Workplace Basics: Training New Production Staff

January 27, 2025

Here are some tips for training someone new to your Production team

This video is about training, particularly for other Production staff. It may be considered an extension of the Onboarding video from A Course in Production, with a closer look at some key areas of training.

I’ve been in the animation industry in Vancouver for a decade now and in that time, I’ve worked for six different studios and clients each. All of these studios do some things slightly differently, so you don’t want to make assumptions about what incoming Production staff do or do not know.

Andrew Hill reminds us in, Be Quick - But Don’t Hurry!: Finding Success in the Teachings of a Lifetime the importance for setting a tone in the very early days of welcoming a new teammate:

Many managers expect their employees to know all the intricacies and nuances of their jobs from the day they start work. This is unrealistic, and often results in hiring mediocre employees whose only real virtue is experience. Be patient, don’t assume job skills, offer simple explanations, and insist on repetition so that good habits are ingrained
From Be Quick - But Don’t Hurry by Andrew Hill with John Wooden

In the very first lesson of A Course In Production four years ago now, I stated that one of Production’s core responsibilities is to deliver the show at the standard of the studio via the means of the studio.

Therefore, training should focus on what is going out the door when (i.e. the schedule) and how you are getting it out the door. If we don’t deliver our content at key stages, we don’t get paid.

Another key thing is Who’s Who on your team - sometimes roles and departments are defined slightly differently at each studio. Our shows are a team effort, it is important to know quickly who our key stakeholders are at a given stage of Production.

Key Areas of Training Part 1

Deliverables

I.e. some shows don’t deliver the work of certain departments externally (ex, layout, matte painting, one off fx shots, etc)

Delivery portals
Schedule
How to book meetings and manage attendees
Who’s Who
What meetings to attend vs optional

Review cycles for a given department varies widely from show to show, even at the same studio, and particularly if you are going from 2D to 3D, you should specify what your show does when training someone on a given department.

Remember as well that different studios have their own quirks - Shot Finaling, Lookdev/texture/surfacing, and Matte Painting are often departments that can really vary depending on the studio. Some quirks are really specific, for example, Mainframe in Vancouver calls facial rigging “twitch” very frequently, which no other studio I have worked at in this city does!

Key Areas of Training Part 2

Utilize existing documentation, don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to!

We gotta keep the train moving and want Prod staff to be helpful as soon as possible!

Kickbacks, requests, and fix requests from other departments

How are these resolved and tracked? Via tickets, spreadsheets, note threads on Shotgrid, emails, breakout meetings?

Review cycles for the department

Show how this is connected to your show schedule
Where are we at for the new coord’s department (what ep is shipping, what ep is kicking off, etc)

Email distribution
Particularities of departments if relevant (ex, Shot Finaling, Lookdev, Matte Painting)

Training someone is a reflection of your own skills, leadership, and commitment to your show or studio. As I said in another video in A Course in Production, 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 Production must, in my opinion, set a good example for our teams as an integral part of our Production duties and responsibilities.

Andrew Hill quotes John Wooden in Be Quick--but Don’t Hurry saying, “no written word, no spoken plea, can teach our youth what they should be. Nor all the books on all all the shelves: it’s what the teachers are themselves.”