Updating

Quick update on the side projects that Forma's got cookin...

Behind the Cinematic

The new behind the scenes site continues to grow and expand its readership. New articles are going up every other week right now, and will continue to do so for a long time. There's also a whole new section to the website that will be launching around the end of May. Look forward to that!

Weekly Essays and Tutorials

After seventeen weeks, there are currently seventeen videos up on the channel HERE. A new essay or tutorial launches every week. Some have been more labor intensive than others, but hopefully people are continuing to find them useful. There are no plans to stop as of this writing.

Video Game

An indie game that I had the pleasure of providing the art for is in the last phase of development. We're still polishing up the functionality and adding a few more things to make it better. I'm not sure when it will launch, but I'll post about it when it does.

Bailey

The Question

On a recent StartUp episode, the team at Gimlet were telling the story of a particular startup in the Bay area that almost failed over and over again. Before eventually selling their company at a ridiculous price, there were many times when they had no idea if the damn thing was even worth all the trouble. There was a lot of stalling and failures before success. Have a listen:

Everyone that goes off on their own will inevitably face the question of "do I push ahead, or do I hang it up?" And rightly so. Even though my small freelancing business is small, I've asked this question over and over again. It's so hard to know when to change direction and when to push on. Because in the moment, both paths feel exactly the same. Those who have been far more successful than I say that the success they did eventually acquire was usually a surprise to them. That is, things were bad for a long time before they were good.

So, is this an immovable wall, or is it just the way of it? I don't know. But I'm going to push on.

Bailey

Video Essays

Back in January I decided to start creating weekly tutorials. Mostly this meant walking through a process inside a program. However, I quickly realized that I greatly prefer to talk about art and business philosophies. I've spent countless hours thinking about that kind of stuff, and I wanted to share my thoughts in video form. So, I started creating video essays in addition to the standard tutorials.

While they've been more engaging for me to produce, the essays require a larger time investment. Specifically, I have to write them and tell a story of sorts. It's been fun, and difficult...still not very good at it yet. But practice, baby!

Your bud,

Bailey

The 20-Mile March

I've talked a lot of talk about 20-Mile Marching over the years, but I finally created an actual video about it. Check it out!

About a year ago I wrote an article about 20-Mile Marching. It's got the elements that are in the video, with some more details on the matter:

Lastly, if ya like posters, there's a poster that you can buy and hang on your wall:

Work smart and rest well!

Bailey

Audio Amateur

I spent some time this week editing video and dialog tracks. I love me some video editing, but the voice work continues to be a tough learning experience. Besides practicing my ability to speak well, a sleuth of practical issues are always cropping up.

Weird buzzing noises caused by an interference of some kind, coupled with a less than adequate recording environment have been the latest culprits. I think I may need a better mic, but surely there's a work around? Regardless, the point is that every new endeavor is bumpy ride, but of course totally worth it.

Next week I'll be releasing the most ambitious video essay I've yet created. I'm practicing up for a video I conceived last summer, but didn't feel my skills were good enough to tackle. Hopefully I'll learn enough from these video essays to make the game analysis that I've been cooking up in the back of my mind.

Until then!

Bailey

Numbers

Achievement is the direct result of diligence. And diligence is a matter of consistent effort over a period of time. I've found that sustained effort is often made more difficult because it can be hard to see the big picture when I'm down in the details.

For instance, last summer during one of my periods of drumming up business, I had to contact a lot of people. A lot. Now, I could have just contacted a whole bunch of people and hoped that it would work out before I got too tired of reaching out. But that can be dangerous, at least for me, because I can over estimate how much work I've put in at any given moment.

Instead I kept careful track of the number of people I contacted. And at the beginning I reminded myself that only about 1 percent of contacts will result in a working gig. What this did was it set up the right expectations. So, when I got to day 30, and there still wasn't any bites, I could rest easy knowing that I still hadn't played the odds sufficiently.

All this is a long way to say that setting proper expectations, followed by disciplined action, results in better returns (I eventually got a client, but it took many weeks).

So, these days I track almost everything I do with a list of numbers. It's reassuring and helps me to see the incremental progress toward my goals. I have a number for how many tutorials I've made, how many cinematic articles I've written, and of course how many potential clients I've reached out to. I even have one for the number of blog entries I've written for this blog.

This was blog entry #79.

Bailey

Always Another Project

Now that Behind the Cinematic has launched, I've been thinking about how I'm going to expand on it and how much to use it as a vehicle for another project I have in mind. But what I'm slowly realizing is that not every project needs to make perfect sense. That is, I don't need to know exactly how it's going to evolve over time.

So, my mind continues to race. Always calculating how best to invest my time and energy. And I think I've finally got a good idea for what to do next.

I'll talk more about it later. For now, check out this recent entry into the Behind the Cinematic database:

Bailey

Working Towards an Avalanche

Despite having recently created a video essay about time and how it helps us, I couldn't help but feel a little helpless this past week. Why does everything have to take so much damn time?

I feel lucky to be working on a couple pretty sweet projects, but it's no surprise that they're all huge time investments. Anything worth doing is hard, right? Still, it's aggravating at times.

The principle point of tension is just how damn difficult it is to get the snowball moving. All four of my projects are piddly little snowballs that haven't picked up much steam. I just hope that they can start to speed down the mountain before it's too late.

With all of that said, my love for art can never be squelched. No matter how much shit I've been through, my passion has never died down. In fact, it burns stronger and more fiercely than ever. Art truly is the single greatest source of joy in my life, second only to the happiness I get from being with my family. I feel lucky to have that energy behind me. It's a weird thing, if you think about it. Or maybe it's not. I don't know.

Bailey

Reel

Today I'm pleased to release the first Forma Pictures showreel. Check it out:

It's been a long time coming, but I finally got everything put together. Hope ya like it. Now, what else has been happening, well...

• Recently wrapped the first phase of work on a new video game. I've been having a blast getting that put together. Can't wait for it to release!
• Continuing to get the new journalistic website together, which I'll talk about a lot more this month. It's set to release on March 18th.
• Tutorials are still coming out each week. I could talk a lot about how difficult they've been, but they've also been good for me. Here's the latest one:

Bailey

3, 2, 1 Update!

It's been a while since I just had a normal update post without a bunch of philosophy thrown in. So here are the facts!

Working on a game right now. An awesome designer (this guy) hired Forma to make the art and UI for it. I'll show stuff later!

The new website I'm developing is coming soon! A few close friends have already previewed it and I've gotten some good feedback on its direction. Will launch in March!

Been going crazy with the tutorials. Really working on my speaking presence and learning (slowly) how to be myself on camera. Not there yet by any stretch of the imagination, but one day. Also teaching myself a lot about lighting and stuff like that.

Side projects are crawling along. Getting a better mic set up so that I can do narration over videos. Also learning about how to clean up audio so that it doesn't sound like trash.

That's all for now! Love!

-Bailey

Paying for Time, Not Art

This post should be read while listening to this music, so hit play and read on! ;)

One of the best things about working as an artist is that I get to work with a wide variety of awesome people. It's honestly one of the best things in life, especially when collaboration is involved.

But as a good friend of mine once said (I'm paraphrasing): people make things interesting, they are both the best and worst things. Most big problems are derived from the messes people make, both emotionally and physically. What does this have to do with art? Well, the things people want and the way they behave make the artistic process a never ending thrill ride. Sometimes this is good and sometimes it's not.

Being a freelancer necessitates that I work with clients (for now). For the most part my experiences have been exceedingly great. I've been lucky to work with high-achieving people/companies that really get the artistic process and how I work. And, most importantly, they understand what they're getting when they work with me. Namely that they're not paying for the art I create, but rather they're paying for the time for me to make the art. This is a crucial thing for people to understand.

Whenever a client of mine doesn't understand this, I suppose it's my fault for not educating them about it. However, I'm gonna be honest. I don't really care to work with clients who aren't already super professional about this. My services are professional and what I create is pretty expensive, at least for individuals (but less so for companies). So, anyone not willing to engage in this sort of thing really shouldn't be talking with me.

Bottom line, if you hire an artist, just know that you're not paying for a painting. You're paying the artist for the time to make the painting. And even then if you don't like the painting, it's irrelevant. The artist still worked for that period of time.

Love, B

Life Rolls On

December was a quiet month for the blog and other updates, but it's been a hectic month for me. On this new year's day, I was hard at work on a new commercial. It was fitting to ring in the new year by spending it doing what I love most...working.

I'll probably be too exhausted next week to post much, but there will be another batch of content coming to the site soon after. And there's a lot in store for this year. But with so much uncertainty about the business, it can be easy to feel nauseous all the time. Thankfully I'm ready to roll with whatever happens. I can only work so hard before I have to leave my future to lady luck.

C'mon baby! Gimme a 20!

Bailey

Calm Before the Storm

This week has been primarily devoted to family time (holiday), which is always good. Rest is essential, as any good 20 mile marcher knows. ;) Still, I did a few things this past week.

I attended CTN again this year, which was nice. I got to see a few artists I knew, which is always good. And on the development front, the commercial I'm working on is moving along steadily. It's due early next year. I'll be talking about it more in the coming months.

I've also begun some design work for a new website I'm developing. In my world of art, I've found that there is a curious lack of resources on one particular subject. So, I'm in the beginning stages of filling this need! Exciting stuff.

Bailey