Go fast but don’t hurry, a tortoise’s way to final

This saying was a favorite of an old coach of mine.  In his world, when you had the ball and hurried you would inevitably make a mistake and lose the ball to the opposing team.  Now, this may seem like an odd analogy but believe me, I use this all the time with people I work with.You see, when I did loads of day-to-day artist tasks I always was in the mode of “get this done now, dammit!”  Certainly, there is some urgency and time constraints on the jobs we do.  There are deadlines for clients and we need to adhere to those.  However, very often I will see people work on a task and present something not ready for consumption simply to get a version out.  I don’t believe this is a great way to get approvals.  The best way to get to the next client-viewable version is to concentrate on the tasks they specifically requested be done for this shot (aka, the notes).  Work on those and if you have your own wishes, throw those in there too.  However, do not fall into the trap of thinking you need to get your shot perfect for every client showing.  Let’s say you have 10 client notes and 10 of your own things you want to fix.  Clearly addressing the client notes is key but don’t go nuts handing over a new version with all your changes.  Why not?  Well, many times the client will not care all that much about your internal changes and you’re going to get new notes on the shot anyway.  I like to guide artists so that they get the client notes done and then a few internal notes, making sure all the technical glitches have been sorted out, as these will annoy the client most of all.  Address 70% of your internal notes and leave the 30% for the next version you will undoubtedly do.  You will of course amass more notes for the things you would like to make better.  This workflow will allow you to get your shot to a very acceptable level in a normal day without killing yourself.  You will also be able to work on more shots because your shot volume will increase.  I used to try to make the shot perfect for every viewing.  I did quite a bit of overtime with that kind of methodology.  I recently talked to a director about this strategy.  He laughed and said now he was going to have to look and see if I gave him the “80%” version or not.  I said, “well, you’ll get your notes hit and by the time the shot is finaled by you, all our notes will be hit too”.  He smiled and agreed.  You don’t need to plow through all the work you have immediately.  Slow and steady does win the race.