Future Filmakers -food for thought.

[mikecawood]

It is a very challenging task managing a team. Thanks for addressing the subject Softdistortion. I wish that I had sought out other projects to work on myself more actively years ago, as I can see how it can be a platform for a lot of learning, portfolio development and networking. I actually did sign up on one project a few years back, and I was ready to go but at the time I refused to do anything other than animation, and the project leader hadn't finished rigging his characters... so the wait became ongoing until the project died. In hind-sight perhaps I could have learned a lot about rigging if I'd volunteered, and broadening my experience should have been part of my agenda. But it was a lesson in how these projects tend to live and die, and the motivations of most team members. I believe the director actually got married and I'm guessing his interest in the project died or he just ran out of time.

Now as a project leader myself, I would urge anyone interested in running their own project to assist on other projects first as it's quite eye opening what there is to learn about the process that has nothing to do with the day to day tech of animation or CG. I was fortunate to already have industry leadership experience so there haven't been too many surprises. If a project leader doesn't have that experience though and proof of having seen things through to completion I would seriously consider not committing your free time to a project. So basically... team leaders really need to prove their track record. What do they bring to the table? If it's just an idea... it's worthless. Ideas are two a penny.

I have found that communication is just as important as talent and experience with these things. In an office environment you can nudge your co-workers to find out what's going on. But in an online project you can't do that and if a team member does not proactively communicate their progress, their needs, their interests, etc... you can expect to lose sleep over working with them. I find that you can work with poor communicators, but only if you give them tasks that have almost zero baring on the projects progress, i.e. no-one is depending on them. So that means it's a bonus if they do the task, but it shouldn't matter if they don't. Because when a poor communicator get's their hands on an important task it can hold up the project for as long as you are prepared to persevere... and I'm pretty easy going and open minded, I give everyone a good shot (or I'd like to)... which can mean months of delays. In summary... value the good communicators, and if they happen to be talented and motivated too they are gold dust. If they are lacking any of those aspects, even just one... they are likely to be of very little value to the team.

[ChaosBlackMagician]

How quickly did you each progress since teaming in an online collaboration?
How much people joined and in what areas?
What areas were in most benifit?
Did you need or have style frames for each shot?
Did u have your script, previz, and sound wrapped up before starting production?

[mikecawood]

Hi Durty, I'm not quite clear on all those questions but I'll try.

Since taking the film online, it's taken most of the year to get to the point we're currently at.
We have over 140 people signed up, mostly animators (over 80 so far), but also lots of people in other areas.
Modelling and texturing have been the areas most beneficial to recruit in so far, but that may change depending on your skills, and I'm only not including animation as we've only just started in that area.
I had storyboards in thumbnail form earlier in the year and I've gradually replaced them with more detailed storyboard panels and 3D previs.
Sound is never wrapped up that early, it was mute most of the year. The script existed before we went into production but it's evolved through out the year in a visual animatic.
http://devilsangelsanddating.ning.com/video/animatic-v35

[softdistortion]

How quickly did you each progress since teaming in an online collaboration?

We started shirowproject back in 2003.
The first success we had was a still image scene finished in 2 months

Over the following years we completed a few short animations.
However, instead of wanting to make a film, our goal ended up being more to have a team experience and complete some very good looking short clips in a variety of styles, which included some amazing cellshade work that received some incredible compliments.

One of the original team threads (with over 5000 replies and 160,000 views) is HERE (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=73&t=113779&page=1&highlight=shirowprject)

We published a book that covers 3 years of the team's work>
DATABOOK 1 (http://www.collabunlimited.com/main/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=1)

shirowproject is currently in hiatus while I'm working on a getting a VFX series started.

More detailed info on the way the team formed >

History (http://softdistortion.com/shirowforum/viewtopic.php?t=128)
Timeline (http://softdistortion.com/shirowforum/viewtopic.php?t=155)
FAQ (http://softdistortion.com/shirowforum/viewtopic.php?t=154)


How much people joined and in what areas?

The numbers fluctuated from 3 to 12 active at one time in various areas. Total was around 30-40 I think.
The highest percentage were model makers.
The lowest percentage was texture artists and animators

The skill and experience gained from the stills and animation clips under the shirowproject banner produced current level work that triggers help/response from people at the top of the industry.

Victor Wolansky joined on tracking for example. We also get contacted by some of LA's top studio recruiters interested in the work and who is on the team.


What areas were in most benifit?

All are benefit.

However, my experience tells me there are only 3 beneficial areas/ways to keep a project moving and have a chance at success.

1- Team lead has on site support, ideally from local friends or college/uni project backing.

2-Team lead is a good CG generalist and can cover all bases that are missing helpers. Consistent WIP posting with call for help, will eventually draw helpers to these areas.

3-Project is done as a one man mission.

There's only 1 way to help gurantee eventuall completion of film. In all 3 scenarios above, the leader needs to have qualities that will NEVER allow them to give up entirely.


Did you need or have style frames for each shot?

Almost everyone says yes to this, but I have seen projects that had all the "expected" pipeline items (like storyboards, stylesheets etc) in place and they still failed.

My current VFX2 project has concept art and will do previs etc, but the projects I have led previous to this genrally did not have story boards.

We had concepts for the items needing modelling, and then we made our storyline fit the items we got modeling finished on.


Did u have your script, previz, and sound wrapped up before starting production?

*See above*

If you are doing script, previs etc...by definition they should be completed before production starts.

In my experience, sound is done in variety of ways..CG character voices can be recorded and used to guide animation. Other sound is done in post production...You can have some ideas and samples of what you want, but till the final editing is done, you can't accurately finalize mix or add finalized foley, fx

[ChaosBlackMagician]

thanks for the responses.
Also, considering hardware and software, were their any setbacks? Nowadays its tough to refine a good look in CG without a proper end 64 bit system. Did you find it hard to reach your online collaborators who share the same equipment and software packages. Or did you mix it up and in doing so have no real hard time?

[softdistortion]

64 bit is a benefit in that it lets you handle bigger scenes, and more apps running at once.

We never decided to stick to one app, although we did have a core using one app...for model making we have had every major application used on our projects.

Interapp exchanging among packages form various vendors rarely goes smooth first try. For ex.. in mesh exchange most if not all all apps can export out .obj etc as interchangeable format. But scale, flipped polys, loss of UV etc are all thing that are unpredictable until you try. This is sometimes so even among different versions of the same app. FBX for ex works differently in some areas depending on what version of FBX is included.

For animation we decided on a set pipeline that went to motionbuilder. We trained internally with 3 members and then we setup a solid pipeline and locked everything including the versions of apps for work.

Model work can come form any app, but I would still lock the animation and render areas to one pipeline. Also you need to either take the main oversight of that yourself or have someo0ne REALLY dependable look after it.

[softdistortion]

Another 2min clip > VIDEO (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxezt4Ks5XA) ADDED JAN 14/2010

Distraxion, from start to finish is under two minutes long. That being said, it took almost two years to complete. The majority of the film was produced during my final two terms at the online animation school AnimationMentor.com. Over the course of the following year, I continued to polish the animation on nights and weekends.

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