Pipelines are lovely. Each and every single one of them is different and yet they are all the same in terms of being rigidly slow in adapting to the needs they were implemented to adress in the first place.
The only thing worse is a wildly grown, undocumented and none consistent approach to getting things done quickly and just seemingly efficiently. No, that´s not true, it´s even worse if the Production team has gotten used to asking the impossible without bothering about thinking it through at all but just imposing this expectation down the line. You want the kids club menu price but the large menu because you´ve come to think it worked once, it´ll better always work again and again... That´s problems of growth. Personal and company growth. At some point, gaffa tape isn´t enough anymore. Neither on the mouth, nor on the results. This shows in conflicts where reasonable communication is avoided because it implies responsibility the hands-on approach easily and conveniently overrides. It also shows in conflicts where departments start to become hesistant or unavailable because they try to refuse the BS and long for a more reliable, thoughtful and ideally even respectful handling of matters regarding day to day problemsolving. In short, the wish for strategic planning is expressed in refusing the state of affairs. Not your fault. Unfortunately also not much you can do about it either but accept that it´s the messenger that get´s killed first. I´m with Andy and Eric you have to speak up, but it´s not guaranteed that your effort will get honoured, instead, chances are that you will get flamed for creating problems. That´s where you end up hoping to find reason, that´s where you have to expect disapointment. That´s why I can very well understand how much a simple licensing issue can suck. Cheers, tim P.S: Even the best and most prudent Coordinators and Producers hate problems. Beware of the canny ones, they are worse, they will cross you on top... On 08.01.2013 16:22, Eric Lampi wrote:
I had a similar experience a couple years ago at a studio how has a satellite office here in NYC. They were all Maya and they had an overbuilt, convoluted file structure that was really inappropriate for commercial work. So much so that the staff people there refused to comply with it. The hoops I had to jump through just to get a folder with proper permissions to set up a workgroup set up on the server was absolutely breathtaking. It took more than a week and several long emails back and forth explaining what a workgroup was and why I needed it to be accessible to everyone on the job. All because of an aloof cg director and IT department that put itself above the very thing that pays their salaries in the first place. I think people like that are totally bonkers. On Jan 8, 2013 9:54 AM, "Andy Moorer" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I've run into a number of cases where IT at studios bends over backwards to avoid having to deal with new software of any complexity, period. In general however the CG supervisor at any studio is the ultimate authority in what software is used in the pipeline. IT has a voice, but they don't produce the product, they are there to make that production possible. If the CG sup says I can use a tool, then IT had better damned well get on board or that sup should tear them a new one. But adding Softimage into the mix at a maya-only studio is not a casual decision, either. It's entirely within the studios right to dictate to their artists what tools are or are not used, and the artists must respect that with an understanding that staying within the pipeline is important. In short - who says you can use Softimage? If they say you can, have them tell IT to give you the support you need. If IT refuses, escalate the issue to the highest level you can until something is done, even if it means the decision to use Softimage is put in question... A studio where IT rolls over artists instead of enabling the, has problems, call attention to it.
