Starting Out…

It has been nearly 5 months since SDA opened for business and we are just now getting the public face up and running. Fortunately we have had a great deal of work so we had to hit the ground running without the website and the social media. However, as my grandpa use to say about advertising and marketing, “You have to strike while the fire is hot!” If you wait to advertise and market your company when it gets slow, it is usually too late…

More to Come!

Tim