Ever the professional!

A meeting was set up with Donnie, our illustrator. The team met before hand to discuss what we wanted to ask Donnie to do. We drew up plans and even discussed how to woo him into doing it for a minimum charge such as a pint!

When Donnie arrived I realised that this was not just a meeting of friends in a cafe, this was more like a professionals meeting to discuss the possibility of a contract to feature in the documentary. I was not properly prepared and was a little taken aback when Donnie came to shake my hand and sat before us like a job interview. I quickly regained my composire (I think), I realised that this was proably the best way to go about it as this is what it would be like in the "real world"!

Donnie talked us through his previous experience and qualifications. Then we painted a idea of what we wanted. As a team we felt that we had been very clear but in the following weeks it was apparent that we should have outlined a detailed and specific brief for our illustrator.

For example there was a lack of communication at points and ideas that we wanted in the pictures was missed out. Further to this we should have been clearer on the format that we wished the pictures to be in. As it turned out many of them were drawn portrait and were difficult to manipulate on FCP so that they would look good in the documentary.

So some important lessons were learnt:

1) Outline a specific brief including what feeling we want from the picture right through to the format they should be presented in

2) Don't depend on free work. I feel that maybe if there was a little more incentive that we could have had a better working relationship with Donnie. He is a busy man and I felt that after then initial meeting his interest wained, and it was hard to reel him back in. Infact we only recieved the pictures right before the finaliseation of the last edit.

3) Always be professional! Hand shakes are vital!