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A reminder to all you self-unemployed freelancers: send us a link to your website or your email address to be included in our Entertainment Advertising's Finest Freelancers column.

The Finest Freelancers In Entertainment Advertising

One of the many self-described studio creeps we count among our readers has asked us, in the interest of what we in the blogosphere call “community”, to offer to post the websites of any of you self-unemployed freelancers out there looking for to earn big bucks* in the  world of entertainment advertising. 

The links will be featured in the top right column of our blog every day under the banner:

 Entertainment Advertising's Finest Freelancers

If you are an experienced (and by “experienced” we mean this ain’t your first time at the rodeo and yet, somehow you are still brimming with joyful enthusiasm) art director, editor, digital illustrator, finisher, copywriter, account exec, assistant or whatever the hell it is you do, send us a link to your website or your email address and we will post it.

Cordially yours,

EdwinaTrout@gmail.com

*No mention was made as to when freelancers could expect actual payment of those big bucks.

Why We Love The Onion

 
From The Onion 5.28.03

Earn Big Money At Home In Your Spare Time

If you’re like us, when someone says “stats” you immediately whip out your proportion wheel and ask, “What percent?” So imagine our confusion when one of our readers sent us these stats on occupational employment and wages for Art Directors and for Film and Video Editors from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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“Thank God There Is A Forum Such As This Where We Can Tell The World How Wronged We Have Been.”

Every now and then we come across a comment posted on our blog that gives us that kind of Norma Rae moment when Sally Field stands on the shop table holding up a sign that reads “onion” or “unicorn” or something - we really don’t remember the movie that well - but anyhow, the next thing is everyone starts shutting down their machinery in solidarity and we’re left with that warm and fuzzy feeling that Sally will once again triumph over adversity. 

This was one of those comments:

fuckit said:

Grunty you make a good point, glad to see someone gets it and I mean that sincerely. We sit here bitching while there are people who put their lives on the line for much less. Soldiers, doctors who save lives, people who volunteer to save stray cats or feed hungry children. Those guys suck, we make movie posters and change lives in the process! I'm pretty sure all my poster finishes have saved at least one hundred starving children in central Mexico. We get paid more than the average American because we are worth it! Thank god there is a forum such as this where we can tell the world how wronged we have been. Where are my kickbacks, hookers, vacations and cocaine? I want mine now, I deserve it damit!

There Is No ME in Team. Oh, Wait... Yes, There Is.

 
 From Lunchbreath's Photostream.

Graphic Designer vs Client

An Art Director Laments

Dear Edwina,

Where have all the clients photo editors gone? Used to be an art director would beg to have more than 25 shots to work with. Then digital came along, unit and special shoots grew to ridiculous sizes. The standard now is about 20,000 shots. 

And my guess is 3000 of those shots will be of craft services table, the best boys forearm and a few shots of nothing in particular. It’s not that old timer photographers with 7 cameras around their neck shot that much less, it’s that they, and photo depts edited the shots. But now photo depts are basically hard drive loaders. 

What gives?  Am I missing the point? Is it really that cost effective to have the vendors whittle away the budgets searching through each frame of the movie?

Signed, Jesse

Just When You Thought There Was No One More Font Obsessed Than You

Hi Edwina,

Thought you'd like this. Someone forgot to activate their fonts I believe!!!  On the front of the weather girl trailer. I don't know how the MPAA feels about Myriad, but I'm guessing it likes Helvetica more!

Signed, Motion Graphics Freelancer

 Click on image to enlarge.

For All You Downtrodden Workers Who Got Worked Over This Weekend

Dear Edwina, 

Why is it that if you don’t have children your weekends are “available to work” but if you have children then you “have other commitments”? Is this just our industry, or is it the way of the world? 

Signed,

Disgruntled  

Dear Disgruntled, 

We hate to sound sanctimommyous, but having raised 26 children of our own and our husband’s other wives, we can tell you weekends with the kids are no walk in the park. Unless, of course, you happen to take the kids out for a walk in the park that weekend. 

If you wish not to be “available to work” might we suggest taking up one of those slacker religions that prohibits its followers to toil on the Sabbath day? 

Barring that, just tell your employer to go take a flying one.

Cordially yours, 

Edwina Trout

It Could Happen To You

Jobs That Blow: Our Readers' Poll

We here at MonKeyArtAwards are asking our readers to rate the entertainment advertising agencies, past and present. Not by their creative work (we leave that to the prestigious Key Art Awards) but by their company culture.

Which is/was the best and the worst environment to nurture that high-strung, self-absorbed, overly sensitive inner child that it is the molten core of your creative being?

Post a comment below telling us your pick for the Best Shop (“It’s a workers’ paradise!”) and for the Worst Shop (“It’s a soul crushing pit of despair!”)

WSJ Puts Name To Typeface

If you’re like us, the identity you want revealed in the Wall Street Journal isn’t the name of some weasel who received a big, fat bonus at AIG, or Timothy Geithner's tax-dodging accountant. You want the name of the big baboon who flung Comic Sans into our tidy little typographically correct world.

"If you love it, you don't know much about typography," says Vincent Connare, the typeface’s designer, adding, "if you hate it, you really don't know much about typography, either, and you should get another hobby."

So, in conclusion, whether you love Comic Sans or you hate Comic Sans, you really don't know much about typography.

Yoo Hoo! Anyone Need Any Art Directed In There?

We read in The Book of Revelation that one of the signs of the end times is when art directors begin appearing in one-sheets. At least we think it was The Book of Revelation, maybe it was a Lionsgate straight to DVD horror movie... in any case, we'll allow this high strung creative type to remain unnamed as well as uninvited.

What A Load Of Craft

Because we assume we are chatting intimately among confrères, it is our policy here at MonKeyArtAwards to never address the petty concerns of the civilian population vis-à-vis our key arts and sciences.

So, when one the many life-wasting pixel pushers we count among our readership sent us a link to In Defense of The Floating Head Poster Artist, our first reaction was not to fling poo at it, but rather to poo poo it altogether.

However, we feel it behooves us to present Felipe Cerdán’s letter as a cautionary tale, so you might see for yourself how overly defensive we high strung creative types get when attempting to explain what Felipe calls our “craft” to the great unwashed masses.

And, although we’ve yet to figure out just which heads were floating on the My Best Friend’s Girl one-sheet, we now know just how tedious it is to read text set in 99CC00 on black.