Project management

[Simon Edmondson]

I asked some time ago about conventions people use for organising their projects and have tried to implement the suggestions received. Can anyone recommend a good resource to start learning about project management on a small scale ?

In the past I've tended to rely on my memory, which is Ok but, as the projects start to get more involved, the end results might benefit from a more systematic approch?

Regards

simon

[Rodney]

I must assume you intend to manage an animation project here.

 

The holy grail of project management has produced a lot of thought and theory... lots of it even useful.

Most projects don't require fancy setups however. And this is where things get dicey as we often create artifices that are more complex than necessary.

 

 

As you state you want to learn more about project management on a 'small scale'. As such, I'd recommend first looking into animation drafts.

Animation drafts were used to quickly identify and assign shots from an (developing) animated project.

Their usage was prevalent from the earliest days of animation.

 

Now if you are the only one working on the project obviously one aspect of the animation draft will be rather useless and that is the column that identifies who is assigned to the shot.

My suggestion there would be to adapt that section for other purpose such as a simple way to track Start and Stop (Initiation and Completion).

 

The simplicity of the draft is that it can all be contained on a few pages of paper with columns (even automated in excel or other spreadsheet).

Post that draft in a prime location so that you see how the project is progressing often.

Most modern project management solutions at their core still rely on spreadsheets and data-bases of this type.

 

Why use the draft?

The number one reason to use an animation draft is that it worked really well for initiating the majority of animation projects from the earliest years of animation until the advent of computers where much of that process has been automated/reconfigured/hidden just out of view/lost. The simplicity of use should be obvious.

 

Steps to produce a draft:

1. Write down the required shots (as you see them at the moment)

2. Add a short description of the purpose for that shot (what is the action of the shot... the activity should capture why that shot needs to be there at that precise moment in the film)

3. Roughly time them out (It can help to read the description, close your eyes and see the shot playing out in your imagination) Tip: For accurate timing use a stopwatch! Close eyes. Hit Start. See shot play out. Hit Stop.

4. Make a note of any special handling instruction (such as 'no animation' or 'zoom in on background')

5. Place a diagonal line across the column of shots that are considered finished as you check them off. (on the attached draft I believe they simply draw a line down the middle of the entire story description column)

5a. Place a second diagonal line going the opposite way of the first in the appropriate column (creating an X) when youdeem that shot to be final with regard to the entire sequence. (in other words... the shot is done but does it still fit with the other shots of the sequence? The shot is not really final if it doesn't properly fit in with the sum total of all shots.)

5b. Use colors to indicate additional stages of the process (yellow might be 'sound sync', green might be 'lighting' and black might be 'completely in the can (i.e. done).

Don Bluth once stated with regard to one of their early independent films (possibly 'Secret of NIMH') they had somewhere approaching 20 different marks/colors that accumulated in one box to advise them of the shots progress

6. *If* a shot is dropped out of the film then put a broad X mark through the row of the shot

7. Update the draft as necessary leaving out any dropped shots (the fact that the shot numbering will skip the removed shots will be enough to suggest the history/removal of that shot) If a new shot is added a letter can be appended to indicate what shot it follows (see attached draft for examples of shot 1a, and 1b added after shot 1)

 

I believe Disney's famous 'Steamboad Willie' consisted of only a two page draft. This was enough to capture the core elements of the project.

 

And here is where we tend to get lost in the complexity of project management because everything thereafter is no longer Project Management but means to an end; to progressively complete any given shot.

There are many useful tools to work with Shot Management (bar sheets, xsheets, script/storyboards and animatics being the primary examples) but those need not complicate the larger (and actually simpler) process of project management.

 

Attached: An early hand drafted animation outline/ledger from a 1930s project. Hence the name 'draft'.

There's is also the primary consideration for the use of early project management tools in animation and that was to assign footage to animators. This was important not only for purposes of creating the animated film but because the animators were often paid based on their footage. In the attached draft the right-most column identifies that frames/footage. When only one person is doing all of the footage it might help to plan things out by thinking of the amount of work that sole animator will have to do. Assigned to me on Monday... 22 frames. Assigned to me on Tuesday... 120 frames. Assigned to me on Wednesday... 300 frames. Etc.

[Simon Edmondson]

Rodney

Thank you very much indeed for your very helpful reply.

Regards

simon

[Rodney]

If you want a few links for software and such there is quite an array of options.

 

At present I would suggest anyone working on a project look into Frame.io.

You'll find the service is free for smaller type projects and a recent update now allows versioning of all types of attachements (not just video files).

Theoretically you can manage your whole project (to include uploading and storing A:M files) via Frame.io.

You can then invite others to review and contribute to your project.

 

There are many other venues similar to Frame.io as more and more companies see opportunity to help you manage your projects.

In my estimation, Frame.io appears to be one of the best and better funded efforts and is well worth checking out.

 

https://www.frame.io/

[Rodney]

To follow this same general line of thinking (regarding the use of drafts) for project management here's a nice article from Cartoon Brew that details some of the early use of drafts. This one being from Terry Toons in 1930. Of specific interest is the turn around time on these shorts. The article states the production was started 10 January and completed 28 January... a three week turn around. The production was then playing in theaters 10 weeks later. The production of 'Indian Pudding' runs approx 5 minutes and is linked there in the article.

 

*While watching 'Indian Pudding' (or any black and white animated film) take note of the extensive use of animated cycles which was especially prevalent in the early days of animation.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/classic/rare-terrytoon-draft-for-indian-pudding-34486.html

[Rodney]

Lest anyone think drafts are a thing of the far flung past, I haven't seen a lot of modern day drafts mostly because they haven't been put into circulation but they do exist. Here's the first page of 'The Lion King' draft, which to me looks like it was created in MS Excel:

[Rodney]

The draft is used in live action filming too but often goes by the name 'shot list'. Of course in an animated film the animator is the actor so it stands to reason that if used in similar fashion that column would still indicate the actor. Another closely related form would be the 'call sheet' that helps run herd over those live actors and helps them be where they need to be when filming starts. Animator's don't really need a call sheet because they are always on call and largely get to be their own cast, crew and cinematographer. Where the call sheet might be useful in animation projects is when working with voice actors.

 

Here's a random live action shot list grabbed from the internet:

 

Edit: I've also attached an example call sheet. A similar notetaking approach can be used to identify assets required (but not yet available) in the course of a production.

On 'Tin Woodman of Oz' various means were used to track progress to include spreadsheets and dotProject software*.

 

 

*To the best of my knowledge the opensource dotProject software has fallen out of favor and hasn't been updated in years. A similar software used these days would be Southpaw's Tactic. Both generally require significant effort in setup or paying someone else to set things up. For small projects these solutions would be overly complex. Note that Southpaw currently is featuring it's commericial releases of Tactic which are called Workflow and VFX as those generate money for them. Tactic itself is free and can be configured and customized as desired. Workflow and VFX are versions that are largely configured/customized already for the average customer. It looks to me like Southpaw will be releasing a cloud version in the very near future and I'd guess that will be pay as you go with the obligatory free service for limited accounts. Even if not using Tactic or other software much can be learned from watching the training videos provided on what others see as optimal project management. If planning to pay for project management software I'd recommend trying out Shotgun.https://www.shotgunsoftware.com/features/ Shotgun isn't exactly software agnostic (it was purchased by Autodesk) but can be shoehorned into any workflow.

 

Added: Yet another popular commercial-grade project management software is ftrack.

[Rodney]

I may have scared off everyone else that wants to comment but there's a lot of good stuff out there to consider.

One that I'd like to see us take advantage of is A:M's own capability to track it's own project management.

Somewhere I have a few topics on the subject but for our purposes here consider that all one might need to do to track some elements of a project/production is add a pose slider or two. For instance, a pose slider consisting of a simple on/off to suggest whether an asset is finished or not. Perhaps a percentage slider to indicate an estimate of how much further the asset needs to go before being considered 'final'.

 

Ideally, an external application would reach into an A:M file and pull out those sliders... and grab the preview image (which is in base16 format or somesuch) of the asset also.

 

Here's what a simple status slider looks like inside a model file:

 

[Model]

...

User Properties

Status

MinValue=-100

Type=Percentage

DefaultPercent=0

FactorValue=100

...

[/Model]

 

Which produces the standard pose slider (in this case set to default of -100 (nowhere near started!) but able to be increased to 100%.

 

Thinking pie in the sky future program management integrated with A:M:

A programmer might even provide a means to prompt any file that isn't at 90-100% from final rendering in a rendering that requires assets to be 90% or higher in status. Would that asset be replaced by a proxy? A white mask? Left out entirely? I suppose there'd have to be some setting for that. The similar approach might be used to render layers via the settings of a different status slider. Ex: Render everything with a level between 20 and 60. A:M would then either treat everything else as transparent or 'off'.

[Simon Edmondson]

Rodney

Thank you very much indeed for your extensive help. Very much appreciated.

Much to chew over.

I have the disadvantage of coming from a Fine Art background, (one of my colleagues last year suggested that meant "unorganised by definition" ) so used to working by and for myself so I have no real awareness of project management and keeping track of assets. Much to be learned.

regards

simon

[Roger]

This is good stuff, I need to look into this. My project is kind of strange because there are two categories I have to manage: things I know how to do that I can act on now and things I need to learn (or brush up on) so I can add them to the first category. I'm trying to decide what a good ratio is between dedicating time to actual production and bolstering my deficits.

[Rodney]

I'm trying to decide what a good ratio is between dedicating time to actual production and bolstering my deficits.

 

Hmmm...

 

I think you should devote 100% of your time to actual production (and here I mean pre, pro and post production) and 100% of your time to bolstering your deficits.

As we are making this up as we go along we might as well give ourselves 200% to work with from the get go.

 

More seriously, consider what the big guys (PIXAR etc.) do in the course of making short films and then rolling what they learn from those targeted exercises into their larger production efforts.

In other words, let the specific needs of production help you decide.

 

There is a saying (and I paraphrase here), "A task will expand to fill the allotted time" and so any production is largely a mathematical equation.

How much time you allot a production will scale toward infinity unless there is a concrete plan in place to let you (and any contributors) know when the product is 'finished'.

 

Where numbers are preferred...

I would suggest taking a task/production and dividing it into thirds (for easier math... without the need for math).

For instance, if you have three blocks of time available and you want to dedicate some to production and some specifically to research just as a means to get off and running you could allot two blocks to production and one to research.

 

Now... move away from them being linear in nature (block 1, 2 and 3) and consider each of those as occurring simultaneously.

Stacked on top of each other they would appear as:

 

Production 2

Production 1

Research

 

Now divide each of those into three parts where the 33% and 66% (imaginary) division can move.

At a guess I'd say maximum efficiency would allow them to slide from 20% to 33% on the first division and from 66% to 80 on the second.

Why? To allow for a little thing folks call the Pareto Principle (perhaps we can delve more deeply into that aspect some other time).

 

So now we have 9 sections and we'll relabel a little to help us in our attempt to organize:

 

Post Production 2 - Distribution 1 - Distribution 2

Production 1 - Production 2 - Post Production 1

Research 1 - Preproduction 1 - Preproduction 2

 

Now as we examine those in depth we move into the 3rd dimension which for our purpose creates a structure like a rubics cube but unlike 'real world' rubics cubes the size of the 'cubes' is dynamic and can change.

As needed we can relabel/color them too. Example:

 

Final Polish - Distribution - Postmortem

Preproduction - Production - Post Production

Research - Staffing - Development

 

As there are six sides to a rubics cube (6x9) that gives us lots of room for labels to be applied even before we start messing with the dynamics of an ever changing production.We then organize what we have in front of us (at that given time) turning whatever we need around and around until it's fully in view and squarely in focus. And because it's nigh impossible to see our cube from all possible angles simultaneously, perhaps we can assign others to keep their focus on those things that we can't see on our side.

 

Okay, that was way more info than anyone called for... but that's what happens when fingers start typing.

But yeah, for a general ratio... 1:1, 1:2 or 1:3 1:4... depending on how you prefer to divide your time. (From a risk management perspective I suppose we could also ask, "What will happen if we allocate too much time?")

Just remember you've got a limited amount of time (in your life) so draft a plan that specifically sets limits on production time.

The shorter generally the better says I.

[Simon Edmondson]

This is more about stop motion animation but, there are also some glimpses of project management. AND it is very involved !!!

xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij3IbplMisA&feature=em-subs_digest

[Rodney]

I'm glad you posted that.

 

That 'wall-o-post-it notes' is exactly what I was talking about with regard to the filling in of blocks/columns to suggest current status of each shot/sequence.

Aardman's project has the additional complexity required due to the presence of '30 other animators'.

The color coded swatches with departments written on them is scalable depending on whether one or one hundred people are working on the project.

 

For better understanding of a (literal) scaling of the project management tool demonstrated in the video imagine those walls of post-it notes being an excel spreadsheet. Same principle.

At about 5:30 Dan refers to his xsheet/dopesheet where he demonstrates the tool animators use to really get into the details of project management at the frame level (with special emphasis on its use for dialogue). While the specific form used by Aardman animators has been modified slightly from the classic xsheet it still captures the same frame by frame instructions o fthose classic dope sheets.

 

Major aside; There's a bit of 'project management' that I believe would be particularly useful for one or two person teams that want to fast track their projects and that would be to mirror the setup of a crisis management (or if you will allow the term, hostage negotiation). Don't laugh! I'm serious! That approach is first and foremost tailored to resolve projects/problems quickly and decisively. The underlying purpose being to establish Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to follow rather than costly methods (of change and guesswork) that will certainly lead to failure/disaster. I see a major component of this approach being the two very different views on the same evolving objective. The first is the Negotiator whose purpose is slow and methodical but crucially dedicated to peaceful resolution; 'bring them all out alive'. The second is the Fire Team - think Special Weapons and Tactics (S.W.A.T) - who will execute at a moments notice to immediately and definitively remove any obstacle and resolve the problem. Once upon a time I filled out a job application for PIXAR and this was the underlying theme to what I thought I could bring to the table. We should all breathe a sigh of relief that I never got that chance to militarize animation. But... we are fooling ourselves if we don't think companies already operate this way with their project management. The trick then is in how to scale that 'crisis laden' approach for one or two people working together toward the deadline of (relatively) simpler projects.

[Rodney]

Regarding the animator level management to be found via xsheets....

 

Over at AWN there wss a discussion on use of xsheets worth mentioning as I think it resolves an old question about when to use/fill out an xsheet.

 

(I paraphrase)

Question: When is the best time to write on the xsheet, before starting or while animating?

 

Answer:

Before *and* During

 

First: Establish a rough timing of the shot you're going to animate by acting it out while timing yourself with a stopwatch or metronome (alternatively, close your eyes and visualize the performance as it plays out in your mind's eye). If you have recorded dialogue or music (ala temp audio/vocal track) so much the better as that will help break down the timing with an added emphasis on important beats and accents (phrasing) within the time allotted. Given any known timing, simply transfer that timing to the xsheet pending further refinement. Fill out the entire xsheet (preferably on twos - odd frame numbering) BEFORE beginning animation. Then when you put on your animator's hat you can focus not on planning out the shot but on... ANIMATION!

 

Then: As you animate, annotate any needed adjustments on the xsheet. The xsheet is a living document that records/shapes/refines the timing of your current project.