Sticky Notes

A lot of forums have the ability to "stick" topics to the top of the forum -- this is usually for important information about using the forum itself, or FAQs, or other information that the forum moderator wants to be sure that everyone sees. One of our users requested the same thing for ShotRunner notes. The use case pinning production instructions to the top of the shot notes.

So now, we've added 'sticky' notes. First, I'll cover how to create a sticky note, and then how to set it up.

If you have the 'Instruction' note type in your system, then you are already set up. Check with your administrator to see if he/she has set up a different note type to be sticky. To create the sticky note, simply choose the 'Instruction' note type (or whatever your administrator has set up), and enter your note normally:

You can attach images/files and usual, and notify team members as well. Then the note will remain stuck to the top of the notes:

To set this up, an administrator must add the 'sticky' tag to one or more note types. Again, as long as the default 'Instruction' type is in your database, you are already good-to-go. (Please do not modify any of the default note types -- if you need help with this, please ask!)

Let us know if you find this feature useful.

Updating Shot Status

There is an alternate way to update Shot status that some teams might find useful. In addiition to just changing the Shot status code from the Shot index, or when you edit the Shot details, there is an Update link next to the status:

When you click on this link, you get a small form to both change the status code, and enter in a short update:

This will both change the Shot status code, and create a special type of note in the discussion:

You can also view all the status notes in the Shot index. Select the Thumbnails view, and the latest status note title appears with each shot:

This can be a convenient way to review shot status. 

Filters on Sequence, Shot and Asset Lists

Filters have been added to the lists of Sequences and Assets, and the filters for Shots now work using status code tags instead of being hardwired to specific statuses. The tags on certain status codes allow you to assign certain meanings ('active', 'inactive', 'complete', and 'omitted') to any code you want. Previously, certain codes such as 'Complete' were hardwired into the system logic.

Starting with the Sequences filter:

You have the following options:

• All sequences -- any sequence which has not been omitted
• Active sequences -- sequences with status codes tagged 'active'
• Inactive sequences -- sequences with status codes tagged 'inactive'
• Omitted sequences -- sequences with status codes tagged 'omitted'
• All (including omitted) -- every sequence

The 'active', and 'inactive' tags can represent whatever has meaning to your facility. The 'complete' and 'omitted' tags are also used to compute percentage complete, and navigate valid relationships.

On Shots and Assets, there is an additional choice: "My Shots" or "My Assets". This lists Shots or Assets where you are either listed as the supervisor, or you are the lead on a task, or you are the lead on an Element of the Shot or Asset.

Appropriate tags have been added to system default codes for: sequence.status, shot.status and asset.status. If you have created additional status codes, you might want to review the tags.

In addition, I recommend that you make the following changes to shot.status codes:

• Holding -- Change the tag from 'active' to 'inactive'
• Complete -- Remove the 'inactive' tag, leaving just 'complete'
• Dropped -- Remove the 'hidden' tag if you have it, its no longer used.

As always, be very careful modifying status codes, and if you are unsure at all about doing so, feel free to contact me and I'll make the changes for you.

ShotRunner at Work: RAVE

RAVE is a boutique digital post-production house based in Columbus, Ohio. Its founders, Tobias Roediger and Jared Vorkavich create visual effects and provide compositing, motion graphics, animation, editing and 3D animation for films, television and the web.

Tobias and Jared are at the forefront of an emerging trend in post-production: expert artisans providing visual effects work to clients located all over the world. I caught up with Tobias and Jared recently to learn more about RAVE and get their views on decentralized post-production.

How did you and Jared decide to form RAVE?

JARED: Tobias and I went to college together at Ohio University. After we graduated, we had day jobs, but freelanced regularly as well. It turned out that we were routinely hiring each other on freelance gigs. After passing a few checks back and forth, we realized that it was silly to keep hiring each other for every project we did.

TOBIAS: Jared and I talked about working together for almost four years. I finally told Jared that I was going to start up one way or another, though preferably with him. He thought about it for less than a day, and RAVE was born.

What would you say were your biggest early successes?

JARED: We really built RAVE on a lot of little successes. We've built really strong relationships with our clients and the freelancers we work with. In the end, we have to deliver a stellar product, but our clients tell us time and time again that they keep coming back because they like working with us.

You guys have been involved in the Aidan 5 project, right? How did you get involved in that?

JARED: We competed against the Aidan 5 team in the 2008 48-Hour Film Project in Columbus, Ohio. Shortly after the competition we all met for lunch just to talk about the experience and get to know each other. We've kept in touch since then, and when the web series started production, we started talking together about how we could help.

TOBIAS: Yeah, Initially we were talking about working on some really complex shots, which we can't talk about yet, that are coming up in later episodes. When the main compositor had a family emergency days before the premiere at Gen Con we jumped in to complete the last 40 shots of episode one in 4 days.

"We were brought in to the Aidan 5 web series project on episode 101 to do compositing, visual effects and color grading work. With a very tight deadline right before Gen Con, we were able to pull off just under 40 shots in four days. ShotRunner was the only way we could all stay on the same page."

How has working on a highly distributed project like Aidan 5 affected communications with the team? What problems have you encountered?

TOBIAS: Aidan 5 is an ongoing series with only the first of fifteen episodes released so in a lot of ways we are just scratching the surface of the project. It is a fast paced project with tight deadlines and minimal budget which means that we have to come up with creative solutions to issues that arise. The post team for the first episode was pretty small with a matte keyer, three compositors, two illustrators, an editor, director, producer, sound designer and composer that all needed to be on the same page. Because the pace was so frenzied we needed a clear and concise way to determine who was doing what on which shots. The biggest challenge was the crunch at the end where files and information needed to be accessed and moved around very quickly. Oh, and the fact that we had never met half the team before starting in on the project -- still haven't in fact.

What solutions did you employ on Aidan 5 to overcome the issues?

JARED: ShotRunner gave us a way to organize things so that everyone could see at a glance where each shot stood. Everyone could also be clear about their individual assignments, and they could post to ShotRunner when they needed feedback or review. When you're 14 hours from delivery, it's really nice to pop into the shots tab and find out exactly where things stand. It makes it really easy to prioritize and change assignments as needed.

Do you see the emergence of distributed/virtual studios as a trend in the industry?

JARED: Well, we've always worked with clients in other locations, and recently we've been working more and more with people all over the world. For Aidan 5, the entire team is in central Ohio, but we all work at different offices with different schedules. I see the limitations of geography diminishing every day. There's no reason visual effects artists and post houses all over the world can't work together on the same project, and we're seeing this become a trend in the industry.

Any advise for other distributed/virtual studios?

JARED: Get a handle on your workflow before things get busy. Tobias and I are workflow junkies. It's easy to believe you can just figure it out when the project starts, but the truth is you need to have the systems in place before you ever get the contract. If we hadn't already had our project set-up in ShotRunner and our post-workflow sorted out before we got the call to help finish the first episode of Aidan 5, we never would have made it on time.

TOBIAS: The folks at fxphd.com deserve some credit in this too. This is our ninth term at fxphd, and we've learned so much from them over the years. In particular, their work on the Red Dwarf miniseries really inspired us to explore working on remote teams. Their ShotRunner-based workflow on Red Dwarf laid the foundation for the workflow we developed for Aidan 5.

To learn more about RAVE, visit their website at http://ravevfx.com/

Digital Antiquities

While setting up a new Vimeo account to host some new ShotRunner tutorials, I stumbled across this 'Making of' video make by Leonid Karachko of Hydrofilm for a cool short film 'Digital Antiquities' by J. P. Chan whom he met via longtime ShotRunner friend Igor Ryabchuk.

Check out the Making of ... video or even better, the full article with more pictures and a link to the film.

Of course, we are proud that ShotRunner played a small part!