#production management

[whatislifebesidesrehearsal]

[Stage Tech struggling with door]

Production Manager: do you need me to rescue you?

Stage Tech: …yeaah

[artsekey]

I'm not super into Lackadaisy, but I am super into animation, and...

How are they planning to finance an entire season with just 1,000,000?

(Everything below assumes that they're aiming for episodes that are comparable to the pilot & that they plan on fully financing the season with solely the donations on Backerkit. It's likely they have additional financing through merchandising, the pilot, and/or Iron Circus's other projects, but since that information is not available, I'll go off of what I know. Additionally, production management and budgeting are extremely project dependent, so the "averages" listed below may be far off what the PM on Lackadaisy's got quoted.)

[EDIT: It’s been brought to my attention that the episodes are 10-12 minutes long, which means it’s MUCH more doable than I was expecting! They budgeted for a lean (but doable!!!) production. Thank you to those who clarified! I’ll leave this post as-is for those interested, but read it knowing they’re considering roughly half the time I used to calculate everything below!]

Quick preface as to why I wanted to talk about this and Why I Feel I May Have Valuable Things To Say: I'm an indie filmmaker and professor of animation, production management, and VFX. I'm not trying to call out the company or the production because-- and I cannot say this enough-- I truly do not know what's happening on the back end. Every production is wildly different. Their original goal was 125,000, with 45% going to animation-- that includes rough, cleanup, & color. That means that for a ~27 minute animated episode, they've got $56,250. If we collect all facets of production together-- story, layout, animation, compositing, and editing-- we wind up with a grand total of $82,500. Even if we estimate at the lowest average production cost of $8,000 a minute, this budget would account for ~11 minutes of animation.

An animator's average hourly rate is ~$36. With the outlined budget, the Lackadaisy production would be able to afford ~1562 hours of animator manpower. Let's assume (for the sake of this discussion) they'll split that over at least four animators, leaving us with about 10 weeks of full-time work (~390 hrs per person) for four people.

Now this may seem like a lot of time, but as far as I can tell, the pilot was largely animated frame-by-frame without the use of 2D rigging. This means every frame needs to go through roughs, then cleanup, then color, then composite. Every frame you see on-screen has been worked over at least four times-- six if you count layout and story. Ten weeks is simply not enough time to finish 27 minutes of 2D animation.

Now, I know what you might be thinking; Artsekey, they never said their production period was ten weeks! And you're right! However, that's how much production time they can afford. Whether it's split over 20 weeks or a year, they only have enough money to pay their animators for 1562 hours of labor.... if they're paying them a competitive hourly wage. To be completely clear, I am not insinuating that they're low-balling their animators; there're a dozen unknown factors that play into this, such as:

The level of animator they're hiring (an apprentice animator may make ~$17-$23 an hour whereas an experienced pro may make ~$43-$45.)

Whether they're actually hiring animators as opposed to contracting animators (I assume their model is likely relying on the latter based on the fact that I'm seeing a lot of animators that worked on 1-3 shots). They may be doing single-sum deliverable based contracts rather than hourly.

The use of tools like EBsynth (which is listed among the programs they're using) and smart frame management (which they're definitely doing!). This can, if used properly, cut down on the number of in-betweens animators need to get done.

The amount of money the studio is planning to re-invest on their end. The goal on backerkit may just account for the additional funds the studio needs to enter production, meaning their budget may be far larger than what's listed. However, if this were the case, I'd hope they'd disclose it! If I were considering backing the project, knowing that the studio was going to be buying in would increase my faith in the fundraiser.

Obviously, the team loves animation. It shows through in the pilot, and I think that it's clear in their mission statement that they stand against the exploitation of animators. But... I also know that indie production is like trying to wring water out of a log. I'd personally like a more comprehensive breakdown of their expenditures not because I think there's anything suspicious happening behind the scenes, but because as someone who teaches production management for animation and who has an interest in indie production specifically, I'm wondering what choices they're making to stretch their funds.

And what about sound?

While I'm not an expert in audio design, I do live with a professional voice actress/audio engineer, and she had a few thoughts I'd like to share.

At their original goal, roughly ~12500 was set aside for:

Sound Design

Music Composition

Voice Acting

Now, I can only refer to my own experiences as an indie filmmaker regarding price, but the rate I received-- from friends-- for sound design was roughly ~325 per minute, and this was a very, very good deal for what I personally needed. The audio engineer can be responsible for collecting and/or recording foley, or the sound effects you hear in film. This can be expensive and time consuming. They're also responsible for editing all the foley, music, and voice acting together in a way that feels seamless. If we were going off the rate I was given (which was very reasonable given the amount of work that needed to be done), ~27 minutes of full foley, complex sound design, and mixing would run about ~8,000. This number could fluctuate significantly depending on whether they need the sound designers to create the foley, get some ADR in, or just mix the audio, but let's assume that Lackadaisy has a pre-existing foley library and that the price falls in a lower range of ~5,000.

Music's a complete wild-card. In my experience, most composers charge per-minute, and most of the indie composers I've worked with were at a rate of ~$100 per minute of music. That'll land at a nice $2,700.

Now where my friend got particularly heated was the rate for the voice actors. As a voice actress herself, she was floored that the budget for voice was so low-- particularly because the project's pilot pulled industry voices like ProZD. Obviously, the price for voice can vary wildly based on how many lines an actor has, their experience as a voice actor, their personal terms, ect. The cast for the pilot included 11 credited actors. I can't assume their rates or whether they charge a fee to even get in the booth (my roomate charges $100 flat at the start of a session), but if my other estimates are in the right ballpark, their goal budget accounts for roughly ~500 per VA (and it's extremely unlikely that it's divided equally for obvious (and logical) reasons). Honestly, for a full episode of animation, that's... about average. But average in the voice-acting community doesn't necessarily mean good. Voice actors are notoriously underpaid, and-- as previously mentioned-- bigger names with more lines are going to be taking in more of that pay-pool.

And, of course, the Production Managers.

I'm not going to speak on this for too long, but the original budget held 8750 for the admin team. I assume admin includes their PMs, director, and leads (if they have enough specialization to need leads). Assuming it's just one PM and one director, they're pulling in ~4375 a person. For the duration of the project. There's no way that prepro, production, and post would take less than 8 months. Of everyone involved in a production, these roles are on-board from start to end, and it's simply not enough! PM's are absolutely critical to success!

Not to mention the editor!

In animation, the editor is the director's right-hand man, and is working to edit the storyboards, reels, scratch music, and the final cut. This role is also on the production from pre-to-post, and their original budget allows for.... $2,500. What? If I go extremely low on the hourly for the editor, you maybe get one part-time weeks' worth of work for several edits of a 27 minute episode. With most everything else I've talked about, I've mentioned there's a lot of wiggle room because of all the factors I simply don't know, but in no universe is $2,500 enough for this editing job. (Even at the current budget of 1,000,000, $4,000 an episode is super low.)

But, hey! They've got more money now!

Of course, all of these concerns go out the window when you consider that the team's already raised a whopping $953,000 (as of 7/31/23) with the fundraiser only up for five days... right?

Well... It certainly alleviates some of the strain, but their stretch goals were scope increases! This means that once they reach their 1,000,000 stretch goal, they're adding on four additional ~27 minute episodes. This increases the budget-per-episode to 200,000 (yay!), but that still leaves the project with about $7,400 to spend per-minute... which, in the world of animation, isn't much!

All in all, I think that the original goal of 125,000 -- if there was going to be minimal investment from the company-- was completely insufficient, and it would have been irresponsible to try to produce a 27 minute long pilot with that budget. At the same time, I imagine the PM/Admin team could reasonably expect a strong outpouring of support from the fans based on past success and low-balled the original goal. Now that they're near 1,000,000, I think- and hope - they'll be able to swing it.

If anyone has any insight into the production of the pilot (either because you worked on it or know someone who does), please feel free to add context to this post! Again, I am not trying to call out Iron Circus. I'm fascinated by indie production and have been following the successes and failures of crowdfunded animation since it started picking up, and while the goal for Lackadaisy raised some concerns for me up-front, I think they're making strategic choices based on hard data (that we the public are not privvy to). They've already done it once, so they should be able to do it again!

[ananyamehtablog]

Top Colleges in Bangalore Specializing in Production and Operations Management

[diptisinghblog]

Overview of Production and Operations Management: Key Elements, Strategies, and Best Practices

[theuniversesvoicebox]

What are good Alternatives to Shotgrid?

**GOOGLE IS BROKEN** I want honest opinions!

I mean the PRICE is too high for me, but this...NAME CHANGE, just killed my need for ever using it again. **JUST SAY "no" to FPT** AUTODESK, HOW DARE YOU! No, I will never use this program again. Not only is it overpriced, but now the NAME is awful.

SEEKING CHEAP/FREE: Film/TV/VFX/Graphic Art Production Project Management software.

[vfxexpress]

Stop Wasting Time on Reports! 2dview Makes VFX Production a Breeze!

Stop Wasting Time on Reports! 2dview Makes VFX Production a Breeze! Imagine this: you’re in the thick of a crazy creative project, deadlines looming, and you desperately need a clear picture of where things stand. But instead of focusing on the creative magic, you’re stuck churning out endless reports to keep everyone in the loop. Ugh! Well, fret no more, VFX friends! 2dview is here to help.…

[glickgroupglobal]

New Product Development

Expert hardware development & due diligence services at Glick Group Global ensuring strategic decisions. Explore our hardware development solutions for innovative and reliable products.

For more details, Visit: https://www.glickgroupglobal.com/

[schedulingsolutions]

Advanced Leading Planning & Scheduling Platform

LSI Scheduling Platform is the worlds’ only true Multi-User, Multi-Plant APS (Advanced Planning and Scheduling) software solution.

Why is this important to you? It gives you the ability to schedule your production at the micro level (you the ability to assign a separate scheduler for a specific area of your plant) and at the macro level (you have the ability instantly synchronize your overall supply chain).

LSI Scheduling Solutions delivers Excel like simplicity by providing you with the tools you need to compete in today’s dynamic manufacturing environments. Built to integrate with your ERP and MES applications we provide plug and play solutions for SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, QAD, Aptean Ross, and many others. It is important to understand that Scheduling Solutions massively enhances the effectiveness of your MES solution which is a critical component of any Smart Factory and IOT strategic initiative.

[whatislifebesidesrehearsal]

Production Manager: maybe if they break the rest of the theater they’ll finally reupholster the seats

[midydoof]

Me and @the-obnoxious-sibling have been having a lot of fun with the new vivre cards this whole week.

Bonus actual home life drawing:

[ananyamehtablog]

Operations Management and Production Management: Streamlining Processes for Business Efficiency

[varioproduction]

How to find the best San Diego event production management company?

When taking services from a good event production management company in San Diego, you need to stay extra careful and choose the one with good experience to make the event a hit. No doubt there are a lot of options, but a comparison here will be beneficial for you to make the most of the available opportunity. To begin with, you can consider checking out the online platform to find all the companies located near your area, take recommendations from your friends and family or even your colleagues to know about all the companies who are specialized in the same. No doubt the process will take some time. But you will have no difficulty when you have researched the same well. Also, you can consider checking out the review section to learn about the service quality and professionalism. It will be like a clear book that will give you an indication that the company is actually good enough for expert help.

Lastly, paying attention to the cost of the services is also crucial. After all, you will want the event technology services that will be within your budget but will ensure you are able to benefit the most from it. If you are prepared to get the services done by the best, then you can consider trusting Vario. They have got a team of experienced and certified professionals. They understand the process well and can offer you 100% satisfactory services. Irrespective of your specific requirement, they will guarantee the service quality is optimum and within your budget. For more information visit our website. 

[the3dprintbarn]

Amelia Earnheart Production MGR https://The3DPrintBarn.Etsy.com

[honeytonedhottie]

how i manage multiple interests⋆.ೃ࿔*:･📔

putting ur energy into SO many things is great and all, and its so fun to be a multi faceted person. but it can leave u feeling so burnt out and dissatisfied with the results of ur hard work and energy. here's information that i've learned and applied about managing multiple interests…💬🎀

ABOUT MULTIPLE INTERESTS ;

so the thing about being a person who has multiple interests and wants to do everything all at once, is that u find urself actually getting nowhere cuz ur energy is like all over the place. ur putting energy into so many different things that ur not moving forward in any of them.

REMEMBER ;

doing everything is impossible. everyone only has 24 hours in a day and there are literally infinite things to do. so dont feel like u have to do every little thing cuz thats just not reasonable. the way to manage ur interests efficiently is to choose what matters.

make a list of everything that u wanna do and rank them in importance…💬🎀

and ofc LOTS of things matter, but to different degrees. by understanding which things have more or less importance you'll feel less bad if u can't get to everything all at once.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TIME MANAGEMENT ;

i use notion to create a weekly agenda, monthly calendar etc. and in doing so im making sure that im being mindful of where im putting my energy and time and im holding myself accountable and being productive. theres lots of other organizing apps that u can use but make sure that ur managing ur time intentionally.

and remember that you have plenty of time to do all of ur interests, including the once that you've ranked as less important. i remind myself that i have decades of my life ahead of me when i catch myself stressing over not having enough time to do something…💬🎀

[thatswhatsushesaid]

once again, it is monday……. a human rights violation