Just when you think you have it all figured out

Jul 24, 2008

Posted by: John Admin

Uncategorized

Just when you think you have it all figured out

The first issue of the Quibbler is out the door and it seems to have been a big success with some 72000 views. While I can say with all honesty I am amazed, it turns out that once you’ve done it once, the second time is not easier. We tried to take all the feedback from the first tissue and incorporate it into the second issue and have had mixed success. Now I despair that although stylistically and content wise Issue 2 is much better than issue 1 (if you haven’t read it yet you really should) the technical glitches may overshadow the content.

Memo to me: Next time don’t try to fix everything at once.

There’s something to be said for that, when you have something that has as big an interest group as the Quibbler seems to have generated, don’t try and fix all the gripes in one go, especially if you’re on a short turnaround cycle. We tried to change the format of the paper to include more interesting layouts, change the colours to be more readable as well as incorporate animation of images. What we ended up with is a huge download and the PDF version not being ready on time, but coming out a day later as we realized that our fancy pants animated images were lost on the static version as the jokes were often several frames into the animation.

Now if I had listened to the voices in my head, I may have caught the animations problem earlier in the publication cycle, but I was so excited by the amazing things the extremely creative people making this all happen were doing. Also I was too busy pushing the flash animator in the deep end.

Rudi: “So ummm… we want the advert animations to move in flash. Anyone know how to do that?”

(Unwitting soon to be Flash Animator Extraordinaire) : “Well, I have Flash Studio on my Mac, but I’ve never used it before…”

Rudi: “Oh great! Can you have them done by next week if I give you the source files?” (Did you hear the splash? I’m going to throw in the piranhas in a moment…)

(Suddenly swimming Flash Animator Extraordinaire) : “Ummm… OK I’ll start working on figuring out how to do it tonight.”

Rudi: “Ok cool!” (Having promised Fawkes28 not to say “woot!”) “I’ll try to get the files to you on Friday.” (In go the piranhas…)

Memo to me: Piranhas didn’t eat the Flash Animation guru. Must investigate disgruntled sea bass. Maybe with laser beams.

Obviously my victim was a very fast learner because he did an amazing job, even exceeding my expectations. I’m thinking his surviving for many years in the cut-throat world of academia has taught him the value of doing very fast research and learning on the run. He’s made of awesome.

Speaking of made of awesome ’ I’m changing tracks here hold on ’ I just took delivery of my first tangible evidence of my Harry Potter obsession: I now have a wand. Yep ’ had to have one if I was going to be working for a magical newspaper ’ Wizard Wood Wands delivers anywhere in the world it seems, and I am the proud owner of a beautiful Oak wand with a Tulip Poplar handle and Dragon heart string core.

The point of this being that there’s not much of a market for Potter paraphernalia here on the southern end of Africa, so either I order this kind of stuff from overseas, or I better start learning to knit if I want that Gryffindor scarf.

My link to the fandom is solely through my broadband internet connection, so if that goes down I am a very lonely Pottergeek. Most of the people I count as close friends are thousands of kilometres away in different time zones. It has its benefits; when I can’t sleep I don’t have to wake up a buddy who will be going “IT’S FREAKING TWO A.M.!!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!” it’s more a case of me having to say “Hey its 4AM already and I need to be up in 2 hours ’ I better hit the hay…” Fortunately Insomnia is not something I have to deal with very often.





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