#killfees

[dearartdirector]

Hi DAD, a piece of mine got killed at the final stage and i don't know why. the back and forth between me and the AD up to that point had been pretty positive, and i did all the revisions asked. i haven't heard from that AD since. will an AD not want to work with someone whose work has been killed?

This happens a lot, and often it has nothing to do with the artist’s work. I have had to kill pieces because a project got cancelled, because the final manuscript wasn’t anything like what we expected and the original art no longer fit, because everyone who was approving it all along got into a snit and hated what they said they loved. 

But, realistically, it also could have been something about your art. In that case, the AD probably feels badly about it, and isn’t going to go into detail unless asked, because a lot of artists don’t want honest feedback.

So you can say something like: “I just wanted to check in. I know the piece was killed, and I know this happens sometimes, but I just wanted to make sure that there wasn’t anything I could have done differently to help the process. If there is, I am open to the feedback and would love to maintain our working relationship.”

—Agent KillFee

[dearartdirector]

Dear DAD, how often to you run into the issue of hiring someone who is unable to fulfil a prompt? Not for the lack of effort, but maybe things just aren't clicking with the person doing the job and what they're delivering isn't meeting your expectations. On that matter, how often do you have to shut a job down and give it to another artists to take over? Do you ever get pieces that you're less than happy with but must be pushed through due to deadlines?

Occasionally. It doesn’t happen too often if the AD is doing their job right and picking the right artists, but everyone shits the bed sometimes. That’s what kill fees are for. If the piece is close, I’ll take over files and adjust the best I can to fit what we need. 

—Agent KillFee