The Zen of Visual Effects
No, I don’t mean Ahnuld. I mean the type of governor that limits a vehicle from going “too fast”. This touches more on the previous post about getting to final slowly and steadily versus in a mad dash. I had an interesting discussion with some folks at the gig I am currently at today. Basically there is a deliverable due EOD Wednesday, and then the following Monday there is a client screening by the agency. Exciting stuff, I know. Please keep your pants on. I don’t want to see it. However, I noticed the team was hell bent on delivering as much very high quality imagery as possible by the Wednesday timeframe. Today was Monday and we had the discussion at just before 7pm. This means realistically we have 1.25 days to do 8 shots including the look dev at the same time.
I proposed a theory. Why not just work on 2 of the shots. The two best representations of the work and the scope. Let the client pick it apart because no matter what we do, they’ll do that. Meanwhile we’ll be working on the other 6 shots for the next couple of days and have a bit of a buffer built up. If we can get the prep for Monday basically done by EOD Friday, it saves the team a weekend of going bonkers trying to finish things. I hate going bonkers. Everyone loses. So, think about what your timeframes are. Manage your time and the client’s expectations so you can come out ahead versus hoping you’ll make that time you said you would.
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3 Responses to The “governor” principle when it comes to deliverables
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Couldn’t agree more. I cant recall the amount of times we have made a mad dash to a deadline just to have to do them all over again anyways. Pick a couple shots, get the client super happy with them and then move on to the rest of them.
I think we did this well on Priest with some exceptions of course. When we took on more shots (at an overage) we worked more hours than initially calculated. The crew got paid overtime and I hope spirits were still positive. I feel that the production staff learned quite a bit about each other and job management that paid off much more towards the end. Hey, having good food from Johnny Pacific didn’t hurt either!
Throb,
I like the blog, and the subjects you touch on.
It’s good to finally hear somebody in this industry talking common sense.