Thursday, March 31, 2005

Moving Day!

I've been working from home today and will be tomorrow as well. ReelFX is in the middle of moving to our new facility a few miles down the road from our old location. We're moving to Mark Cuban's old Yahoo/Broadcast.com building. The place is pretty big. Lots of room to grow. A little sterile, though. We'll need to do something about that.

I worked at Big Idea when we made a big move from downtown out to the suburbs. It had the same kind of feel. We moved from a scrambled mess across several floors of a fringe downtown converted warehouse to a more open floor space that was cubicle/office furniture friendly. When we moved into our new space at Big Idea my good friend Bryan Ballinger and I decided to add some color to the dreadful corporate grey cubism that greeted us. We had an edict from the powers that be that we were not allowed to put anything on the walls above a certain height. They were trying to keep it from looking like the ecclectic mess downtown. So instead we strung a clothes line above the entrance to our little section of cube land (not on a wall, ust suported by a building beam and a 2x6 plank) and proceeded to drape hundreds of the ugliest, stupidest, gaudiest neck ties you've ever seen from it. I mean these things were criminally bad. I think we did that the second day we were there. I still remember seeing the founder of the company slowly walking into his office, just looking at us while we were up on a step ladder hanging hundreds of ugly ties on a line in his brand new, clean, well ordered facility. Directly across from his office. We said "Hi, Phil" and kept right on hanging the ties. Welcome to your animation studio, I thought.

I think that was OK. When we accidentally blew off the Yoohoo chocloate drink bomb, spraying fermented Yoohoo all over the office like a geyser, we feared for our jobs. That's another story I'll tell someday. It's a classic. But after a while people grew to love the ties. They were a regular stop on tours through the studio. They added personality to the place.

So in that spirit here a few of us ReelFX animators will be hitting the garage sales this weekend to try and scare up some cheesy furnishings for the lounge. Desk toys aren't gonna cut it, kids. I'll be bringing my futon from home. Might bring my super el cheapo pool table as well (complete with warped cues). We had a pretty decent pool table at Blur. It was a great way to get away from the work and relax for a bit. Of course I didn't like losing to Jason Taylor everyday, but I made up for it during Quake games. Heh. Anyhow, John Berry's bringing his alligator statue. I might do some shopping on eBay to pick up some odd decorations to spruce things up a bit. Found some blindingly yellow felt fabric the other day that I'll probably scarf up and use to dress up the skyline. Yeah, we're gonna make sure we have a lounge kickin'. We're looking for a circa 1980 cheap-o keyboard and a purple crushed velvet pimp jacket. We'd like to have it so that any visitors will be required to do their best Robert Goulet impersonation. Either that or they have to leave a tip in the martinni glass. We've already got our eye on a spot in the new building for the animator's lounge. One thing I learned from the Big Idea move back in the day is that in the chaos it's squatter's rules. First one to pee on the fire hydrant owns the fire hydrant. Metaphorically speaking, I mean.

I'm sure if any management people are reading this they're getting ready to shut me down. ;o)

Heh. I wonder why they put us animators waaaaaay in the back away from everybody else at the opposite end of the building from the client suites? We're not that loud and crazy. Oh wait, yes we are. Heh. Should be fun. I'll try and grab some pix of the new space next week. I wanna wait til we have it all decked out first.

-k

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey keith,
Congrats on reelfx.
I remember seeing some job postings on cgchannel for them. Is it ur company?
haha I'd like to see all those crazy ties to believe this story.
but of all the cool and colorful things u can hang up, ties???
I swear we animators are so special. :P

Anonymous said...

you should see the ties my old man wheres one has a plastic mouse stuck to it.

ohh and the star trek ones...dont go there!

Anonymous said...

And i thought the cheep 3ft tall fiber-optic Christmas tree thats on all year round was bad (you know the ones that have the little stands of plastic that change color). The ties are a great idea though, threes a good will near the office where you can buy clothing by the pound, that could be allot of ties for $2. I normally stick to Toys to keep my workspace fun. One of the animators and i had this cool spiderman aerial battle hanging from the ceiling, complete with spiderman, venom, and the greengoblin. Now that was cool in a nerdy way of course:). Coloured light can also be fun be it Christmas lights, rope light or neon(haven't gotten any of that yet but it may be in the works).

Keith Lango said...

It's not "my" company. I just work there. :o) I didn't mention the time back at Big Idea where Bryan and I decided to decorate our area for Christmas.... by gift wrapping *everything*. Monitors. Chairs. Cubicles. computers. Mice. The floor. The walls. That was a lot of gift wrapping.

-k

Anonymous said...

Very Wastefull Keith... think of all the the trees that were used to make your miles of squandered wrapping paper. :O) Happy move buddy! Hope the new digs treat you well. I have not played much pool since you left... I guess no one is as much fun to flog at pool than you.

Take care

Jason

Thom said...

Tie-land was quite a sight, indeed. What was Phil's reaction to the Incredible Edibles display?