War Stories: Color House Tales

This requires skill. At first, when I gave false delivery dates (a few days before the actual drop-dead delivery date), the color house reps would routinely call the printer, discover the real date, and still deliver at the last minute. To circumvent this, I began working with my printers to make sure the color house couldn’t discover the real date. This was difficult—printers tend to have a lot of staff. But overall, with the enthusiastic cooperation of my color house rep (he didn’t like hanging around the lobby at 1 a.m. either), I’ve become skilled at keeping everyone at the color house in the dark about when the actual drop-dead date is for delivering film or files.