What I did
Co-Create a Kickstarter and Promotional of Kickstarter
Production, Fulfillment and Promotion of Shop and Shop Items
3D or High Quality PNG Mock-ups of Shop Items, Promotional Items
Management of Payroll and Expenses
Scout/Recruit People
Organize Google Drive
Social Media Manage, Help Create Website
Take Meeting Notes/Record Meetings, Schedule Meetings
Create Shot list and help manage it
Worked with PA’s to delegate tasks, attend meetings, and take notes
As the producer for this film, my first task was to find people for the film. As we were independent, I had to scout and interview potential people to join the team. After that, we ran into our second challenge. As we were independent, we did not have access to ShotGrid, so I quickly had to research an alternative. After some research, the closest thing to Gantt charts and schedule creation was Monday.Com. The third thing I had to do now as a producer is coordinate meetings with people around the world, take notes for those who couldn’t make those meetings, and make sure every resource was available to people, including the recordings of those meetings.
Challenge 01: Monday.com
The first challenge for us as an independent film was not having Shotgrid. As I have used it on my many previous projects, this was standard for me. However, we quickly had to find an alternative. I spent a bit of time trying out different softwares and apps, and ended up on Monday.com for Gantt charts and scheduling. It did not have enough storage for the entirety of Production however, so everyone used it as their weekly checklist and the entirety of Pre-Production. It kept us updated on what assets were needed, the status of those assets, who was working on them, as well as how long that person has worked on said asset. This aspect was very similar to Shotgrid.
CHALLENGE 02: Time ZONES
The second challenge was now coordinating people to come to meetings, have daily check ins, and strict deadlines. Everyone was in various spots around the US and the world. Finding a good time for people in the US as well as Barcelona and Vietnam proved to be a challenge frequently. However, using Zoom helped us by having archives of meetings that we uploaded to Google Drive for those who could not make it.
Meetings , Check-ins, archiving
Four times a week, we had team meetings with each department. As producer, I had to sit in and take notes on everything that was said, from the feedback to the questions asked and answered. After each meeting, each had to be downloaded from Zoom, uploaded to the appropriate folder and shared with the rest of the crew. Every team meeting since the first meeting at the beginning of Pre-Production has been recorded, uploaded and shared with the crew. Within a day or two of the recordings uploaded, the notes are also posted so people can find out quickly what was said. Lastly, I worked with the director to create weekly tasklists, which reflected the Monday.com. Every week on Wednesday, I reached out to everyone on the team to see if they had any questions or needed more time for their assignments. This helped stay on track with deadlines, and find out anything we didn’t have a chance to answer during our meetings.
Before anyone was let onto the team, I often was in charge of scouting people out for the needed roles, and then sending over the portfolio to the lead in charge of that department. Afterwards, I would interview them and ask about their interests and goals with the project, availability, and software skills. Since our recruitment is constantly taking applications and recruiting, I made a welcome packet to catch everyone up who joins, as well as explain all our softwares and who to reach out to. This can be found below.
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT AND ONLINE PRESENCE
My daily job didn’t stop at check-ins or meetings, I also oversaw much of the social media. From setting up our Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, GIPHY, Caard, Ko-Fi, and website, I also had to keep them updated, and posting frequently to get our name out there. I worked with the director and other PA’s to format the website, social media posts, and how the appearance of each of our platform would be. Our goal was to get our SEO out there, and easy to find no matter the platform.
Little fun fact, GIPHY is connected to Instagram searches and stories. We used that to make custom GIFS for our stories and posts. This helped with creating a unique brand and our characters and creatures more iconic and long lasting.
Kickstarter
As we were an independent film, we had to create funds for our crew, merch, and payroll. I was in charge of working with the artists to create products, PA’s to create spreadsheets tracking costs (Shipping to us, Shipping to Customer), production, mock ups of the product, as well as the digital and physical storefronts.
Our first big task was to create a Kickstarter and promote it. The director, Ector Troncoso and I worked for several weeks writing up the video, creating the assets needed for the video, recording and editing it.
While it was being edited by the director, my job was to create spreadsheets tracking how much it would cost to create each tier (both production and shipping), from which website it would be best to order from, track any sales for production costs, and how much each person on the crew could be paid for the Kickstarter.
Only responsible for 3D mockups of poster, shirt, softcover art of book, shippers, and organization of layout. All artwork belongs to others on the film.
My work was organizing each tier, working with PA’s to determine cost/profit for each tier, as well as creating these mockups for each tier. I had to work with each artist on the team to get high-res versions of each image and then create high quality 3D mockups or final product mockups.
With the recent success of the Kickstarter, my job now turns towards assessing how many of each tiers rewards we need, assembling branding and packaging for each of the backers, managing fulfillment, and quality control of each item we ship out. I will also oversee shipments, to make sure we reach the deadlines assigned to us by Kickstarter.
EARLY FUNDING
Before our Kickstarter began, back in December, I was on the road setting up our shop with early products and promoting our film. This included managing what products to sell, promotion of our film and future Kickstarter, and establishing our presence to people outside of our reach on social media. I worked a table over three days to sell our products, as well as hand out mini business cards to people wanting to know more about the film.
Submerch
To continue our funding and PR of our film, we worked tirelessly to create an online shop, collaborating with several of our artists on the team, as well as myself creating some of the branding and packaging for the film. This involved:
Creating branding and packaging for stickers, sticker sheets, bundling, and magnets
Collaborating with artists to design a marketable style and a list of marketable items
Overseeing orders and fulfillment
Selling items to local, physical vendors to earn money and publicity there
Becoming a local vendor to sell our items on weekends throughout the city
Overseeing quality control and inventory for each of our items
At week 5 of my SCAD collaboration class, we were told to make idea different and move it out of Savannah specifically. The previous person’s idea we picked asked if I would like to take on the director role as we restarted. At midterms, we completely scrapped 3 weeks of work and started from scratch. I took over as director, producer, visual development artist and animator when I could. For this collaborative project, we didn’t have access to shot grid, so everything had to be used through Google Drive. We kept everything on there, and I made sure everything that was produced on this film was uploaded so nothing got lost.
My Responsibilities
Making a skill sheet, shotlist, and schedule for the final 5 weeks of pre production, production and post production
Leading dailies
Checking in with people about progress
Meeting with all the departments (Visual development, story, animation, post-production), as well as giving presentations about our progress to the class
Doing draw overs, helping with storyboard feedback, and helping with environments and character design
The very first thing I had to do as director and producer, was see what everyone was skilled at, what they had experience doing, and what they couldn’t do. I needed hands working at all times to be sure we would finish on time, but I also needed those hands to be doing something they knew how to do. The first day I made this skill chart so I could start assigning things. I grouped people into Character Design, Backgrounds, Character Effect Animation and Character Animation. As we were short on hands, those that could draw characters ended up drawing the key frame animation while animators inbetweened.
We started on January 26th, 2022 with the pitch that we all had to come to an agreement on. We decided to keep the essence of the original idea, but take it world wide. As this was a bumper, we had to keep it under a minute. From January 26th to February 12th, we worked on a storyboard, revising it to put the characters on model, and then having a final animatic with sound and music. In the meantime, animators had to work on background characters and turn arounds for the main characters, just so everyone was working on something. As soon as the animatic was done, animation begun.
Animation begins
The very first thing we had to do was figure out a schedule to cram 1 minute of animation into 4 1/2 weeks, as the fifth week was needed for post production and submission. In this time, I worked with the animators to create a shot list, a schedule, and teams based on their strengths. We had not only character animation, but an abundance of effects animation. Next, I split the team based on who could do effects animation and paired them up with someone that could do character animation. As we were short on animators, I helped with effects animation. I talked with the lead animator to help oversee all the shots, while I had to help coordinate and check in with the visual development team.
Meanwhile with Visual Development
Since we had more visual development artists than animators, most of my time was spent helping with animation. I asked the person with the original pitch, Gaby Dollahite, to be the visual development lead and oversee the color script, and help out the other three with environments and character designs. I helped occasionally with draw overs, but most of my time was spent managing the asset list, checking in with everyone, and reassigning people to new assets whenever they were free. Keeping track of everything we needed, adjusting the schedule based on how busy people were, and seeing what the status of everything was a lot harder without Shotgrid, but I was able to coordinate it all through google drive.