Production Management
In addition to my animation skills, I also tend to take on roles in production management. My organizational skills are top-notch, my spreadsheets are fire, and my teammates hate (love) to see me coming with my Regular Production Updates (tm). So, if you will, let’s take a gander at how I, for example, have been keeping my most recent project Popped or Alive (Coming spring 2025!) on track!
Flow (formerly Shotgun)
Our primary production tracking website is Autodesk’s Flow. Here we store all of our assets, tasks, and reviews for dailies purposes. This is an example of what our tasks look like in our schedule next to the corresponding Gantt chart. Each crew member has their own personal schedule, although I usually end up looking at the entire crew at once. I frequently check back to this schedule to readjust due dates, assign tasks, and mark tasks as complete once the final files have been uploaded.
Another task that I have is to create and update reviews in Flow that we use for dailies during crew and class meetings. We have 2-3 reviews per week, and for each one I link all viewable versions. Once the review is over I mark all versions as either ‘N/A’ or ‘Viewed’, that way when I go to make a review for the next class, I can easily filter all versions by “Pending Review” and see what hasn’t been looked at yet.
Additionally, I update and upload the Master File for our film! For each class I download all new passes of each shot, plug them into the Master File, and upload a new version to the Master File task. By uploading a Master File, we have more control over frame counts and any editing that needs to be done to shots. Although we usually look directly at the Master File for critique during class, I will also link every shot individually in the review so we can go in more depth if necessary.
Discord
In addition to Flow, our team also heavily relies on Discord for communication. Our Discord server has several channels that are used for critique, lists, and crew-wide announcements and updates! This is an example of our assignment lists within Discord. This way, we can list tasks that can’t necessarily be linked to Flow, and I can put critique directly next to the assignment itself.
One of my tasks that lives inside of Discord is to upload the notes i’ve taken during every crew meeting (more on that later!). Each set of notes is labeled and clearly listed for crew members to find if they need information that we discussed during our meeting, or if they would like further clarification on a piece of critique they received!
After each class and meeting I provide an update in our announcements channel! These updates always have a link to where the assignments list can be found (In the assignments channel), are clearly labeled, and contain reminders regarding decisions we’ve made, general updates on our progress, and upcoming due dates and/or meetings!
A few of my favorite other channels within our server include the Links channel (This is where we store important links to documents and spreadsheets that remain the same for the most part throughout production. For example, our shot list is linked here) and our Syncsketch channel (Once an animator has a new pass to be reviewed, they post a link in the syncsketch channel. Once another crew member has critiqued it, they react to the message with their assigned emoji to indicate there are new notes avaliable!).
Google Suite
Occasionally there are things that even Flow and Discord can’t handle, and for those I turn to the ever-reliable Google Suite. Our team uses many of Google’s free features to help create calendars, guides, documents, and spreadsheets! Here are a few slides from our tech guide, which we use to establish procedures for various aspects of production. Naming conventions, submission instructions, tutorials, and animation guides can all be found here.
Next we have a google calendar. This calendar contains external deadlines from our university, as well as crew meeting and broader due dates. For example, for the second half of our second quarter the due dates for our animation passes aligned, so all spline passes were due on February 26th.
Here is an example of what my meeting notes might look like. All notes have a label, attendance, and and agenda. Following that is usually a “General Information” section, followed by individual critique. If necessary I will also include shorter task lists that I can go back and simplify or add into our main task lists later. During our meetings my goal is to be efficient and clear, so I don’t waste time asking my team to wait for me to do administrative tasks.
Finally, we have a few important spreadsheets that I created and manage. Our most important is our shot list! This spreadsheet contains data for each shot that I have calculated into a graph on a second page. This gives us a better view of our overall progress and is generally easier to read. I’ve spent quite a bit of time creating a set of charts that will automatically update as I change dropdown menus, such as what pipeline step a certain shot is on or how difficult the shot is.
