A Course in Production Lesson Nine: My Best Practices
For our last lesson, I let you in on what I actually do day-to-day in Production to ensure I'm doing my very best for myself and my teams.
Keeping notebooks
Production IS taking notes and disseminating information. Write it down.
Don’t make people repeat information to you, though you may of course ask clarifying questions.
Whether that’s in a notebook, on your phone (make sure you check with IT for best practices for security), the studio laptop, etc, always write or type it down.
I’ve never know Production to be lackadaisical, we are always on the go. A lot can happen in a day, and taking notes helps track why you and your team are making a decision, key action items, changes in workflow, all of which you will likely have to report at some point.
Remember to share your notes with your team where relevant! Put them in a common network location, or up on shotgun, whatever makes sense for your studio. We always want to make sure our butts are covered, and good note taking is a big part of that.
Know everyone’s names
To me, this is just common decency: know everyone’s names and what they do, even if they aren’t on your team or show.
Besides being just good manners, this keeps people engaged and communication lines open.
I find there is an odd and unfortunate tendency in animation that the higher up you go, very much including Production staff, remembering people’s names is sometimes treated as an honour you bestow upon someone worthy...
Not only is this attitude unkind and unnecessary, its proven to be an ineffective leadership practice
To this point, I invite you to consider Amy Cuddy’s words in her book, Presence: Bringing your Boldest Self to your Biggest Challenges. She cites research saying that in leaders, we tend to value warmth over competence:
"Why do we prioritize warmth over competence? Because from an evolutionary perspective, it is more crucial to our survival to know whether a person deserves our trust. If he doesn't, we'd better keep our distance, because he's potentially dangerous, especially if he's competant. We do value people who are capable, especially in circumstances where that trait is necessary, but we only notice that after we've judged their trustworthiness."
from Presence by Amy Cuddy
Tracking bigger events that impact the day-to-day work
This is very much something I’m still experimenting with, so it’s still a bit too early for me to say for sure if this is a must-have strategy, but here it is: when something big and unexpected happens, track it!
This strategy is related to something I read in Annie Duke’s book, Thinking in Bets:
"We have the opportunity to learn from the way the future unfolds to improve our beliefs and decisions going forward. The more evidence we get from experience the less uncertainty we have about our beliefs and choices. Actively using outcomes to examine our beliefs and bets closes the feedback loop, reducing uncertainty. This is the heavy lifting of how we learn."
from Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
To illustrate her point, Duke offers an anecdote. She's talking about sales specifically, but I think you can see how this might apply to tracking events over the course of a production to inform your work:
"Imagine a calls to a customer by two salespeople from the same company. In January, Joe pitches the company’s products and gets $1000 in orders. In August, Jane calls not eh same customer and gets $10,000 in orders. What gives? Was it because Jane is a better salesperson than Joe? Or was it because the company updated its product line in February? Did a low-cost competitor go out of business in April? Or is it the difference in their success due to any of a variety of other unconsidered reasons? It’s hard to know why because we can’t go back in time and run the controlled experiment where Joe and Jane switch places. And the way the company sorts this outcome can affect decisions on training, pricing, and product development."
from Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
The action itself helps you to remember the significance of an event, as well as being a record of when something actually happened.
So say, when you are checking OT hours down the line and notice everyone was offline at an unusually early time back in March, you can remember WHY and WHAT happened.
Similarly, maybe one of your supervisors has to take an emergency leave of absence, and in their absence, a major decision is made that changes the previously-agreed upon workflow. When your supervisor comes back and asks you what they missed, you can quickly summarize what happened and the logic behind the decision.
I personally do this in two ways - one is booking events into my private work calendar, this was particularly helpful during the middle of March this year where we were very quickly getting people out of the studio and set up to work remote.
I’ve tried keeping a Captain’s Log, which is basically a running document where I track these topline events.
Think of it this way - your work notebook is most likely going to look like a to do list, and you aren’t necessarily going to write something down on July 8th that says “So-and-so ran out at 2:00 with a dental emergency and while they were gone, X artist gave their notice”. A Captain’s Log can help with those critical events, especially when/if we are asked to justify a decision we made, the work we have done around something specific, or why OT became necessary at this point.
Keep throwing out ideas until something sticks
Being in Production is near-constant stream of solving problems or collaborating with your team to think of a better solution.
Something that I do here is just keep throwing ideas out there - something will eventually stick OR, better yet, it will inspire the answer from someone else on your team.
Face to face communication wherever possible
I realize this is a tough one, especially this year with so many of us working remotely. Wherever possible, communicate with your teams face to face. In the case of right now, even take five minutes, two minutes, to call or do a video chat with someone.
As we all know, body language and the tone of our voice is a LOT of our communication. Really, how many times have you obsessed over a text or a message online, and then when you actually talk to someone the message they are relaying is quite different? Exactly.
Another thing with face to face communication is that it literally shows your teams you are there for them AND, remember, we work with artists! There are a lot of different communication and learning styles, and if something seems off, just talk to the person face to face.
Remember though, our artists are busy! We don’t want to distract them needlessly or hover around awkwardly, if you can give them a quick answer online, by all means do, but if your gut tells you something bigger is going on that would be best discussed in person, do it.
Thank people for their work
As someone who was raised by Asian parents, this one is tough for me!
Where you can, thank your teams for their hard work, and compliment their work! This can be as simple as shooting one of your animators a message and telling them how much you liked the animation on X character in shot X. It doesn’t even need to be someone on your team - did the culture club at your studio just put on a great social event that you enjoyed? Thank them for their efforts!
Another thing I do in this vein is if someone leaves your team (i.e., they give their notice), yes, that is a bummer that they are going to a competitor, but make a good last impression for your studio by thanking them for their contributions to the project you are on.
This is a very small industry and word travels fast. Reputation is everything, and you will very likely cross paths with your various teammates again in the future.
Admitting when I don’t know something
Production is NOT about having all the answers! We are expected to know the schedule, deadlines, agreed-upon workflow, help direct people to reference, take notes, but we are NOT the end-all, be-all.
In practice in Production, this can be as simple as saying “Let me do a pass on it” or “give me a few minutes to double check”.
Production holds things together, but the magic comes from our peers and colleagues in modeling, pipeline, rigging, FX, design, etc! If you don’t know something, invite in the expertise of your peers by asking their opinion, ideas, and advice.
In Production, we do this not only for what goes on screen, but for managing our teams.
If you admit when you don’t know something, not only are you giving yourself an opportunity to learn something new, you are giving someone else space to grow by offering up their advice.
It also, weirdly, builds trust in people - the last thing I want to do is pass on information about something we’re implementing in the show if I can only half-remember what my CG supervisor said - taking a minute to clarify, double check, can also end up saving precious time in production.
If you admit when you don’t know something, not only are you giving yourself an opportunity to learn something new, you are giving someone else space to grow by inviting their advice.
David Whyte, author of Crossing the Unknown Sea says:
“Real, undying loyalty in work can never be legislated or coerced;
it is based on a courageous vulnerability that invites others
by our example to a frontier conversation
it is based on a courageous vulnerability that invites others
by our example to a frontier conversation
whose outcome is yet in doubt”
from Crossing the Unknown Sea by David Whyte
Lesson Nine Resources
- A Queer Icon, a Terrible Boss: Why It Matters That Ellen Can Be Both by Rachel Charlene Lewis on Bitch Media Blog
- The flexible work fallacy: Breaking free of the 9-to-5 was originally a feminist project. So how did it become part of oppressive 24/7 work culture? by Sarah Stoller on Aeon
- The Ultimate Guide to Continuing Your Education + Online Learning on Career Contessa
- Be a Great Leader in a World of Control Freaks—7 Secrets on Career Contessa
- 5 at-work Office Essentials
- How to Build a Remote Team That Will Last on Career Contessa
- Is Listening the Only Skill you Really Need for an Outstanding Career?
- Why Intersectionality Matters More Than Ever on Career Contessa
- A Case for Breaking Out of Your Boxes by Kate Arends on Wite & Delight
