Great interview. Now what's that's Henry's side monitor :-D ?
Anyway, those long deadlines are pretty standard deal, mostly because large real-estates start planning campaigns long before they have even approval to build. So the 6-12 months is for whole marketing suite (not only CGI agency is involved, but also marketing agencies, the whole strategy is laid out, so you do have time to make images.
Sometimes that also means lot of changes, and you getting tired of project and loosing motivation. Everything has +/- .