What can I say about this book?  The publishers totally F'd me over. I should have seen it coming with all the miscommunication that was going on.

The first thing that gave me the clue that the folks at New Riders have a screw loose was when I kept getting passed from development editor to development editor.  Each time a new development editor was assigned to my project, I felt like we were repeating most of the same information.

The next clue was when I got a call from New Riders saying that Pearson Education (the parent company) decided to reorganize their prints.  All After Effects/video related titles were moved over to Peach Pit Press and the title was to be changed from Inside Adobe After Effects 5.5 to Real World After Effects 5.5. According to the editors, nothing major was wrong except for the title change.

No big deal, I continued to write.

I was one chapter away from being complete with the first draft with over half the book having completed the Tech Editor review  (last step before finalized) when I got a message from New Riders/Peach Pit/Pearson that because of the reorganization there was miscommunication and Peach Pit already had a title called Real World After Effects.

The author of the "other" After Effects book apparently didn't or doesn't want to share writing credit, so my book has been cancelled.

That is why I hate people that do not know how to communicate or how to get their organization to function correctly.

One chapter away from completion and the book is now dead. Or is it?  You have seen some of the images, and know my work found in the Tutorials section of this book.

Would you like to see it finally published?  Or would you be interested in buying an 800 page book complete with projects and tutorials you won't find being published by any other group? Contact me at schleicher@mindspring.com

I completed a 40 minute video for the Kansas DEM in November 2002. This was a project that just continued to grow and grow as more people got invovled. One moment I was just going to be editing some video footage that the DEM was providing, the next moment I was riding on top of a Firetruck gathering footage for the project.

The piece has been very successful and was distributed to all of the counties in Kansas as well as some of the neighboring states.  Last I heard, the DEM had ordered 200 more copies to be made.

This was a great project to work on, and even though I am not super happy with the outcome, the client loved it.  And in the end, that is all that matters.

Because of something really great that has happened in my life, I'm also currently working on a feature script that covers everything. If you are a studio looking for a great project, contact me as soon as possible. More information here as soon as I feel like I'm ready to share it with you. (Hey, gotta keep bringing you back!)

In the Fall of 2001 a couple of my students asked if I could come up with a project that would emulate what it is like to work on a "real" movie. So I came up with the idea of two undercover guys trying to make a difference.  

Sean Kenyon and Dave Lane wrote the trailer and starred in this zero budget project.  A year later, we were going to turn it into a 16 part series to run on the local cable station, the Internet, as well as offer it on DVD. I'll was to be the producer of this series.  

Production was to begin in the Fall of 2002, but because of the book commitment, this project is currently delayed.

Want to know how some of the effects shots were done?  Check out the Tutorials Section of this site.