Slow death by commitee.
The deadline was tight, so instead of presenting the storyboard, I emailed it through. A big mistake in hindsight. The response came back faster than I expected:
“The CEO hates it.”
Their Creative Director followed with a list of suggested changes.
I realised that if I revised it without a conversation, the work would slowly become literal and the thinking behind it would get lost. After all, remote committees don’t produce outstanding creative work.
So I sent another email:
“I know we don’t have much time, but I’m committed to making this great. Could we meet tomorrow at 11am with all three stakeholders before I jump back into the drawing board?”
They agreed, but an hour before the meeting the CEO dropped out, which meant I wouldn’t have the chance to explain the thinking directly to the main decision-maker.
For an hour and a half I stepped through everything… why that shape, why that transition, why that colour shift at that exact moment... When I finished, the Creative Director looked at me and said, “I’ll just have to tell them to trust you.” and off I went into post-production.
Three days later, after a few long days and nights, I sent the film to the client. Ten minutes after sharing it, the CEO replied;
“It’s so great. I love it.”
I won’t lie, I felt relieved.
That experience, early in my career when I was still freelancing, changed how I work. There will always be deadline pressure, but some steps aren’t negotiable and if I care enough, I need to be in the room to sell my ideas, or they’ll die a slow death by committee.
