"Rajnar Vajra - His Hands Pass Like Clouds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vajra Rajnar)

broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and the kind of internal bleeding that makes
your closest relatives drive down from New England post haste.
I didn't die, but it took some time before I was grateful about that.
If you don't already know, I pray you never learn how much the human body can
_hurt_.
After four operations, two months of recovery, and six months of
Torquemada-approved physical therapy, I was hobbling around like a
hundred-year-old man in terrible shape for his age.
Don't get me wrong: hobbling was an _achievement_. Initially, my
prognosis hadn't included standing, let alone walking. But, despite New York's
apparently sincere efforts to make life a joy for the ... physically
challenged, the city was no place for me until and unless I regained mobility.
Or developed a far more accepting attitude.
My brother, bless his heart, suggested I return to the old yellow house
on the Cape and get some hired help including a part-time therapist. Every
decade or so, like clockwork, Tim demonstrates why everyone calls him a
genius. My parents had rented the family home when they moved to Mystic,
Connecticut, but luckily the latest renters were eager to escape their lease.
****
One nice thing about the Modem Age: it's quite practical to work more than a
few blocks from the office. When things go wrong, however, you've got no one
at hand to complain to....
If you've learned about the advertising world by watching, say,
_Bewitched,_ you've might have the wrong idea. On TV, ad agencies are places
where creative people sit around brainstorming all day -- when they're not
trying to harvest clients using raw ideas with, perhaps, a few sketches as
visual aids....
Well, that's not how it works anymore (if it ever did). HDTV time is
terrifyingly expensive, so our field is terrifyingly competitive. In the end,
every penny we receive is dependent on customer satisfaction. In order to nail
down a final contract, our agency has to produce _finished_ products,
broadcast-ready, and then sell them to suspicious clients who've been
previously wined, dined, and flattered to a turn. There is, as the fellow
jumping off the Empire State Building admitted, an element of risk. Finished
ads cost real money; making them is essentially making a short movie. SAG
actors don't come cheap, and the famous ones swallow the budget whole. Then
there's the writers, the crew, the director...
And if you're thinking that computer-generated high-speed graphics must
be cheaper, you ought to have a little talk with Tim Burton or Michael Eisner.
They can explain in soft voices exactly how cheap it is to do state-of-the-art




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computer animation.
The harsh truth is that my agency loses money if the final agreement
grosses us under two million dollars. The pressure is nasty and there is
always a looming deadline.
****