Outdrawn
Role: Co-Producer, Director of Photography, Animator, Render Wrangler
Produced At: SCAD, September 2020 - November 2020
Film Specifics
Team Size:
13 students in class, 3 outsourced artists (including composer)
Production Length:
10 weeks
Produced at:
SCAD, September 2020 - November 2020
Production Tools:
Microsoft Office, Discord, Dropbox, Google Drive
Software Used:
Autodesk Maya, ZBrush, Nuke, Adobe Suite
Production Management
Outdrawn was my first collaborative short film. The film was created in the SCAD Collaborative Project class, a course created for SCAD graduate students. The goal for the class was to create a short film over the course of ten weeks. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our class was entirely online. Students were located in China, India, California, Georgia, and Minnesota. I shared production responsibilities with my co-producer, Ariadna Sanchez-Cortinas.
My Responsibilities
- Creating and updating the shot list, contact list, wish list, naming conventions, software list, and class schedule documents.
- Weekly PowerPoint updates for our professor.
- Compiling and distributing production documents for class access.
- Communicating daily with department supervisors, individual artists, production management, and the director.
- Setting up, organizing, animating, and exporting cameras for 3D departments.
- Character animation for shots.
- Assisted with render wrangling shots toward the end of production.
- Creation, organization and set-up of crew Discord server.
Contact Sheet, Class Schedules, and Wish list
In our first class, I began by collecting my classmates' contact information, including phone numbers, emails, and social media accounts. After that, I created separate spreadsheets that included information about class schedules and a crew member wish list. The wish list was used as a reference when assigning work to crew members and served as a way for production managers to connect with and support individuals on the team.
To maintain the privacy of the crew, I have blurred out all personal information.
Naming Convention & Hardware/Software Sheets
I created a naming convention sheet for the crew to use to maintain file organization across departments. Since this was the first time many students (including myself) had worked in a collaborative setting and with such a tight deadline, it was important for files to remain consistent and easily identifiable. The hardware/software list was especially important in this remote setting so that we were aware of the system capabilities and software that was available for each crew member.
To maintain the privacy of the crew, I have blurred out all personal information.
Production Schedule
My next step was to craft a production schedule to maintain an organized and efficient production. When creating this schedule, I worked together with my co-producer Ariadna Sanchez-Cortinas. The document was intended to be a living document that could be updated and revised in accordance with changes in production. The document could also be used in our post-mortem to review how our goals and expectations for deadlines were realized. Ari had a lot of knowledge about post-production elements such as compositing and rendering, which helped inform our deadlines for those areas of production. As co-producers, Ari and I checked in with the crew twice a week to update the production schedule for the crew.
Working with Ari was a fantastic experience because it taught me how important it is to maintain communication with crew members AND production management!
Shot List
I used Microsoft Excel to create a Shot List for the crew to use as a reference when visualizing and categorizing shots. The shot list was actually created before the storyboards because our production did not have time to create a script.
The shot list was used alongside the storyboards to assist the producers, director, and department leads when assigning work. As the director of photography, I also referred back to the shot list when creating cameras for pre-visualization.
Outdrawn Discord Server
In order to stay up to date, I created a Discord server with channels and subchannels that the crew could use to communicate over the course of our production. In addition to sharing our documents via the SCAD Dropbox, I could also post and pin the documents in the server so that they crew members were quickly notified of any changes during the production. The server was also the main hub for all communication between myself, Ari, our director Eric, and all our crew members!
Below are some screenshots of the Discord server general layout, alongside examples of how I shared production documents with my team and communicated with them!
Results
Upon completion, my team and I decided to submit our film to "The CGBros" YouTube channel, a channel that uploads select animated short films for promotion. We were accepted by the channel upon submission, and even received a Certificate of Achievement when the video received 10,000 views on the channel.
Below I have attached a link to the video on YouTube. It's been really fun checking in to see the publics reaction to our short film in the comment section!
