True story. And if you pay attention, I will reveal how.
A couple of years ago, between the period of graduating and getting a job that wasn't making tea for people who had cooler jobs or working in a game store, I used to, on occasion, do favours for a friend of mine who was working as a researcher in a tv production company.
Graphic Artist type favours, don't get any ideas. On a couple of occasions he needed images for shows and fast, so I would illustrate things and send them off, sign a contract that guaranteed everything was my own creation and the copyright belonged to me and that was that - I never saw the £1 fee I had to charge to make things official. Often that was the last I heard of them as they were lost in the pitching process. All is fair and good when you are just looking to have something you've done appear on the television.
One morning I was slowly awakening to the sound of my phone ringing. I answer, it's my friend, he'd spent the previous week aboard a pirate ship sailing about the coast of England filming footage for a (big documentary channel) show about... Pirates. He tells me he needs pirate flags. Double quicktime. I say one word to communicate I'm onto things and I hang up.
That word. Shamefully. Was 'Arrrrr'.
So there I am, drawing several historically accurate (and I think, pretty cool) pirate flags for him to send to be used in the edit of the show. I cover the big names. The Jolly Roger, Blackbeards Flag, the Calico Jack. I send them off. The response is that they need to be dirtier, as though they're used.
Dirtying things up is nothing some grunge brushes can't handle, and this is finished post haste. I send them off. Another response. They need to look like they are on Fabric, distorted like they're on a flag. Which is more of a problem.
Distorting things like this is usually pretty easy, provided you have some footage you can use as a displacement map - which is a black and white image which the original image looks at - and then displaces/distorts a certain amount and in a certain direction dependent on the value of the pixels in the displacement map.
The problem was that I had nothing to create a displacement map with. I am sure you can see where this is going. I spent an hour rumpling and photographing high contrast images of my bedsheets. Removing the colour and applying filters to them and then trying them out as displacement maps. The end result was several pirate flag images that appeared as though they were on fabric.
And they were all used. I saw them on TV several times. In the adverts for the program and in the program itself. Over and Over. Most memorable being the first time, when sat around the television with my parents I stood up, pointing and shouting 'those are my bedsheets!'.
And THAT is how my rumpled bed sheets were on TV. I would post the actual images up, though I don't really feel it'd be professional - I will review my contract and see if I am allowed.
Incidentally - the guy I did this for is the person who recommended me for a job he interviewed for. Which landed me my first artist job and kickstarted my career as an artist. In a way, my whole career is based off of putting my bedsheets on the telly.
I've been meaning to share that one online for some time. It should be safe to now.
-Hybrid
