Last year was a challenge for everyone. Nearly everyone I know or have talked to has said that financial and personal hardship was the order of the day.
For business owners, small and large, the struggle has been particularly torturous. Customers dried up. New development, new direction, new ideas were put on the back burner, or even tossed out permanently. Everyone hunkered down and watched for signs that the storm had passed.
SSC&C and RLP had the same issues, of course. Being a very new business, just under a year old last January, we were the ideal candidate for failure. And, indeed, it was grim for several months with only occasional small jobs here and there.
Fortunately, our reputation for professionalism and dependability was beginning to get around, and we started getting requested regularly by a few clients. Unfortunately, those clients had less work and the few new clients making inquiries were still not sure about paying for actors in an environment where recruiting for volunteers seemed to be the norm for rounding up talent for a film - even if it made for longer, less productive work days. What we offered, trained avatar puppeteers and voice talent, and guaranteed coverage for no shows, made sense and was attractive, but was regarded by some as a luxury that they could ill afford in the gloomy economic climate.
I tried not to dwell on the heady days of 2008, the year when a great opportunity became our jumping off point. During that time, when my methods and practices were still taking shape, I typically felt like I was hanging on for dear life, putting a car together as it hurtled down the freeway at 80 miles per hour. Frightening, but oh so thrilling!
2009, however, while starting out with a bang with a big project, slowly began to trickle away to the occasional small gig. The promise of a potentially exciting partnership never materialized. As for clients, I got nibbles, a few inquiries, but nothing bore fruit. I started to get requests for machinima shoots, but not with an accompanying call for actors. I began to wonder how to keep my actors and actresses busy. Interested. PAID. Many were new to acting, but had fallen in love with the work. They were excited, hungry for more work, paid or no. I began to fear that if I didn't feed that hunger, they'd give up on SSC&C.
I was lucky, however to have found, in the midst of so many SL residents who want to "camp" for Linden dollars, a group of genuinely dedicated folks. I lost a few along the way, in the beginning, but those that hung in there, to my amazement and delight, were not only supportive and patient during the crazy start and the lean second year, they believed, and still believe, in my vision for this company as much as I did. Their tenacity made me work doubly hard to be worthy of that level of loyalty by continuing to try to get work for us.
I'm happy to say the end of the year, normally a time for things to slow down, actually saw the beginning of new projects, a couple of which have carried over into the new year. This sudden, unseasonable resurgence in interest in my talent pool was like an unexpectedly early spring and promise of a fruitful new period in the life-cycle of our little company.
With fingers crossed, we will continue to move forward, together it seems, despite the odds.
Welcome 2010. We are ready for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment