This site from the Make Your Nut blog teaches you how to give your credit history a makeover. The basic premise is that you can reset your credit history by asking the credit reporting agencies to justify the negative records that show up when a credit check is performed.
Read the story, try the techniques and provide feedback below.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Contracts for Freelancers
At some time in your career you may choose to freelance. Knowing how to write a solid contract and plan for unforeseen changes/contingencies makes a huge difference in profit margins. Often it will be the difference between losing and making money on a project. Digital web magazine offers a few reasons why you should never do a project without a contract and practices that are always useful in legal negotiations.
That said the following resources are useful starting points for writing contracts that help ensure both parties conclude the project with positive results. First visit:
writing web design contracts for the non-legal. There's a rough sample that requires customization on this site too. Second creative latitude provides many great resources for the startup design company. This is the site that you must visit to visualize the many steps necessary in client and work flow management. Finally "Bulletproof Web Design Contracts" contains expert advice regarding changes/contingencies that you should consider before you begin to fine tune the contract.
If contract terms and language still make you crazy, visit this glossary to get familiar with legal phrases/terms. Though a contract is not an absolute guarantee that your projects will be profitable and hassle-free, it can provide a good foundation so that everyone involved knows what to expect as the project progresses.
Happy freelancing!
That said the following resources are useful starting points for writing contracts that help ensure both parties conclude the project with positive results. First visit:
writing web design contracts for the non-legal. There's a rough sample that requires customization on this site too. Second creative latitude provides many great resources for the startup design company. This is the site that you must visit to visualize the many steps necessary in client and work flow management. Finally "Bulletproof Web Design Contracts" contains expert advice regarding changes/contingencies that you should consider before you begin to fine tune the contract.
If contract terms and language still make you crazy, visit this glossary to get familiar with legal phrases/terms. Though a contract is not an absolute guarantee that your projects will be profitable and hassle-free, it can provide a good foundation so that everyone involved knows what to expect as the project progresses.
Happy freelancing!
Thursday, March 06, 2008
The Pipeline? Yes, the Pipeline.
Pipeline.
For those unfamiliar to the term, I'll describe it this way:
Every asset, chunk of code, or change request that is generated to make a movie or series or commercial can be looked at as data. The 'pipeline' describes all the pathways this data can and will flow until it is eventually mixed to become the final deliverable(s).
Why the term 'pipeline'? Because pipes break... A LOT. They have many twists and turns. They divide and merge. When things go down the pipe, they're usually going where you want them to and when they come back up - you tend to get stuck cleaning up a mess. I can think of no term more appropriate.
You can look at a pipeline in it's basic form as 'development', 'previzualization', 'production' and 'post-production'. From there, it all breaks down into smaller and smaller steps and how they interact. Knowing your production at this level helps to insure that more time is spent on the art - the entertaining, than fixing your tools/workflows.
Here are a few links to give you a little insight into the world of building, using and maintaining a media production pipeline...
Dreamworks CG Pipeline
http://akeigher.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/dreamworks-cg-pipeline/
Interview with Olivier Ozoux
Associate Digital Supervisor on Happy Feet - Animal Logic
http://www.xsibase.com/articles.php?detail=125
Animation Supervisor on Beowulf - Sony Pictures Imageworks
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=165&t=566843
I HIGHLY recommend that all students training up to be professional CG artists get a hold of all parts of The Art of Rigging. These training resources do an excellent job of helping the reader to understand the depth of thinking that goes into CG production. You can take a look at it here... http://www.cgtoolkit.com.
For those unfamiliar to the term, I'll describe it this way:
Every asset, chunk of code, or change request that is generated to make a movie or series or commercial can be looked at as data. The 'pipeline' describes all the pathways this data can and will flow until it is eventually mixed to become the final deliverable(s).
Why the term 'pipeline'? Because pipes break... A LOT. They have many twists and turns. They divide and merge. When things go down the pipe, they're usually going where you want them to and when they come back up - you tend to get stuck cleaning up a mess. I can think of no term more appropriate.
You can look at a pipeline in it's basic form as 'development', 'previzualization', 'production' and 'post-production'. From there, it all breaks down into smaller and smaller steps and how they interact. Knowing your production at this level helps to insure that more time is spent on the art - the entertaining, than fixing your tools/workflows.
Here are a few links to give you a little insight into the world of building, using and maintaining a media production pipeline...
Dreamworks CG Pipeline
http://akeigher.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/dreamworks-cg-pipeline/
Interview with Olivier Ozoux
Associate Digital Supervisor on Happy Feet - Animal Logic
http://www.xsibase.com/articles.php?detail=125
Interview with Brett Feeney
Digital Supervisor on Happy Feet - Animal Logic
http://www.xsibase.com/articles.php?detail=126
Meet the Artist: Kenn MacDonald Digital Supervisor on Happy Feet - Animal Logic
http://www.xsibase.com/articles.php?detail=126
Animation Supervisor on Beowulf - Sony Pictures Imageworks
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=165&t=566843
I HIGHLY recommend that all students training up to be professional CG artists get a hold of all parts of The Art of Rigging. These training resources do an excellent job of helping the reader to understand the depth of thinking that goes into CG production. You can take a look at it here... http://www.cgtoolkit.com.
Feeeeeature Creeeeep
http://sixrevisions.com/project-management/eight-tips-on-how-to-manage-feature-creep/
Save yourself a lot of pain in your professional life and learn from the above article.
In my experience (combined with a lot of reading/discussing other artists' own trials and tribulations), learning those lessons the hard way means uncomfortable stretches of unemployment or total abandonment of the industry to avoid dealing with clients.
Hope this prevents some disasters (or at the very lest gives you a cushion to fall on)!
Save yourself a lot of pain in your professional life and learn from the above article.
In my experience (combined with a lot of reading/discussing other artists' own trials and tribulations), learning those lessons the hard way means uncomfortable stretches of unemployment or total abandonment of the industry to avoid dealing with clients.
Hope this prevents some disasters (or at the very lest gives you a cushion to fall on)!
QT Follow-up: Codecs for Reviews
Hey!
I've been using the Motion JPEG B codec lately. The file sizes are small, the quality is pretty good for animation reviews and XSI, Premiere, MotionBuilder and most of the Autodesk apps deal with it well (won't crash while rendering/capturing). In the Compresser, I'm using Best Depth and Medium for Quality.
PS: I tend to like rendering playblasts/captures as a .mov or a .wmv as opposed to image sequences, because they are easy to drop into an edit and view in a folder. Final renders are ALWAYS image sequences, though. They tend to take a LOT longer and if there's a crash or an issue, you only lose one frame instead of the entire set of frames.
I've been using the Motion JPEG B codec lately. The file sizes are small, the quality is pretty good for animation reviews and XSI, Premiere, MotionBuilder and most of the Autodesk apps deal with it well (won't crash while rendering/capturing). In the Compresser, I'm using Best Depth and Medium for Quality.
PS: I tend to like rendering playblasts/captures as a .mov or a .wmv as opposed to image sequences, because they are easy to drop into an edit and view in a folder. Final renders are ALWAYS image sequences, though. They tend to take a LOT longer and if there's a crash or an issue, you only lose one frame instead of the entire set of frames.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
10 Creativity Blocks
It's the end of winter and time to recharge your creative battery. Copyblogger.com offers 10 tips for recognizing creative blocks. If you can eliminate some or all of the blocks listed, you just might be able to see the world from a fresh standpoint adn get the idea engine started.
Check it out especially if you're stalled on a project.
Check it out especially if you're stalled on a project.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)