For nearly 5 years I've been at the same company, doing CG. Out of those 5 years I think I have spent at least 2 years working with a certain product that will remain anonymous. Watch this! Its funny! And totally unrelated.
As is common with many products, a mascot is involved - one that is burned into my brains and fills my soul with dread. I actually had a nightmare about it once. Anyway - we inherited this project from another (i assume from mass suicide) now deceased-cg company. We were sent files for the mascot that were incomplete and were forced to build something ourselves. At the time I was busy on another commercial, so we outsourced the work. The result was quite shoddy, but the clients approved it - much to my horror. In fact they liked it so much, they kept asking us to make more and more stuff with it - and of course no one will point out to them how shitty it is...
Being me, I wanted to take a tiny bit of pride in my work and produce something that at least looked decent. At the beginning stages of any commercial related to this product I've always asked if I could rebuild the mascot from scratch, so it would look right - perhaps even good.Such a luxury has never been granted to me and for two solid years I've had to put up with a sub standard mascot that frequently breaks and generally doesn't work.
But what's this? It's a bit quiet now, so in this downtime I've taken it upon myself to do a little R&D. In just two days I found an excellent solution for the rendering problems we'd been experiencing. The results do take a bit more time to achieve, but at least it won't break. With a bit o' tweaking, painting & re-rigging I could have a new and improved mascot ready to go!
All good RIGHT?
The powers that be, are now saying that if we do show our clients these new developments, we run the risk of getting into their bad books. I understand that when a client approves something, you generally run with it till they ask for changes - but when you're able to deliver a product that is 400% better than what they have already, why the FUCK would they be unhappy with it?The vibe I'm getting for doing this work is pretty negative..
Is it my fault that they would never give me the go ahead to rebuild their crappy character for their past commercials? Is it my fault that nobody would put their foot down and say it looks shit? Essentially the message I'm getting from those in charge is not to do good work - Keep churning out mediocre crap and keep using shitty assets.
So the lesson today boys and girls, is not to waste your time - stay average.
