I found an interesting video on social media in recruiting and as we look to grow, it’s interesting to know how recruiters are generally using social media to screen employees.
So it’s here, V3. Don’t get us completely wrong there’s still plenty to do both in front and behind the scenes but, we wanted the old website out. So we got rid of it and today we unveil the slick new look. Big and bold, proud and easy to use.
As we’ve grown, our style has changed, the way we work has changed and our clients have gotten bigger. The new site reflects that and shows potential clients something different (not to mention it’s much better SEO wise). There’s lots of updating to do to get this monster with all it’s past content up and showing people what we do again, but we think this is a turning point, a new era.
The old site is dead, long live the site!
The new NewFlight Pictures is almost ready and we’re really excited about releasing our freelancer network.
What we need to remember is to maintain our strong quality control, as soon as we rely on other designers to do this, we lose that control. This is no more apparent than in a recent project we came across.
We hired a freelancer, fresh out of Central St. Martins, we expected him to do a good job, work hard and then manage our client under our brand. This was an initial test to see if the network would work with us as the account managers and quality controllers. As we learned, without rules, contracts and time to manage the quality at the other end, it’s easy to lose what made us this successful in the first place. We ended up almost compromising our name and our reputation. It also cost us money to implement and we learnt fast from it. Never hire a freelancer you don’t properly know or trust.
That’s why with the new way of working, every freelancer is hired by us based on their previous work, a meeting, contract agreement and regulatory controls in pay. We will also offer the same safety to those who work for us, pay guarantees and respectful account managers, that’s our promise and it’s why we will be the most effective and efficient design agency.
We aim to be fair and transparent in our operations. Clients and freelancers will be encouraged to review each others conditions and fair pay schemes. We believe that business is made through relationships and trust, we want to build that through reliability and creativity.
We think that’s what clients and designers want.
We have the approach that if we can do it ourselves, then we can do it really well and so we also do web, SEO, video solutions and work on separate projects to make our world easier. We do a lot of web design and branding for companies using the same ideals that we apply to our films. High impact, motion by design.
So as a few projects come to an end and some put on the back burner, we have a chance to work on what reflects us better, our past and our future aspirations.
Well not impossible, just, unpredictable. There’s no formula like there might be with SEO. No amount of money will make people “like” your business. What’s interesting is while NewFlight Pictures enters the market, there’s a few types of businesses who have the solution.
We’ve always been edged over to 3D and we’ve pretty much done everything we could to stay in our beloved After Effects, using camera trickery to give the illusion of 3D in our films. Now the time has come to take the leap, bite the bullet and learn something new. Now, what’s the best way to go about this?
I find most 3D programs follow the same ideas and rules and are essentially very similar, it begs the question to me, why are there so many doing the same thing. The answer to this is that they all have slight differences that, when you know what you’re doing, come to be important… I imagine.
So, to cut a long illogical story short, I’m learning Houdini from sideFX. It’s free, industry loved and great for effects rather than modelling which is what I want to do with it.
Houdini uses some strange concepts to me (which they would be!), lots of “nodes” which change the behaviour of whatever node was before it. They call this “procedural” with the idea being you can go back and change any part which will effect all the others down the chain.
So that’s not really exciting. What is exciting for me at the outset is the particle effects and the shattering potential. Smoke, fire, breaking walls and effects are all within reach once I know how to. You can also export to 720p in the free version so looks promising! With that and some basic 3D knowledge we can do cool logos for clients and cool explosions for ourselves.
I’ve found the best tutorials to be on the Houdini website (although they get complicated very quickly) and on 3DBuzz.com. It’s taking a while but I’m starting to understand it all.
So now I have some time to get back to all things NewFlight, I thought I’d fill in what we actually do here. Firstly, we’re editing our new film “The Butcher Man”. We have other films in the pipeline as well which you can see from our scripts online but this one is taking the priority right now. Progress is slow while Matt and I work out when we can get together to let our imaginative minds explode over a computer. I’m in the process of moving house so everything I do is on borrowed laptops. That’s the life.
There’s a lot to put together to make sure a film production runs smoothly. We have to focus on locations, equipment and the whole other story of people. Actors, safety, food and transport.
As we venture into bigger and bolder projects using more people, sets and expensive gadgets, it become even more important to make sure everything is organised so that it all goes well. That’s the job of the producer mainly but, with a small cast, it’s more like a team working together with trust in each other to get a good result.
In our film “The Butcher Man” we’ve faced problems from the outset. Some of course from poor planning, assuming things will all work well and an over-commitment to improvisation on the day. Others however, submit themselves through the strange and paranormal, the elusive film curse.
Throughout film making history, horror films often have been labelled with curses. These typically emanating from a true story being the inspiration for the script. The ghosts, not laid to rest come out to haunt those who try to recreate them. With our film, it seems we too have been jinxed by something beyond our control.
At first we had troubles with locations, we found a very suitable house ready to be torn down which is perfect for our film set. It seemed like a strange place, it smelled damp, dirty. Without modification, it was The Butcher Man’s home.
Our first film day was compromised by transport, our main actress unable to make it to the set. It made us realised how unorganised we were and how on top of things we needed to be. Now that others were relying on us and there was more than just our own evenings at stake here. We sat down and made sure we knew what was going on, how to do it and most importantly, how to overcome difficulties.
On the 2nd actual day of filming we encountered something we’ve never come across before. Perhaps we had angered something the day before. Our actress badly cut her hand by smashing a pane of glass with her weapon of choice, a monster attacking sledgehammer. In the final scene (without giving too much away), she breaks through a door to be met with an awful sight. While trying to stop the door swinging back at her, her hand went through the glass in the door. It was immediately clear that it had gone badly wrong.
We took her to hospital and she bravely insisted the others carried on filming. It was a frightening experience but everyone remained professional and collected.
The house is due to be torn down soon but the main problem is the electricity is being cut off this week. Today was to be the last day of filming there and has be posponed due to another problem. One of our actors has had to stay with his girlfriend today after she drank a poison accidentally.
The house must be cursed and filming violent scenes there is antagonising for whatever lingers. We also believe that these pitfalls need to be factored into projects of the future, you can’t account for everything. One more day old house is all we need.
We’re keen to be involved in social media, it’s where we can be unique and show our true colours. In our SM arsenal we’ve got YouTube, Twitter, FourSquare and Facebook. All have one neat page where you can find out everything about us in that context. Except Facebook.
With Facebook we had a Group, an App and with that an App profile page. The group showed blog posts as links and the app showed them (in an iFrame using WPBook which is excellent). It was confusing as there wasn’t one port of call for users trying to find us, we’ve changed that with a Facebook Page.
Now we can actually justify our pay with rate cards showing just what we do and how much it will cost. I think it’s reasonable and excellent value for money, I hope clients want to take us up on more than just the basics but either way, it’s there for any entry level services and we still have room to move on the special features.
Having a rate card means that the client knows where their money is going and where our time is spent meaning if they want to save money, they know how and if they want more, they know it’s there for them. It also puts a stop to our ball park figures and undercharging.
It was tough working all this out ourselves, sometimes we’re actually cheaper than what we’ve quoted in the past and others, slightly over so it’s still fair.
We also have as part of this price lock down procedure, a branding service. Logo design, letterheads and business cards etc. to go with a new website or video or, if we catch someone at just the right time, a whole business brand in a box.
If you’re starting a design business, feel free to use these as templates for your own work.