Industry Research

This module is a self-directed research & development tasks, I've chosen to explore Project Management.

Following a few group projects, I wanted to explore what project management was like in our industry.

Part of this will be to focus on Shotgun a project management platform, this was the most used platform from all the studios I'd contacted. So I'm grateful to the team at Shotgun for allowing me to trial their platform.

Full Essay Download
(Including Shotgun write up)

Short Powerpoint presentation and overview of Shotgun platform

Presentation

Above is a selection of blogs I've written regarding Shotgun.

To trial the platform extensively I've chosen to use it for my Minor Project, a simple 3rd person game.

Project Management:

I will refer to Project Management as PM throughout my text for ease, if there are any other abbreviations throughout they’ll be pointed out in the first instance. This is intended to help with the flow of reading.

I chose to learn more about PM within the 3D/CGI industry following my experiences in previous career roles which lead me to manage teams of people; although what was being managed differed I wanted to explore the similarities and differences.

Also being part of a few team projects throughout my degree I found things that worked and things that didn’t, some of which could be improved on with techniques and systems whereas others were down to the philosophies of the individuals in the team.

This learning journey lead me to some very interesting people, articles, books and techniques, all of which I’m excited to share in what I hope is an interesting presentation for all who wish to learn.

What is project management?

“A project is temporary in that it has a defined beginning and end in time, and therefore defined scope and resources.
Project management, then, is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.” - (Project Management Institute)

In nearly every area of industry there is a need for project management, the 3D industry works on producing products such as films, games, TV series, etc. While the topic of project management is vast there aren’t many books specific to the management of a CG project.

There are many different methodologies that large corporations use, such as PRINCE2 (an acronym for PRojects IN Controlled Environments) and PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) due to the unique nature of our industry many studios use in-house methodologies and processes.

PM refers to the temporary nature of projects as opposed to the general operations of the business; this is very much the case within the 3D industry. Nearly all projects have a deadline, budget and personnel constraints, not all projects will require the same elements in the pipeline. For example, with the development of technology, we’re able to implement Mocap (Motion Capture) for animation.

The aim is to complete the project within the deadline, on budget and to the standard required of the client. This is the challenge; to optimize the resources to meet the required objectives, with this said there is always an element of knowing what is achievable within the timescale. During the brief stage clearly outlining the client’s objectives and how the production company will meet the requirements.

Should the deadline be too tight or the brief not clear enough this will impact the decisions along the pipeline.

Project Management Institute. (n.d.). What Is Project Management? Retrieved January 10, 2018, from Project Management Institute: https://www.pmi.org/about/learn-about-pmi/what-is-project-management

A little History about Project Management:

Henry Gantt (1861-1919) known as the father of planning and control techniques, famous for the Gantt chart, a project management tool still used today. This was the case until the early 1950s when two project scheduling models were developed. The CPM ‘Critical Path Method’ developed jointly between DuPont Corporation and Remington Rand Corporation in the United States for plant maintenance projects. PERT ‘Program Evaluation and Review Technique’ developed by the U.S Navy as part of the Polaris missile submarine program.

CPM is used when it’s known when each activity will be carried out, whereas PERT is used when the times of each activity can’t be predetermined or variable.

In 1969 the PMI ‘Project Management Institute’ was formed in the USA, the publishers of “A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge” (PMBOK Guide) which outlines practices common to most projects; they also offer a range of certifications.

- (VFX Movies, 2014)

What is Project Management in our industry?

We generally talk about ‘Pipeline’ this is the movement of the project pieces needed to construct the end product, sometimes confused with ‘Workflow’.

A Pipeline generally refers to a linear set of processes; in our industry each process is concurrent to the next. This just means that the product of one process moves seamlessly on to the next, the production pipeline image above gives a good indication of this. The pipeline divides a Workflow into separate tasks which are assigned to artists or teams.

“Computer animated films require collaboration: blending artistic concept with technical skill, meeting budget constraints and adhering to deadlines. The path that production follows from initial idea to finished product is known as the pipeline.” - (Bettis, 2005)

Pixar created the animation short narrated by the lead penguin from the Madagascar film series; this insight takes us through the different stages of a feature film production. Below is an image depicting this process:

Bettis, D. E. (2005). Digital Production Pipelines. Examining Structures and Methods in the Computer Effects

Industry , 209.

VFX Movies (26/3/2014). http://www.upcomingvfxmovies.com/2014/03/3d-production-pipeline-pixar-vs-dreamworks/

Below: Dreamworks created a short explaining the pipeline typically used when creating their feature film animations.

Dreamworks: Script to screen

Along my research journey of PM I came across St John Colon an Art Director, Game Designer, Professor at the LA Film School and Producer developing VR experiences. Currently the principal artist at Spaces Inc responsible for art, design, UX pipeline and leading the environment team, specializing in AR & VR experiences. His work is extensive and the content available regarding production pipeline and PM has helped me immensely.

Another interesting person I came across is Isa Alsup a VFX, CG Supervisor and Producer. Isa confirmed what I’d mentioned earlier about the lack of information on the subject specific to our industry; he wrote “You will soon find that there is little literature on the subject and that the word "pipeline" means different things within computer graphics to different people.” – (Alsup, 2009)

According to Isa the term “Pipeline” came about in the CG industry in the late 1990’s replacing “Workflows” which had replaced the term “CG Process” and “CG Production phases” used in the 1980’s. In an article titled; Understanding Pipelines, he explains how the term came to be used in the context of today:

Alsup, I. (2009, July 28). #0018 Understanding Pipelines. Retrieved January 10, 2018, from CG Supervisor Blogspot: http://cgsupervisor.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/

It was interesting reading his later articles where he discussed the definition of a Pipeline following reading Dane Edward Bettis’ master’s thesis written in 2005; “Digital production pipelines: examining structures and methods in the computer effects industry”, Dane offers an academicians point of view. From the abstract of Dane’s thesis he wrote:

“The key finding of this thesis is a conceptual definition of digital production pipelines: A digital production pipeline must, by definition, utilize digital computing hardware and software to facilitate human work and collaboration for the overarching purpose of producing content for film. The digital production pipeline is not a structure, but rather a malleable set of components which can be arranged, configured, and adapted into new structures as needed. These malleable components are human groups with assigned task domains, and digital hardware and software systems. The human groups are normally referred to as departments or teams. The digital hardware and software systems are operating systems, software tools and applications, networks, processors, and storage. The digital production pipeline is the synergy of these two types of components into adaptable systems and structures.” - (Bettis, 2005)

Isa explains there are four dimensions of a VFX pipeline:

Leadership
Personnel
Tools
Methods

Bettis, D. E. (2005). Digital Production Pipelines. Examining Structures and Methods in the Computer Effects Industry , 209.

Game Production Pipeline

So we’ve taken a look at a Film/VFX pipeline, there are many of the same elements included in the production of a game, with the increasing performance power of games consoles and PCs these days, games are becoming as intricate as films with extensive storylines and cutscenes.

I conducted an interview with Jane Forsyth head of production at Real Time UK in 2017 for a ‘Group Project’ module. Real Time UK is the studio responsible for; Dirt 3, Total War, Xbox 360 Kinect Disneyland Adventures and the World of; Tanks, Planes & Warships series. One of my questions displayed below outlines their Pipeline

The first thing I noticed when reading through this interview was my use of the word “Workflow” when I meant “Pipeline”. This is how the lines get crossed; the terms can mean different things to different people. This is more so in our industry as each stage of the pipeline has a specific discipline with its own workflow, especially as most of the workflows can interlink and artists responsibilities overlap.

I imagine this to be the case in smaller studios where artists are required to carry out more than one element of the pipeline and in larger studios such as Real Time UK where there are more artists their responsibilities are more specific. This is the case for Mainframe studio in Manchester, Chris Hardcastle replied to my email regarding the project management model they use:

I touched on this with Jane from Real Time UK;

Full Interview With Jane Forsyth - Real Time UK

The Project Manager

This is the person who oversees the entire project, responsible for the smooth and efficient running of all processes. When searching for information on PM within our industry the majority of pages were job adverts for project managers, so I had a look at several of them to get an idea of what is expected of a potential candidate.

First I noticed many of the jobs weren’t specific to the CG industry, it would seem anything to do with computers in general will bring up job post.

The second was the wording, most of the posts mentioned “Phase One”. The Phased approach is a broad term within PM, many companies rename the stages and within our industry we have a similar approach that is broken into the three main phases;

Pre-Production
Production
Post-Production

Continuing my research I narrowed my search string to places and specific roles I’d read about in the relevant text. This started to lead me to more specific resources and information, this post on Boulder Media’s website for ‘3D CG Supervisor for Feature Film Production’ gave more relevant detail within our industry.

From all the information I’ve read it seems that the CG Supervisor is responsible for building and implementing the pipeline for the project, this may be because everyone likes to work a little differently and each project has different requirements.

Interesting was a vacancy for Gumball a TV animation series for Great Marlborough Production Ltd in conjunction with Cartoon Network London, looking for a CG Technical Director in 2014.
https://gumballjobs.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/vacancy-cg-technical-director/

The role encompassed several elements of different roles, for example, the vacancy post read:

“In this role you will advise Producers and Supervisors on best technical procedures and tools, as well as supervising their deployment. We have no permanent R&D team so you should be resourceful and able to rely on your own experience. You should facilitate the jobs of artists around you and homogenise workflows” (Nilloc, 2014)

Previous to this the candidate is required to “coordinate the pipeline between departments and build technical experience within the studio”

Responsibilities include

Pipeline creation and improvement between our Pre-vis, Background, Animation and Compositing departments.
Train and monitor teams to follow procedures and conventions.
Advise Producers and supervisors on appropriate technical procedures.
Work with the art teams to achieve challenging sequences.
Build simple tools where possible and necessary.
Solve all 3D simulations and other 3D special effects.
Work on challenging shots when necessary.
Other duties as assigned.

This was not the only vacancy where roles and responsibilities overlap, it is apparent when looking at the resumes’ of supervisors and directors, many have developed from a foundation role within the industry and progressed with studios.

Nilloc, N. (2014, August 26). Cartoon Network TV Show. CG Technical Director Vacancy . https://gumballjobs.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/vacancy-cg-technical-director/.

Project Management Software

There are many different ways of managing a project, as mentioned earlier Gantt charts are commonplace and still a very effective tool, but if we had to create one by hand this wouldn’t be a very effective use of time. So there is PM software that helps manage teams, task, schedule, review, etc.

The amount of software available can be overwhelming, where to start? Budget, features, flexibility, the list goes on and most software producers boast something over the competition.

Project Management software isn’t normally tailored to a specific industry unless created in-house, although software such as Microsoft Project offers customization features to help adapt to the user’s needs, there is still limitations and time spent tailoring the software for a specific project.

In the past I’ve used Microsoft Excel, Trello, Google Docs & Facebook to communicate and share project files as a member of a team. My experience was mixed, there are many features that work well, the majority of issues I had was down to communication and keeping all members of the team on the same page. Having the communication through Facebook and the documents in Google Doc there was a break in the flow of communication, this leads to assumptions, mistakes and later in the project, time wasted going back over something that had already had the time spent but not in the direction of the project. This is the major part of PM, saving time and ultimately spending time effectively.

When connecting with established studios across the UK I found that the size of the team dictated the use of PM software, for example, Mainframe being a small studio of six members didn’t have the need for specific software.

At EGX 2017 I met up with Nic and Anna Makin from MakinGames the creators of Raging Justice, they answered some questions on the topic of project management.

What software do you use to help to manage?

Nic & Anna - In the end we didn’t use any management software but we did communicate a lot as a small tight-knit team. Slack and Dropbox have been invaluable for sharing resources and keeping up with the progress being made. We have started using OneNote as a central repository for ideas and important note-keeping, but Slack and Dropbox have definitely been the core software we’ve used.

Full Interview

With Nic and Anna

It was interesting to learn that they have used several different platforms/software for communication and sharing files, I’m sure that they would agree without their previous experience working as a team and being so close this would have posed an issue with communication. I mentioned in my essay about Shotgun and that having medium/large teams all working on one platform for file sharing and communication speeds up productivity, keeping everyone in steady flow with the project.

Real Time UK is a larger company with two major studios located in Manchester and Preston. When I caught up with Jane they had been using Excel and Google Docs but where trialling Shotgun. I’d come across Shotgun a few times and decided to take a closer look because it had come up when looking at other studios and the management software they were using.

Shotgun Page

Conclusion

The image of a pipeline being a linear series of processes with one directional flow is not the case in the 3D industry; this was alluded to in the DreamWorks’ short, the process of producing a feature animation can mean repeating processes and skipping sections out entirely, projects can also take a different direction even after conception. Also, elements of the pipeline could be implemented out of order, to use the example of ‘Editing’ which is usually thought of to be a post-production section of the pipeline yet it is a key element of the concept stage when creating a feature animation.

When I read about St John Colon and Isa Alsup it was apparent that the responsibility of designing and implementing the pipeline as part of a project generally falls to the directors, both of these directors have published a mass of information about the process of creating and implementing an efficient production pipeline. From what I understand the process of creating and implementing an efficient pipeline is ever evolving, through every project the pipeline director and those working on implementing the pipeline throughout will learn many areas for improvement. This I believe to be important because there is never the perfect plan and so there is never going to be the perfect pipeline.

The use of dedicated management software is becoming more widespread, I believe this to be due to studios across the world wanting more of a complete package, the ability to streamline communications between studios as the world is a tiny place when playing on the digital playing fields. Shotgun is used more by TV and film studios but is well suited to games development like at The Bartlet Jones Supernatural Detective Agency in San Diego. The use of software that can be tailored to changing needs that keeps everyone connected, having all the versions of a character or asset helps at meeting time, no one is wasting time moving files or digging in achieves because it’s all there online all of the time. The studio director talked about the ability to have their game worked on 24 hours a day due to outsourcing with other studios, Shotgun keeps him in the loop all the time no matter what the time difference. This I believe is vital to being more efficient which is what studios are striving for when developing and implementing a pipeline, the need to get things done without wasting time is what helps to bring a project to completion on time and on budget.

Having firsthand experience with Shotgun and the support team it’s no surprise that they’ve received an Emmy from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for their contribution to enabling collaboration for some of the major TV series of the past few years. Creating a product that is about being as efficient as possible while staying in constant communication with the whole team, Shotgun’s support team are fast to respond to questions and the same with developing their platform for the community.

One of the major bottlenecks when it comes to our industry is at the supervisor’s stage, the artist can’t move forward with a certain piece without the approval of what’s already been done, Shotgun reduces this bottleneck and in some cases can eliminate it all together. Because everything is being hosted on the same platform when a shot or asset is waiting for review the supervisor is notified and they can log in from anywhere in the world, even on Iphones with a dedicated app, the shot or asset can be approved or commented on. That reply is immediately updated at the artists end allowing that artist to continue their work.

This makes Shotgun invaluable in my opinion, I’ve no experience within the industry of this but from my research, it’s apparent how much this can impact the pipeline flow. This is highlighted in this Shotgun review video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQZUnmNxAAE

Reflective Analysis

This module was an investigation into how studios of different sizes manage their digital projects and a thorough testing of the project management platform Shotgun. Following my findings from a previous assignment on group management, I wanted to know how projects were managed in the industry on a practical level.

I felt this would be a good way of connecting further with contacts I’d made in the industry and with my experience of leading teams in another industry I felt this would be a good opportunity to see what skills were transferable. The feeling of disconnection and miscommunication from my previous experience with several different software/platforms left me wanting to find a better solution. I feel pleased with how I conducted this module and learning from the previous two years assignments my method was more specific on the topic.

The topic isn’t the most exciting and it was a challenge to piece together the sections that were both interesting and informative. At times it seemed there wasn’t going to be enough to hold my interest let alone that of others, yet with the exploration of Shotgun and other software this kept me wanting to find out more about how digital projects have been managed to leading to the need for such a platform. Finding specific information was difficult; there was plenty of information on the subject of project management in general.

Working closely with the support team at Shotgun was a productive experience. Connecting with industry professionals was a great part of this assignment, which I will continue to develop.

Through my exploration of the subject I began to think about pipelines and workflows differently, I found that the meaning of each word could change from person to person. This highlights the most important part; communication, without clear communication time is wasted. Although I knew this from the start it became more apparent how clear specific communication was the goal of all the methods, procedures and platforms. Thinking of pipelines as a linear unbroken chain was also a major shift in thinking, I know now that many of the processes can be chopped and changed to fit the specific project requirements. That the pipeline is a malleable set of procedures, interchangeable and always developing.

Should I cover the topic again the main change I would make; to be part of a team, not only for the projective perspective more minds provide but also to explore Shotgun to its full potential. As mentioned, having others to work with provides more drive and motivation, also more perspectives on challenges and potential solutions.

Moving forward with what I’ve learnt from this experience, I’ll be more critical about the questions to make sure I’m being specific and direct. When working on a project I’ll get several perspectives, revisiting when challenges arise.