"fuck" - a story
Jul. 1st, 2004 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
egypturnashSome e-mail, and a collection of stories about designing the first Mac, made me think of this little saga.
Sometime near the end of summer, 2000. I was at Spümcø working on "Weekend Pussy Hunt". We were all pretty into it, I think; I know I was. Each episode was better, in terms of what we were getting out of Flash, than the last.
Then we got ahold of Flash 5.
We'd been anticipating this. I had, at least. 4's interface was often weird. And it had huge memory problems when you got to the point of putting the whole cartoon together. Especially on the Mac, which is what Spümcø used. But... it turned out that the initial Mac release of Flash had horrible memory problems. Work on a file for a while and it'd get into weird states where it'd start crashing, sometimes, after only five minutes or so of work. And this happened after you'd first worked on the file for a while, with enough work done that you didn't want to abandon it and go into 4 to redo it.
Add to this the fact that, of course, double-clicking on a source file would open it up in 5. And saving from that would result in a file only openable by 5 - there was no way to export a Flash 4 source file.
A half-done episode ended up largely in 5. Huge file, needed lots of changes. I got to work on this beast. I got to a point where I'd save every little alteration, because it'd probably crash before I could do another meaningful edit. And it would. And it'd crash Flash 5 in such a way that it wouldn't re-launch; I had to reboot the whole computer. Every time. I probably spent more time watching the Mac reboot than I did actually working on this cartoon.
I forget how, but I soon began writing "FUCK" on a small post-it every time Flash 5 crashed, and sticking it up on the monitor bezel. It was something to express my rising annoyance without, say, punching through my office window or something. People got very used to hearing me swear frequently.
Soon, I had several layers of post-its with "FUCK" written on them, all around the monitor bezel. I had to get another pad at some point, I know. I may have needed yet another. Finally, the episode was done - or at least done enough to send out.
We pulled Flash 5 off of almost every machine, of course. And I took the post-its, eventually, and put them up on my office window - as a Flash director, I had one with a window facing out on the semi-cubes most of the team worked in - spelling out "FLASH 5" in a bunch of little yellow pieces of paper with "FUCK" written on them. This was a sentiment that was pretty much shared by the rest of the crew, at this point. They'd all had their share of lost work from the program.
This stayed up for a while. I think it might've still been up when Icebox burned through all its money and stopped paying Spümcø for the show; I don't remember. Eventually Macromedia put out a '5.0a' patch for the Mac version that fixed it; I ended up preferring 5 over 4 or 6 once these memory and corruption issues got resolved. (There were major interface changes in the editor between 4, 5, and 6. 6 made some decisions for "context-sensitive" panels that double the amount of clicking one has to do, making dialogue take a lot longer to do - or at least feel that way, I haven't tried 7, and I won't until I'm working on a project that uses it - and I may just use it to save out 5 source files, as I did with 6 on "Pepe the Bull".) But that episode of Pussy Hunt was a nightmare.
A year or two later, after the different kind of nightmare that was "Booty Call", that choose-your-own-adventure softcore porn wigga show that did bad things to my soul, most of the former Spümcø Flash people who were doing that with me went on to "Mucha Lucha" at Warner TV. I was a rather notable exception - when the news that most of Nebulous was getting hired for that drifted through around Christmas, I shortly got told, nope, not me, don't even bother applying, you're not gonna get in. Supposedly the "FUCK FLASH 5" sign was why. Seems one of the execs involved in "Lucha" had formerly been with Icebox, and had seen my venting of this frustration when visiting Spümcø, and concluded that I was just too crazy to want to have on his show.
Nobody seems to have any stories about silly antics done during production of a show any more. The occasional drawing of the various characters in sexual permutations, that's about it. No pranks, no comedically overblown expressions of frustration, no funny yarns. Maybe nobody's collected them yet like they have for the golden age stuff, maybe people are afraid of epilogues like this one. I dunno.
(PS. All this was back when I was a tense, completely involuted boy, who pretty much stifled all expression of emotion except for the occasional display of anger. I finally came out to myself some time after all the events mentioned here.)
Sometime near the end of summer, 2000. I was at Spümcø working on "Weekend Pussy Hunt". We were all pretty into it, I think; I know I was. Each episode was better, in terms of what we were getting out of Flash, than the last.
Then we got ahold of Flash 5.
We'd been anticipating this. I had, at least. 4's interface was often weird. And it had huge memory problems when you got to the point of putting the whole cartoon together. Especially on the Mac, which is what Spümcø used. But... it turned out that the initial Mac release of Flash had horrible memory problems. Work on a file for a while and it'd get into weird states where it'd start crashing, sometimes, after only five minutes or so of work. And this happened after you'd first worked on the file for a while, with enough work done that you didn't want to abandon it and go into 4 to redo it.
Add to this the fact that, of course, double-clicking on a source file would open it up in 5. And saving from that would result in a file only openable by 5 - there was no way to export a Flash 4 source file.
A half-done episode ended up largely in 5. Huge file, needed lots of changes. I got to work on this beast. I got to a point where I'd save every little alteration, because it'd probably crash before I could do another meaningful edit. And it would. And it'd crash Flash 5 in such a way that it wouldn't re-launch; I had to reboot the whole computer. Every time. I probably spent more time watching the Mac reboot than I did actually working on this cartoon.
I forget how, but I soon began writing "FUCK" on a small post-it every time Flash 5 crashed, and sticking it up on the monitor bezel. It was something to express my rising annoyance without, say, punching through my office window or something. People got very used to hearing me swear frequently.
Soon, I had several layers of post-its with "FUCK" written on them, all around the monitor bezel. I had to get another pad at some point, I know. I may have needed yet another. Finally, the episode was done - or at least done enough to send out.
We pulled Flash 5 off of almost every machine, of course. And I took the post-its, eventually, and put them up on my office window - as a Flash director, I had one with a window facing out on the semi-cubes most of the team worked in - spelling out "FLASH 5" in a bunch of little yellow pieces of paper with "FUCK" written on them. This was a sentiment that was pretty much shared by the rest of the crew, at this point. They'd all had their share of lost work from the program.
This stayed up for a while. I think it might've still been up when Icebox burned through all its money and stopped paying Spümcø for the show; I don't remember. Eventually Macromedia put out a '5.0a' patch for the Mac version that fixed it; I ended up preferring 5 over 4 or 6 once these memory and corruption issues got resolved. (There were major interface changes in the editor between 4, 5, and 6. 6 made some decisions for "context-sensitive" panels that double the amount of clicking one has to do, making dialogue take a lot longer to do - or at least feel that way, I haven't tried 7, and I won't until I'm working on a project that uses it - and I may just use it to save out 5 source files, as I did with 6 on "Pepe the Bull".) But that episode of Pussy Hunt was a nightmare.
A year or two later, after the different kind of nightmare that was "Booty Call", that choose-your-own-adventure softcore porn wigga show that did bad things to my soul, most of the former Spümcø Flash people who were doing that with me went on to "Mucha Lucha" at Warner TV. I was a rather notable exception - when the news that most of Nebulous was getting hired for that drifted through around Christmas, I shortly got told, nope, not me, don't even bother applying, you're not gonna get in. Supposedly the "FUCK FLASH 5" sign was why. Seems one of the execs involved in "Lucha" had formerly been with Icebox, and had seen my venting of this frustration when visiting Spümcø, and concluded that I was just too crazy to want to have on his show.
Nobody seems to have any stories about silly antics done during production of a show any more. The occasional drawing of the various characters in sexual permutations, that's about it. No pranks, no comedically overblown expressions of frustration, no funny yarns. Maybe nobody's collected them yet like they have for the golden age stuff, maybe people are afraid of epilogues like this one. I dunno.
(PS. All this was back when I was a tense, completely involuted boy, who pretty much stifled all expression of emotion except for the occasional display of anger. I finally came out to myself some time after all the events mentioned here.)
no subject
Date: 2004-07-02 03:08 am (UTC)I've worked at places where customisation of your desk space was forbidden in the intrests of 'profesionalisim'. And all desk areas had to be cleared at the end of working day. This just resulted in people randomly stuffing objects and papers in drawers. And thus reduced record keeping to anarchy.
Being unique, a character, exhuberant or expresive are of course mortal sins against 'profesionalisim'.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-02 06:28 am (UTC)Okay, let's say you are the manager of a large boxyard of empoyee's. YOu know that the average legnth of contract is three months, despite what the recruitment agent has told people. YOu don't temp-to-hire, and the only person of real value you have is a cheerless man you keep as your personal assistant.
Now, one day, you get a very loud and happy personality in this setting, who decides that on their breaks, they are going to turn their stall into Cinco De Mayo. Lots of Bright Paper, Pictures of Family, a little Taco Bell dog, the whole enchellada. For some unknown reason, the upper management likes her, and decides to keep her for one more cycle, so another group of people see her. She's the only one that really goes all out like this.
Now, you've let people in the past personalize a little, as it does bring up moral. However, this woman's contract is up, and she now leaves...
Now you start hearing rumors about the company downsizing, and is going to be getting rid of people. Now you are hearing that you are such a for firing her. Deal with the mess that the now vacant space means to the average worker as a reminder that they simply are not going to make it.
-------
Okay, that was a bit exterme, but could very easily happen. That's why some places perfer inhuman work conditions to actual humane ones.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-02 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-02 10:36 am (UTC)HEY! They are back!
http://www.Icebox.com
no subject
Date: 2004-07-02 10:41 am (UTC)Wasn't me
Date: 2004-07-02 01:11 pm (UTC)As for Mucha Lucha, I never said you shouldn't apply.
Just wanted to clarify things.
Re: Wasn't me
Date: 2004-07-02 04:50 pm (UTC)Also, Windows just aggravates the hell out of me. Admittedly in this case it would've been less aggravating, since Macromedia has a history of buggier Mac versions of their tools...
no subject
Date: 2004-07-02 05:48 pm (UTC)Apply anyways.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-06 05:01 pm (UTC)