Before my stint at The Ink Tank, Brian produced a few animated scenes for a national commercial.
These were quick, 3 to 4 second shots. One feature a "Warner Bros." style dog. It was more of classic MGM dog, but that was fine -it was what the agency wanted. After the usual back and forth the design was approved.
A couple weeks later, the pencil test long approved, the film goes to camera and transfer. The next day, Brian gets called into the agency. There's a problem.
A big problem.
The dog is off model, in a bad way. Seems a production artist felt the design could be improved by adding gold spikes to the dog's collar.
Of course, it had been long decided that would be too close to Tom & Jerry dog.
The agency screamed that the studio must "indemnify" the client against any possible infringement. Dictionaries were consulted and the character was rechristened "Indemnification Dog".
I saw the clip a few years later and would never confuse the two. The commercial dog was a completely different color, for one. The line work and shapes were all different too.
There are several lessons to be learned here. 1) Check all your art -don't trust production artists. 2) If you are the production artist -stick with the model book. Chances are there are decisions made beyond the scope of your knowledge. 3) Get indemnified.
3 comments:
Is the screengrab from the project or from the Tom and Jerry cartoon?
That's "Tom & Jerry". All copies of Indemnification Dog are being stored in a vault under the Pentagon.
This is priceless.
Post a Comment