A Course in Production BONUS Video #1

A bonus video attached to 'A Course in Production', let's have a look at three trends emerging in Production on Vancouver's animation scene.

Welcome back for a few BONUS videos connected to my previous series, A Course in Production. This video/blog post series is meant to be a career resources for those currently in Production in Vancouver's animation industry who want to improve their skills or those who are not yet in Production but hope to be in the future.

The bonus videos for this course will consist of three thought exercises based on the writings of three of today’s top career and personal development experts, and some random musings, which is this first video.

For this video, I want to focus on some trends that I’m seeing in Production in Vancouver’s animation industry and how you can adapt to these trends in your own career.

TREND #1: QUICK PROMOTIONS

With an industry going as quickly as animation industry in Vancouver, one thing that I’m seeing in all departments, including Production, is that we have a lot of folks being promoted more quickly than what might be appropriate.

The more studios and projects we have, the more Production staff we need. Currently there is a bit of a shortage in Vancouver of skilled and trained Production staff, so you see a lot of folks being promoted at fast rates to fill the many roles that have opened up.

Pros of Quick Promotions

The pro of this is of course most of us in Production want to continue to expand in our roles, with a longterm goal of being a Producer, and accelerated promotions help us get there.

Another pro of this trend is this also gives those who want to get into Production but aren’t currently, more of a chance at getting their foot in the door since there are more roles available.

With these fast promotions, we seemingly achieve our goals more quickly. These promotions usually include salary increases and the prestige of a higher-ranking role.

I’m also encouraged to see that a lot of studios are taking risks and being more innovative in their promotion practices, including embracing a more diverse management staff.

Cons of Quick Promotions

The downside of promoting production staff quickly is that we arrive to a role we’re not necessarily prepared for.

Being in over your head or being thrown into the deep end is one thing, and my bigger concern is that we aren’t taking care to be as well-rounded in our skill set as we should be.

We often think of promotions as being due when we have achieved a certain set of goals and accomplishments, as well as a core understanding of certain tasks associated with whatever our role in Production is.

With a fast promotion, we might look back and think our success is due to one particular facet of our performance, say, scheduling, and continue to hone our scheduling skills, while not understanding the importance of the other parts of the job (example: budgeting) our new role might demand. In other words, its a bit of a false sense of success.

Remember also that this is a TREND I’m seeing, which means not all studios will promote quickly, which means that that the value and meaning of your role can fluctuate a lot.

For example, just because you’re soaring through the ranks of Studio A doesn’t mean your skill set will be valued as such at Studio B.

Every studio has their own standards and role descriptions for production.

If you are not aware that you are being promoted at a rate and to a role you typically wouldn’t be elsewhere, it can be a bit of a rude awakening when you leave Studio A to find that Studio B, C, and D think you are actually a peg or two below where you were at Studio A.

If this news is surprising or concerning to you, there is no need to panic, only to be thoughtful and proactive. I would suggest talking to your career mentor, or ask for a performance review at your current place of employment (if you haven't had one already).

Most importantly, be responsible for your own learning and growth in your spare time through taking a course, reading a career book, or of course you can keep watching these videos…

TREND #2: SUPERVISING PRODUCERS

The second trend I’m seeing in Production is the emergence of more Supervising Producers.

I rather think this is how many studios are handling the first trend of fast promotions--they don’t have the time or resources to train all of us newbies, so what they are doing is appointing an experienced Line Producer to Supervising Producer, who in turn may oversee newer and less experienced Associate, Line, or regular Producers.

It might be the case that Supervising Producers handle bigger-picture conversations like more challenging client relations, big schedule changes, show bids, and training Producers to maintain a show budget for the first time.

I think this is a clever solve and I’m excited to see where this goes. After all, having more Supervising Producers necessarily builds in more mentorship and guidance into the Production hierarchy.

TREND #3: MORE TECH COORDINATORS

The last trend I wanted to observe in this video is that I’m seeing more roles open up in Production focusing specifically on our more technical departments in animation such as Pipeline and IT.

I find this really encouraging for a couple reasons:

First, our technical departments are often underserved by Production due to what is usually a gap in knowledge, not due to a lack of interest from our more technical departments in having assistance from Production.

Traditionally, Production staff know about artist management, organization, and documentation. We don’t normally know as much about bidding out pipeline milestones, coding, managing the farm, software versioning, etc, however, you can see that our baseline skill set is pretty transferable.

It’s encouraging that there is a bit of a precedent for this — we know about project managers and coordinators in Software, and I’m glad to see this practice is carrying over to Animation.

The second reason I’m excited to see more tech roles open up for production is because we have a lot of very technically savvy folks in Production and I think it opens up possibilities for our more technical crew who want to move to Production.

Typically when we think of artists who move to Prod, we think of lighters, animators, etc. However, if we see more technical artists wanting to transition to Prod roles, our understanding and practices become more informed; new frontiers are opened for us and we can close some gaps that may exist between Production, Creative, and Technical roles on a given show.

Resources for Bonus Video 1

An Interview With Lindsey Kollross, Senior Vice President of Media at Ignited from Career Contessa

An Interview With Serena Watson, Digital Marketing Specialist at Sony Pictures from Career Contessa

15 Short-Term Goals to Get You Through This Month from Career Contessa

Getting it right:Truth is neither absolute nor timeless. But the pursuit of truth remains at the heart of the scientific endeavour by Michaela Massimi on Aeon

Why lifelong learning is the international passport to success by Pierre Vandergheynst and Isabelle Vonèche Cardia

Overview: Bonus Videos connected to A Course in Production

Thought Exercise 1: Done is Another Person's Perfect (Tiffany Dufu) - Sept 26

Thought Exercise 2: The Miracle Question (Tasha Eurich) - Oct 3

Thought Exercise 3: Are you Resulting? (Annie Duke) - Oct 10

Previous series: A Course in Production (10 videos!) - all online now!