7
Production
“I now truly believe it is impossible for me to make a bad movie.”
—Jean-Claude Van Damme
Software as a Service
With the advent of the Cloud, the software industry started changing. Traditional business models, whereby a particular version of a computer application would be bought by customers, who would then use that software for as long as they needed (or until a new version was released that they’d pay again to upgrade to), seem to make less sense in an era where software can be updated more regularly, with automatic updates made available via the Internet. Sticking to this business model meant holding big, new features back until some arbitrary time where they could be packaged up and sold as a new version. The timing of such releases could be problematic too—wait too long and risk customers switching to more feature-rich products, but publishing new paid upgrades too regularly risks losing customers who feel they are being nickel-and-dimed. Coupled with this, the natural evolution of a great many software products was to integrate them with Cloud Services to some extent, and a general desire to make applications “platform-independent” (de-emphasising a need to run the application on Windows XP, for example, and instead making it available for users with smartphones, or operating systems such as Mac OS X or Linux) meant that making the software run on a hosted server instead, with users accessing it via a browser became a very attractive prospect.
For this reason, many software publishers switched to a subscription-based service, where customers instead pay a subscription to access the software (and these are often tiered in such a way that a customer pays more for access to more features). Arguably this model is more to the publisher’s benefit than to their customers’: the publisher is under less pressure to release big features (but on the other hand, solid infrastructure, good technical support, and customer service become much more critical), there’s no concern that the software will be pirated (instead, there’s the concern that the server will get infiltrated or attacked by malicious people or groups), as well as financial benefits; meanwhile the customers only really benefit from a lower up-front cost (potentially the cost may be lower in the long-run, but that’s not always the case), and even worse, give up the ownership of their data to some extent.
Take the review and approval process, for example. Traditionally, notes made during reviews would need to be emailed (or even passed around on paper) to relevant parties. Now, web-based software like Adobe’s Creative Cloud allow these notes to be added via a browser directly to Adobe’s server and logged there, where the relevant parties can access them. Simple and convenient, yet what about when there’s network disruption? Or worse still, if you decide it’s not financially viable to maintain the description and, as such, lose access to all that information—your information— because it’s all stored on a third-party server? Sure, there are ways to back up or export this metadata as you go with many of these services, but it’s added busywork of the sort that’s supposed to be eliminated by moving to the Cloud.
Coupled with that are the general disadvantages of all Cloud services— namely a dependence on a stable Internet connection—but there’s also the fact that application performance tends to be sorely lacking when compared to a “native” desktop application—we’re not likely to see a full-blown audio or video editing system as a web app that’s a viable alternative to a desktop editing system any time soon, due to the raw, immediate processing power required to manipulate video footage (particularly high-resolution footage) in real-time.
Still, there’s no disputing that the model is here to stay—an increasing number of traditional software development companies are migrating their desktop-based products to something at least partially web-based (and almost certainly subscription-based), with the end result that many of them are solving the same problems independently from each other, in terms of document management, search, and file sharing.
As of 2015, almost every type of desktop software has a Cloud-based counterpart, from traditional office-based software like word processing and scheduling, to those more specific to film and video production, like production management, editing, and visual effects.
Production Management in the Cloud
The fact that “production management” is almost synonymous with “busy-work” probably isn’t much of a surprise, but it needn’t be. Much of production management involves checking things are where they need to be, happening when they’re supposed to be, and then producing reports about everything that happened. As productions become ever more complex, with fewer people tasked with more responsibilities, it’s increasingly harder to keep on top of all of those things, at least until you factor in ways to streamline them.
Time Tracking
When it comes to tracking what crew members are working on, where they’ve been doing it, and how long for, it’s a lot easier to have them “check in” with their location and status to the Cloud, rather than have to spend a lot of time and energy in calling around and leaving messages for each other. The requisite technology to enable this for each crew member—a GPS and Internet connection—is available in pretty much any smartphone, and solutions such as TSheets (tsheets.com) provide the software and database for capturing all the information from them in. Moreover, this can all be done in an automatic manner, meaning that aside from having all of that data logged for later on, it’s possible for production managers to get an idea of exactly where everyone is and what they’re working on whilst they’re on the clock. This can be useful to productions with lots of crew (as in a film shoot) as well as for smaller teams that are very mobile (as in a group of news crews).
Even if keeping tabs on the whereabouts of all crew members at all times seems a little bit creepy, systems like this allow for more accurate tracking of overtime, and the amount of time spent is gathered and available in real-time. It’s possible, for example, for alerts to be configured if overtime is about to happen, with easy access to the estimated financial impact of any overtime before it happens—information that can be invaluable to a producer trying to weigh up whether an extra hour of shooting is really worth it.
A final bonus to the real-time time-tracking systems offered by the Cloud is that crew members don’t need to then go and fill in timesheets (or be chased up to do it) after the fact. The data have already been collected and are accessible, so all that’s left to do is have it approved and submitted for payment.
Status Reporting
Figure 7.1
Time Tracking with the Cloud
Figure 7.2
Status Reporting with the Cloud
For departments that don’t need the level of granularity afforded by time tracking but still need to communicate their status to each other (particularly when they’re in different locations from each other), services like Working-On (workingon.co) might be suitable. Instead of everyone being gathered into a meeting to announce to each other what they’ll be doing that day, they can simply send this information to the Cloud, and it’s collated with everyone else’s status, available to view online as needed, or redistributed in a daily email, for example. This can save a lot of time for larger teams and can be especially useful for anyone who is away from the office.
Document Management
Several key documents are central to the production management process on a television or film shoot (most notably the scripts), and these can change and evolve over time. Managing these documents effectively requires knowing things like which is the latest version of each, as well as controlling who has access to what. In the case of the script itself, this can be extremely complicated, because there are typically many versions of a script, and different people may be allowed to access only certain portions of particular versions.
For example, during casting, only specific, isolated sections from the script may need to be available to performers to read from. When shooting a scene, however, some people will need access to the entire script to see context, others will be concerned about the script only as it relates to the current scene, and still others (for example, “day players”, who are typically required for a limited part of a scene only) might need to see only a small section.
Still other types of documents may need to be distributed in mass, such as health and safety reports. Traditionally this is handled via fax or email, but keeping track of who was sent which documents in this way can be tricky. Factor in each document potentially having different versions, and it might be time to start looking into ways to make these processes better.
Table 7.1 Key Documents
| Scripts |
| Contracts |
| Staff, crew, actor agreements |
| Permits |
| Location agreements and information sheets |
| Budget reports |
| Health and safety reports |
| Insurance documents |
Figure 7.3
Document Management with the Cloud
Cloud-based solutions such as Entertainment Partners’ Scenechronize (www.ep.com/home/managing-production/scenechronize/) provide a number of dedicated features to simplify many of these processes. Instead of managing and distributing documents manually, you instead upload them to Scenechronize and have them distributed from there, with the ability to control which person sees which document (or part of the document), with the ability to then do things like collate documents together per person. With security being a key factor, documents can also be watermarked with each person’s name, and the system can be set up to easily issue hard copies as opposed to sharing digital files.
Box 7.1 Scanning Documents
For all the strengths of Cloud-based document management, they all have one major weakness: the documents must exist in some digital format. On a typical production, however, many documents will not have a digital counterpart, particularly for contracts and other legal paperwork.
In order to make these documents available, they must, therefore, be scanned, which can be a tedious extra step for anyone who is used to simply sticking their documents in a filing cupboard. However, desktop document scanners are reasonably common in most office environments, and there’s even the possibility to use apps on mobile devices that have cameras to quick scan in document pages for uploading to the Cloud.
Casting & Crewing
Casting Calls
Traditionally, the casting process comprises two logistical problems for casting directors: obtaining casting materials from potential talent and then distributing a selection of those to others. One of the reasons this is fraught with difficulty is the number of different ways materials can be submitted. DVDs and paperwork may be sent by post in one instance, whilst online reels and links to personal websites may be emailed in another.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise then that services such as Cast It Talent (castittalent.com) exist to make the process smoother by providing a single entry point for actors and agents to submit materials, and then provide a uniform interface for casting directors to view those materials, without having to sift through paperwork and disks, and with the pertinent information presented in the same way for each submission. The talent (or their agent) logs into the site, and uploads their showreel and related documentation to the Cloud. The service then handles any conversion or formatting, collates all the submissions together, and presents them to a casting director with a single, consistent interface.
However, this can also be taken further, so that the casting directors can continue to add to this database, for example, adding notes, photographs, and videos they capture in subsequent meetings with actors, and then be able to share relevant items with other members of the production, such as directors and producers, as well as the hair, make-up, and wardrobe departments. Thanks to the Cloud, anyone who needs access to all of this material has it without the casting team having to worry about making and disseminating copies out to different people.
Figure 7.4
Casting Submissions in the Cloud
Crew Selection
Though the crew selection process for a given production is perhaps not as rigorous as it is for the cast, it’s still a crucial and somewhat laborious one. The majority of productions rely on department leaders to source their own team, and whilst this is preferable in a number of ways (having people who work well together is perhaps just as important as the skills they each have on an individual level), there will be occasions where some positions can’t be filled this way, such as when potential candidates have conflicting schedules.
Often then, department leaders need to fall back to a more traditional approach to fill positions for crew members, such as calling around, placing job postings, and conducting interviews. Given the time-sensitive nature of production, many of them consider this searching process to be too much of a time sink considering the other things they need to do in preparation for the production starting up.
Though there are Cloud-based services such as LinkedIn (linkedin.com) that can be used to improve this process, there’s nothing readily available that’s tailored to film and television productions that can be considered as definitive for crew selection as, for example, Cast It is for casting. The Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) can serve as a useful resource for seeing who worked on which productions, but there’s no indication there as to what the quality of their work was like and what they actually did in a given role.
Larger studios may have an internal database concerning crew members used on previous productions, but these aren’t always made easily available to the people who might need access to them, and similarly there’s little incentive for department heads to update them even if they do have access. Clearly this is an area that’s primed for the Cloud to fill, with a single service that acts both as a résumé library as well as a recommendations system, and that persists between separate productions.
Crew On-Boarding
An often-overlooked challenge, particularly with large productions, is ensuring that each of the (potentially) hundreds of crew members know what they need to know in advance of the production starting. Broadly speaking, such information might include who the key members of the production team are; locations and dates for shoots, production offices, and other notable places; as well as more general information like what the details and spirit of the storyline is. Though this can be done via traditional means, such as through face-to-face meetings, emails, and so on, the process may be complicated somewhat by security protocols—whereby only some people are given access to certain information, and some communication channels may be considered too insecure for certain types of information.
Furthermore, these problems become more pronounced the later a given crew member joins the production. When a production is further along, it can require a lot more effort in getting someone up-to-speed, along with tracking down the necessary and up-to-date documentation that has been produced at that point.
As with the problem of crew selection, though the on-boarding process seems an appropriate one to be handled by the Cloud, there’s currently no single service that tackles this problem directly. Productions, therefore, on-board their crew with whatever resources and tools they have available, which tends to result in holding multiple meetings with separate groups, as well as producing documentation that is tailored to specific people. As with the crew selection process, this can be a somewhat thankless task for everyone involved, and one that seems needlessly laborious.
Figure 7.5
Crew On-boarding in the Cloud
That said, the collaboration and communication tools outlined in chapter 6 can certainly help, particularly those that offer hybrid communications, such as Google Hangouts or Slack. These can allow for different “rooms” (or “channels”) and keep a history of everything posted, allowing those who join later to get up-to-speed on previous discussion points more easily. There’s also Trello (trello.com), a Cloud-based service that allows the creation of “boards” that can be used to organise “cards” (individual pieces of documentation) in a metaphor that’s simple to understand and that can be kept up-to-date, which could serve this purpose well, particularly when making use of its integrations with third-party services.
Creative Development
There’s a lot of busywork and administration that happens on every production. So much so that it can become easy to forget that every production is ultimately a creative endeavour. As such it relies on software and services that are creatively-focused. This might be in the form of illustration software for concept artists, writing software for screenwriters, editing systems, or compositing software for visual effects artists.
Any of these can benefit from the increased mobility and collaboration that the Cloud allows for, particularly when it comes to the review and approval process (which will be explored in more depth in chapter 12), but also during the creative process itself. Even the process of screenwriting, traditionally a solitary and isolated endeavour, has begun to move to the Cloud, both for secure document storage and versioning, but also for easier integration with script breakdown and scheduling applications.
For example, Adobe Story (story.adobe.com) has all the features you would expect from a word processor targeted to screenwriting, but being Cloud-based, it means that every draft and revision of a script is immediately and automatically available to producers to begin doing breakdowns and schedules. This can save time for all involved but also reduce the complexity of having to notify people when changes to the script are made.
Indeed, Adobe has taken a similar approach with all of its creative-focused software. Its Illustrator and Photoshop applications, both of which are employed by certain roles throughout a production, such as within the art and marketing departments, are now strongly tied into the Cloud. As you might expect, this allows for access to the suite of creative applications as well as any project documents from any device, meaning artists can sketch out ideas on a phone, then seamlessly switch to a desktop system and continue working, before finally opening their work on a tablet to take and show to someone, continuing to make adjustments directly as needed. Likewise, everyone is able to work more collaboratively, as in the case of someone drawing a background whilst someone else works on the foreground of a single piece of art.
Figure 7.6
Using the Cloud to Share Components of Files
But it doesn’t end there; after all, it is relatively simple to make use of pretty much any Cloud storage service to work in this way. With the Adobe Cloud ecosystem, however, it’s possible to think of work in terms of not only finished work, but also the components that make them up. For example, a Photo-shop document might have multiple layers of images, whereas an Illustrator document could have text with specific styling, or shapes using a specific colour scheme. Instead of simply sharing different documents between artists to allow them to conform to a specific style, the underlying presets can be shared. For example, a colour palette could be defined for a particular scene by the director or director of photography using an application such as Adobe Capture CC and then shared with a concept artist working in Adobe Illustrator. Or the marketing department could design a specific combination of font styling, colour, and text effect and make that available to any artists working with text. Or a location scout might grab a single layer of a Photo-shop document to use as a reference when looking for a particular location.
With everything connected at such a granular level, there’s less time and effort spent on redoing the same work, and less need for individuals to need to start their creative process from a blank page.
Box 7.2 Adobe Capture CC
Some applications which might have otherwise been considered novelties in an era where there are hundreds of thousands of mobile apps readily available to play with are given new meaning when placed in the context of the Cloud, and specifically when used within an application “ecosystem” such as Adobe’s Creative Cloud. Case in point is Adobe Capture CC. Available for iOS and Android, it may at first appear to be a gimmick—having the ability to generate a colour palette via your device’s camera or turn a photograph into a vector image might at first seem mildly entertaining rather than useful.
However, once you consider that these can become components for others to work with, it becomes a ludicrously simple and powerful tool. The app itself directly allows the creation of colour palettes, vector shapes, brush patterns, and colour looks without any degree of technical expertise or training and generates everything from previously captured photos or directly from the camera.
A director of photography might use it on set (or whilst scouting) to define colour themes to apply in later scenes or in post-production, whilst someone in marketing might capture details from set decoration that can instantly be made available to illustrators to work with in a format that’s ready to use (assuming, of course, that everyone else is already invested in the Adobe ecosystem).
Figure 7.7
Adobe Capture CC
Post-Production
The demands of much of post-production, particularly when it comes to speed and storage capacity (a typical digital shoot will consist of many tera-bytes of footage, much of it needing to be accessed immediately at any time, which is both impractical and expensive for most Cloud-based services), means the Cloud is not as suitable for other stages of production. However, different types of productions have different needs, and there are many situations where the Cloud can play an important part in post-production.
Editing
Although the tight deadlines, high volume of source footage, and the need to view everything at high resolution means that feature films and high-end television production can’t have the luxury of using the Cloud as part of the editing process for the most part, there are other situations where the Cloud can provide huge benefits to a production.
News crews, for example, can leverage the Cloud to prepare and send footage from remote locations, or even perform full editing in the field. At a minimum, remote crews can upload select footage to Cloud storage, which can then be downloaded by an editor elsewhere to work with, and then in turn upload finished sequences for transmission. But more sophisticated options exist.
For example, Avid’s Media Composer Cloud (avid.com) offers several benefits over more traditional editing, in the form of streaming media, the time-saving ability to upload edits even as they’re in progress, and being able to selectively download media for use offline. Features such as these can help to make even remote teams seem more connected to the base of operations and can maximise the benefits of the Cloud whilst reducing (even if not eliminating) the drawbacks.
In situations where the editor is remote but with the camera crew, she can edit the footage received directly from the camera whilst it is simultaneously being uploaded for access to the base, then begin uploading the sequence prior to completion, before sending the final changes to the sequence at the end (which should be faster than uploading the final sequence in one go). And where all parties are remote, the camera team uploads footage to the Cloud, which is then downloaded and worked on by the editor as needed, and who then uploads the final sequence.
Figure 7.8
Editing Environment with Local Network
Figure 7.9
Editing Environment with Remote Crew
Figure 7.10
Cloud-based Editing Environment
Other approaches are also available. Forbidden’s Forscene (forscene.com), for example, leans towards a more approachable, ad-hoc system. Forscene provides a web-based interface that provides for the primary aspects of editing, from ingest and logging, through editing and review, to syndication and digital mastering. This can provide smaller teams with the basic infrastructure to do editing, without needing to rent lots of equipment or set up a facility. All that’s needed is Internet access, a web browser, the source digital media to upload to the system, and a subscription for as long as needed.
Popular Cloud Production Services
TSheets (tsheets.com)
Pricing: $16 + $4/user/month (annual billing), $20 + $5/user/month (monthly billing), $80 + $4/user/month (over 100 users, annual billing)
Features: mobile-based time tracking, browser-based time tracking, location tracking, overtime alerts, approval settings, live reporting, historical reporting, integration with accounting systems, API
Tsheets represents one of the most comprehensive Cloud-based solutions for time tracking, able to track time via mobile apps with GPS data if needed, and all data are consolidated in real-time so managers can get live reports and anticipate (and estimate the impact of) overtime before it happens, and then produce a number of financial reports and export data directly into applications such as Intuit QuickBooks if needed.
Labor Sync (laborsync.com)
Pricing: $10/user/month
Features: mobile-based time tracking, browser-based time tracking, location tracking, live reporting, historical reporting, integration with QuickBooks
Labor Sync has a similar approach to Tsheets, although it offers fewer features and is more expensive. Of note is the ability to send messages to individuals directly from within the application.
Toggl (toggl.com)
Pricing: free (up to 5 users, feature-limited), $5/user/month (“Pro” features), $49/user/month (“Business” features)
Features: mobile-based time tracking, browser-based time tracking, historical reporting, integration with project management systems, API
Toggl takes a slightly different approach from Tsheets, with a focus on project management as opposed to finance. It has support for grabbing project data from Basecamp or Asana, and can sync data with FreshBooks, but may not be suitable for larger productions that are concerned with tracking ongoing costs. One notable feature is that it provides integration with other browser-based services. Create an appointment in Google Calendar, for example, and you’ll see an option to automatically log the time to Toggl.
WorkingOn (workingon.co)
Pricing: free (ad-supported, feature-limited), from $4/user/month
Features: browser-based status reporting, daily email report, integration with project management systems
WorkingOn provides a simple way for people in teams to post updates about what they’re doing, which can then be forwarded on to other chat applications such as Slack, and collated in a daily email summary. There’s no mobile application offered, and its limited functionality makes the paid versions seem expensive unless you have a very specific workflow.
Trello (trello.com)
Pricing: free (feature-limited), $8.33/user/month (“Business” features), $20.83/user/month (“Enterprise” features)
Features: organise information and attachments visually, browser-based, mobile apps, integrations with Cloud storage and project management systems, API
Trello uses a “card” metaphor, where individual documents or pieces of information are visualised as cards on a “board” that can be organised into lists. Individual boards can be shared with others, allowing for collaborative brainstorming processes or the ability to collect and publish lots of information in a simple way.
Scenechronize (ep.com/home/managing-production/scenechronize/)
Pricing: undisclosed
Features: document storage, contact database, scheduling, automated script breakdown, watermarking, browser-based, mobile apps
Scenechronize provides Cloud-based document management with some features geared towards film and video productions. Notably it includes automated script breakdown and tight controls over who can see what, with user-specific watermarking on documents as required. It also has some scheduling features, and contact information and dashboards tailored to individual crew members.
Cast It (castitsystems.com)
Pricing: based on production budget
Features: document storage, contact database, scheduling, watermarking, browser-based
Cast It provides a way for casting departments to organise media related to the casting process, as well as allow talent and agents to submit materials in a secure, uniform way. Casting directors can then select and forward on videos and other media to other departments for review.
Adobe Story (story.adobe.com)
Pricing: free (feature-limited), $10/user/month or included with a Creative Cloud subscription
Features: create, edit, and break down screenplays; integration with Adobe Premiere; browser-based
Adobe’s word processor for screenwriting allows for easy collaboration, breakdown, and scheduling, though these aspects of it are perhaps not as fully-featured as those offered by Scenechronize. However, a mobile version that was previously available has since been withdrawn with no alternative offered, and development on the application itself seems to have stagnated.
Adobe Creative Cloud (creative.adobe.com)
Pricing: $20/month (individual, single application, 20 GB storage), $30/user/month (multiple users, single application, 100 GB storage), $50/month (individual, all applications, 20 GB storage), $70/user/month (multiple users, all applications, 100 GB storage)
Features: over 20 desktop and mobile applications related to digital imaging, synchronisation of presets and other assets
Adobe made a somewhat controversial switch from a traditional software license business model to a subscription-based one (completely discontinuing the traditional software line in 2013), meaning users would always get the latest versions of its software rather than having to periodically “upgrade”. The applications included run the gamut from digital image creation and capture through organisation, video editing, visual effects, audio editing, web design, and colour correction, all of which have some Cloud-enhanced functionality, in the form of easy sharing and sync.
Avid Media Composer Cloud (avid.com)
Pricing: undisclosed
Features: editing of local and remote media, make remote media available offline, submit in-progress sequences
Avid’s Media Composer Cloud doesn’t fundamentally change the way editors create sequences, but what it does do is streamline the process of working remotely. Rather than have to set up a file-sharing system and then coordinate requests for media to use remotely, the editor can remotely connect to a workgroup server and browse, upload, and download media as needed. As a bonus, sequences being worked on can begin to be uploaded prior to completion, instead of waiting to transfer just the finished sequence at the end (and saving time as a result).
Forscene (forscene.com)
Pricing: $200/user/month + $1,000/year (“small” facility), $200/user/month + $4,000/year (“large” facility)
Features: 100 hours proxy media storage, browser-based video editing, mobile video editing apps
Billed as a fully-featured Cloud-based video editor, Forscene works in any Java-capable browser or via a mobile app. It requires a dedicated server for ingesting media, but otherwise users just need an Internet connection to be able to log, rough cut, review, and publish sequences.
Bibliography
Introducing Adobe Capture CC https://blogs.adobe.com/movingcolors/2015/10/05/introducing-adobe-capture-cc/
No Film School http://nofilmschool.com/