Over at the PixelCorps, we are working on a bunch of visual effects shots for an independent film. It is a massively distributed project with the director, producers, VFX supervisors and artists located all over. I’m part of the production management team and the task of coordinating 50+ people located all around the world is — complex. Communication is the key thing.
A project like this really needs a system that people can collaborate around, something that would help coordinate a far-flung post-production team: posting the shot breakdowns, shot assignments, task progress, submission and review cycles, client approvals, tracking the progress of the overall pipeline, moving assets and work outputs.
Being a database guy, my first thought is: “Aha! I need a database.” My next thought was: “Surely, someone has already built one.” However, so far, I’ve found nothing that really fits the bill. I started using a spreadsheet but quickly found that I could not keep up with all the activity.
It seems that the big houses have elaborate home-grown systems for managing the shots, and assets, and budgeting and all that — but what do small/independant VFX producers use for project management to keep everything organized? So I started doing research for my own home-grown VFX project database. I’ve come across the following resources which I’m posting here for reference.
UPDATE (7/18/08): I added Shotgun and Flowsmith to the list.
UPDATE (10/24/08): I’ve move the list to its own page.
Entries (RSS)
May 31st, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Hey Cemeron,
Congratulations on coordinating the film project for PXC. I also saw your tutorial on showrunner.com. Interesting software. Something you set up as well?
Regards,
Nick S
May 31st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Hey Nick,
The software I’m building in conjunction with the PXC project is ShotRunner. It is at http://www.shotrunner.com. I’d be interested in getting your feedback and can set you up with an account. Check out the forums on that site also.
P.S. ShowRunner is a filemaker solution also for tracking VFX. Similar name, different approach.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:51 am
How did you feel about Project Overlord?
June 5th, 2008 at 6:35 am
Project Overlord looks interesting depending on your focus. It seems to be primarily tracking files and assets in a LAN environment, maybe trying to be closer to something like AlienBrain than VFX ShowRunner. Hard to tell from a few screenshots. They do have a free trial so it is something you could check out. It appears to be Windows-only vs. being a web application.
The thing I’m building assumes a very distributed team, is a web application, and tries to build communication first instead of a lot of really complex shot/asset information.
July 18th, 2008 at 6:10 am
Please check the Microsoft Interactive Media Manager (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/mediaandentertainment/solutions_imm.mspx). It’s an extension to Microsoft SharePoint Server.
July 18th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Andrey, how would you classify the Microsoft offering? I read through their evaluators guide, and it seems that they have: media management including metadata tagging, task tracking (through outlook/exchange), a video review/annotation module, workflow, and have built some links to video transcoding partners. Seems like a direct competitor to Final Cut Server and possibly AlienBrain. They don’t seem to offer any VFX functionality like shot breakdowns, budgeting, film/telecine management, etc. Have you used this product? Is this a fair summary?
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:37 am
I haven’t used it I’ve only read their releases and blog posts. The point is that IMM just expands SharePoint portal capabilities towards video assets management. I don’t think it’s made specifically for VFX management it’s rather general media production management tool. By now I would compare it to FCS but with more powerful development and integration capabilities.
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:11 am
[...] http://motion6.com/blog/2008/04/29/vfx_project_tools [...]
February 12th, 2010 at 10:41 am
You could also check Media Batch : it’s a multimedia delivery/sharing platform. User authentification, notes, basic approval, reviewing (flash-based).
http://www.mediabatch.com/, demo available at http://www.mediabatch.com/demos/
February 17th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
[...] From http://motion6.com/blog/2008/04/29/vfx_project_tools [...]