What a Couple of Weeks it's Been!
Jun. 16th, 2002 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolphins_logI haven't posted in a while because I've been extremely busy. I've just finished a twelve day workweek, some of those days were 12 hours long. It's all pretty exciting actually.
The Good Kind of Work
The cruise ship industry has sort of a live "home shopping network" thing that people attend, knowing full well that they are going to be pitched at. During this presentation a spokesperson tells people what shops there are in the coming ports, what the shops offer, about various products and so on. They also show samples and short videos of the product.
One of our customers got three minutes for us and asked us to produce a video. Unfortunately we only had something like three weeks to put it together, and it was something none of us had any experience at. Furthermore this is our busy time of year and I'm already doing two jobs, the office and the shipping department.
The first week was taken up by "associate relations". That's where co-workers are ticked at each other for some reason and things need to be sorted out. It is also not conducive to production and took out one of those precious three weeks. Next, I had to work with Suzanne. We sometimes don't work well together. She has an apprehensive approach to things, sort of a dread. I react badly to it as I usually find myself pulled down by it and I fight back. Often we get caught in a downward spiral or "downdraft". We had them during this project as well, but these were different. Sure, they were uncomfortable when the sparks flew, but they served to clear the air later and actually made the task that much more rewarding.
We started off with questions. "What can we do?" "What do we have time for?" "Who can we call?" I randomly searched the phone book for videographers and found one with a web site. I checked out his site and gave him a call. After a brief conversation he supplied me with ideas. I took them to Suzanne and she jumped on them. She dug through our supply of scattered tapes and showed me a tape that she had taken to an in store signing some years ago. It had a bunch of stills in it, Most, if not all, of our historic images are stills, like Point Hope back in 1961. I think there is an 8mm film somewhere.
The items that had the most impact were the stills. There were some action shots, but we were running out of time. So now our video became a video slide show with voice over. We only had three minutes to play with, so we had to decide what our mission statement for this project was. What were we trying to say? We wanted to tell people why our figurines were collectible, that they had a history and there was a lot of work put into them. It didn't take long for us to drop the voice over and just go with background music and a few captions, Just give them a bunch of interesting images.
We started taking a bunch of photos using incandescent light. Incandescent light turns things very yellow, but it was what we had, and it was better then the florescent. Florescent light turn things very green. Then there was quite a bit of Photoshop work for color correction. That was followed up by selecting images from our files, some clear back to 1958 when Bud and Suzanne started to company in their kitchen.
Suzanne then got smart and created a story board. We knew how many images we could have so we started pasting thumbnails on the board. It didn't take long to realize that we couldn't even say the scaled back list of items we wanted to say. Three minutes isn't very long.
After some long hours and days, and many conversations with the videographer, we put together the show. Now the videographer will turn it into tapes and we will send it off.
We've had some difficult family problems for the past three years, things that have nothing to do with work, problems our family has never experienced before. It's served to depress Bud and Suzanne and that has been reflected in the business. People have quit because of some low moral issues, and I admit I've wanted to quit a number of times. But that would be hard for me to do. It's a family business and I'm one of the family.
This particular project has struck a cord. There's an excitement building. We have one staff member who is going to part time in advance of leaving the job. Suzanne recently asked her if she would still be willing to do some work at home. She answered indirectly. She commented on the energy and excitement that she was seeing and dot dot dot. ...one of those unsaid answers.
So I don't know what the future holds for the company. My parents are in their 70's and still going at a good clip. Eventually I'll have to face what life delivers, we call it "walking in front of the proverbial bus". It's unnerving at times, perhaps a little more unnerving then other families face as it also effects my career. It's been extremely difficult to contemplate, especially with the added family turmoil. I've felt like I've been on a train that's heading for a chasm. It's not that I can't get off. It's that I'm not allowed to get off, I'm morally obligated to ride.
But now, perhaps now, with this excitement on the boil, we can focus on some answers. There is a brighter future and it's not the on coming train. Maybe we can bridge the chasm after all.
The Good Kind of Work
The cruise ship industry has sort of a live "home shopping network" thing that people attend, knowing full well that they are going to be pitched at. During this presentation a spokesperson tells people what shops there are in the coming ports, what the shops offer, about various products and so on. They also show samples and short videos of the product.
One of our customers got three minutes for us and asked us to produce a video. Unfortunately we only had something like three weeks to put it together, and it was something none of us had any experience at. Furthermore this is our busy time of year and I'm already doing two jobs, the office and the shipping department.
The first week was taken up by "associate relations". That's where co-workers are ticked at each other for some reason and things need to be sorted out. It is also not conducive to production and took out one of those precious three weeks. Next, I had to work with Suzanne. We sometimes don't work well together. She has an apprehensive approach to things, sort of a dread. I react badly to it as I usually find myself pulled down by it and I fight back. Often we get caught in a downward spiral or "downdraft". We had them during this project as well, but these were different. Sure, they were uncomfortable when the sparks flew, but they served to clear the air later and actually made the task that much more rewarding.
We started off with questions. "What can we do?" "What do we have time for?" "Who can we call?" I randomly searched the phone book for videographers and found one with a web site. I checked out his site and gave him a call. After a brief conversation he supplied me with ideas. I took them to Suzanne and she jumped on them. She dug through our supply of scattered tapes and showed me a tape that she had taken to an in store signing some years ago. It had a bunch of stills in it, Most, if not all, of our historic images are stills, like Point Hope back in 1961. I think there is an 8mm film somewhere.
The items that had the most impact were the stills. There were some action shots, but we were running out of time. So now our video became a video slide show with voice over. We only had three minutes to play with, so we had to decide what our mission statement for this project was. What were we trying to say? We wanted to tell people why our figurines were collectible, that they had a history and there was a lot of work put into them. It didn't take long for us to drop the voice over and just go with background music and a few captions, Just give them a bunch of interesting images.
We started taking a bunch of photos using incandescent light. Incandescent light turns things very yellow, but it was what we had, and it was better then the florescent. Florescent light turn things very green. Then there was quite a bit of Photoshop work for color correction. That was followed up by selecting images from our files, some clear back to 1958 when Bud and Suzanne started to company in their kitchen.
Suzanne then got smart and created a story board. We knew how many images we could have so we started pasting thumbnails on the board. It didn't take long to realize that we couldn't even say the scaled back list of items we wanted to say. Three minutes isn't very long.
After some long hours and days, and many conversations with the videographer, we put together the show. Now the videographer will turn it into tapes and we will send it off.
We've had some difficult family problems for the past three years, things that have nothing to do with work, problems our family has never experienced before. It's served to depress Bud and Suzanne and that has been reflected in the business. People have quit because of some low moral issues, and I admit I've wanted to quit a number of times. But that would be hard for me to do. It's a family business and I'm one of the family.
This particular project has struck a cord. There's an excitement building. We have one staff member who is going to part time in advance of leaving the job. Suzanne recently asked her if she would still be willing to do some work at home. She answered indirectly. She commented on the energy and excitement that she was seeing and dot dot dot. ...one of those unsaid answers.
So I don't know what the future holds for the company. My parents are in their 70's and still going at a good clip. Eventually I'll have to face what life delivers, we call it "walking in front of the proverbial bus". It's unnerving at times, perhaps a little more unnerving then other families face as it also effects my career. It's been extremely difficult to contemplate, especially with the added family turmoil. I've felt like I've been on a train that's heading for a chasm. It's not that I can't get off. It's that I'm not allowed to get off, I'm morally obligated to ride.
But now, perhaps now, with this excitement on the boil, we can focus on some answers. There is a brighter future and it's not the on coming train. Maybe we can bridge the chasm after all.
