A Course in Production Lesson Three: Working with your Direct Reports
We're going to go over working with your bosses, other production teams eventually; today's focus will be on working with your direct reports!
Working with your direct reports: You are only as good as you know your teams
I personally think that in Production, you are only as good as you know your teams. I don’t mean being a spy or being invasive - it’s more about playing to people’s strengths and how you can best support them through what they need to improve upon.
In a coordinator and PM role, supporting your teams is meant to be a collaborative effort with your supervisors.
Remember, Production exists to support our teams, so this is not about dumping more work onto our supervisors, nor is it about lording over them. We take on the administrative, bureaucratic tasks, and they make us a beautiful show. It is a wonderful example of synergy - the supervisor sees where an artist might improve on their surfacing, we see that the reason they are struggling with a task is because the artist is taking two hour lunches daily. Working with your supervisor, you get a full picture of how best to support your teams.
I would remember also that your team is a reflection of your leadership. We never want to give away our problems or send our artists off to another line with bad habits. Within each show we are contributing to a greater studio culture, and so its especially important that we do right by our teams.
When you have one department
If you are tasked with one department, you better know that department inside out!
Something to be aware of when you are responsible for one department is losing track of the bigger picture. Some studios promote (what I believe to be) an unhealthy competitive culture wherein individual departments are pitted against one another, blaming upstream departments for their failure.
When you are responsible for one department in Production, you have a balancing act on your hands. You must advocate for your department to have the strongest start possible, which means strong communication with upstream departments, and you must ensure that you are holding your team accountable for what they are handing off to the next department.
In Production, we talk a lot about “covering our butts” in all sorts of scenarios - when you are reporting to your superior, liaising with the client, and when you are communicating and organizing among different teams and departments.
“Covering our butts” is a catchall for any preventative, proactive actions that serve to protect you individually as an employee, or your team. You want to make sure you have raised the concern before it happens, both so that you’re not the one thrown under the bus if something does indeed go wrong.
Covering your butt is not merely to escape blame down the line. It is also a way to alert your teams that you have concerns about something, and you want to collaborate to ensure things run smoothly down the line.
When you have many departments
When you are responsible for many departments, you may start to feel like a referee. What is good for one department might not be good for another, and there can be conflict about how to move forward when we have one team wanting to push forward with a new surfacing technique, and another worried about intense render times. In these cases, your CG Supervisor is your best friend and can help you navigate these possibilities.
The benefit of having many departments is that you have an understanding of differing priorities; you know why certain decisions are made, and you know what to prepare your other departments for. You can also bring your teams to work together more easily. It is exciting to see the evolution of a project from department to department.
You often see these conflicts and past discussions/agreements come into play in dailies. Your Animation Director and/or Series Director is there for story, speaking to focus of the shot, mood, and ensuring everything that was animated has rendered. Depending on your studio set up, they might be the ones to actually say if a shot is approved or not. Your Lighting/Compositing supervisors are there for quality assurance and cohesiveness in look of the show, they can also advise on how to push a certain shot if that is what is required for story. Your Art Director is there to make sure we are following the colour script, that we are show style, and they also have a critical role in quality control. You/Production are there to make sure enough shots are being approved and other tidbits that you might know from working on upstream departments.
Production does not make creative calls
As mentioned previously, Production is often considered a service department and role, not a creative one. As such, it is usually not within Production’s domain to make creative calls.
If you are concerned about a call that is made, your Art Director, CG Supervisor, or Series Director can be made aware, or it is more likely that they will catch it themselves.
The role of Production in creative decision making can vary greatly studio to studio, though it generally means that if you have an idea for improving a shot or that an asset looks ugly, too bad—that is not your call to make.
You can and should, however, speak up if you think something is wrong with what is being presented on screen. For example, you might remember that for this particular scene, there is supposed to be one painting on the wall, but in dailies, it shows another that somehow got rendered out. Alternatively, perhaps you can recall from entering animation notes that the client is very sensitive about how severe a new character’s face may look. If you’re in dailies and you’re seeing all sorts of harsh shadows on that character’s face that is making them look villainous or aged, you can present this information to your team — your Art Director wouldn’t necessarily know this because they aren’t responsible for adding animation notes to Shotgun, and your lighting/comp supervisors also wouldn’t know because it is perhaps the first time this character has been seen in the show. You are therefore perhaps the best person to bring this info forward.
Production should absolutely feel a sense of ownership over the show, however, we should be mindful of what that ownership looks like per studio expectations.
Think also- if we haven’t gone to animation or art school, or if we haven’t had any sort of formal training in the departments we are managing (like me!) we are best advised to stay in our lanes. Trust your teams. They will do what they do best if you’re not acting like a backseat driver.
Boundaries
Production, more often than not, has to be the bad guy. We deliver the news that the client hated the new scenes and they have to be redone. We are the ones who have to enforce and track OT.
You want to be friendly and approachable with your teams, you also need to be able to bring the hammer down when required.
This is best done by holding up your end of the bargain. You want to get to know your teams, but don’t distract them so they can’t get their work done. You know OT might be on the horizon, so make sure meetings are run in an efficient manner and everyone can get back to work rather than sitting around and gossiping.
Remember that the information we are privy to in Production is often not public knowledge. For example, there might be someone on your team who is very popular and well-liked by the rest of the team, but you and your supervisor are concerned about their performance.
Try your best to remain neutral and professional. 'Neutral and professional' can seem dull among the exciting, high-energy environment of an animation studio, and its also more respectable in the long run. Your team wants to be able to trust you and have confidence that you can help navigate trickier situations when they arise.
Lesson Three Resources
- Want to improve your leadership skills? Surprise and delight your colleagues by adopting the strategies of a poet or gambler!
- SIGGRAPH 2019 presentation "Birds of a Feather: Bridging the Gap between Production and Technology by Joe and Jo D'Amato
- Women in Film and Television Vancouver
- The Making of a Manager: What To Do When Everyone Looks to You by Julie Zhuo
A Course in Production is a series of blog posts and videos intended for those who are either in or want to learn more about the role of Production teams in the 3D animation industry. You can learn more about the course here.
