I can still see the look on Danielle’s face as I ran into the PMC office. I was late and she wasn’t happy at all. Never mind my commute, my Macbook, or the rain. Late is late and I was an hour behind. She was stressed, pacing and quite agitated at my calm demeanor. I guess im used to being last minute. I don’t know if I’m addicted to the thrill, but the closer it gets to crunch time the calmer I get. We had been given a great feat to accomplish and very little time. Any sane person would have been as stressed as Danielle, but I was excited. We were creating a video for PBS.org. The website was being relaunched and they wanted to capture a new feel. Who better than the public media corps to help relay this message?

Danielle came up with the concept. She wanted to showcase the new interesting feel of the site through her photographs. Her photographs have an edge that’s not associated with PBS but, if we show how the new PBS.org relates maybe we can give PBS some edge. I had six hours to create this illusion in After Effects. The concept was simple but, the execution never is lol. In the Animation the viewer sees the navigation tool scroll over Danielle’s pics, highlight the genre’s link, and it takes you to the specific PBS.org page. Sounds simple enough but, creating illusions never are. Danielle and I sat and went over every second of animation making sure everything flowed correctly. After every major step I would get her opinion, It was very important to have another set of eyes. I had the opportunity to create with another artist and wanted to take advantage.

Collaborating with Danielle was easy because we have become friends since the PMC began. It felt more like sitting around the computers having fun than actual work, but work we were doing. Our 4pm deadline was an hour away and I was finishing what we thought was our commercial. “lets make sure we turn in something on time, then we can work on it more before the presentation” I said. After sending it out to our correspondent at PBS we let Kay see the video. Kay saw many holes in the video and made sure to address those asap. When Ms. Shaw says change something you should listen and learn and I don’t have a problem with doing either.

I welcomed the feedback. It was a true community effort, even Max from PBS.org offered advice. We had all the collective wisdom working together and moving in the same direction. I was happy that I could be used as the vessel to bring this project to life. We finally finished. After 10 straight hours of creating illusions in after effects and I was so tired, but I had to be ready for the presentation tomorrow at the PBS offices the next morning.