Line Producer
As the line producer for Duncan’s Flying Tugboat I was not only in charge of producing the animated show, but was also in charge of the production of the video game being developed in tandem with the show. This required me to have great multitasking skill, and excellent eye for which aspects of each project needed to be prioritized, the ability to schedule asset deadlines to work with both teams workflow, and the ability to not only facilitate communication across disciplines but also across mediums.
ROLE
Multitasking & Prioritization
Having two teams working on a paired project in different mediums is no small task and it posed a serious challenge. In order to meet that challenge I learned to be adept at multitasking. The ability to juggle the work for both projects and still ensure that all deadlines were met was essential to the success of each. I would regularly be working to develop medium and long term development plans while also coordinating the workflow across multi-disciplinary teams. In addition to refining the pipeline and workflow process to get ahead of developing issues as they arose.
The key to good multitasking I have found is a keen eye for what needs to be a priority and what can wait on the backburner. Being able to understand what issues need your immediate attention is paramount in being able to work on multiple things at once.
Scheduling and Communication
With both the video game and animated series being developed in tandem, the pipelines for both became intertwined. Cutting down on the amount of labor necessary and allowing for assets created to be used for both projects. Because of this it was a necessity that the scheduling for both teams synch up every so often as the character animation, modeling, and asset creation would be shared between the teams with bespoke devs on each side to help pick up slack when and where it occurred.
This became a delicate tightrope walk where I needed to be acutely aware of the progress both teams were making, and the needs of them both, so that I could schedule the right assets to be completed at the right times and not cause a roadblock where a team would have nothing to work with. To accomplish this I was in communication with developers at all levels in each team and would regularly course correct as the process was refined. The creation of a roadmap for both the story of the series and content of the game helped immensely in creating points of synchronicity.
Communication Between Teams Across Mediums
With two teams working in entirely different mediums breakdowns in communication were common. In order to combat this I learned how each medium functioned and the pain points between video game and the animated series creation. In doing so I curbed frustrations between the teams due to misunderstandings by being able to explain why those issues were happening.
For example often times there would be issues with animations that were given to the video game team by the series team. The series team had made the animations look good at a specific angle, but when put into the video game the model clipping and tearing was readily apparent. This caused frustration in the video game team who had no idea why the animations were done in such a way.
I told the video game team that the series team would always be prioritizing how things appeared to camera and if the camera didn’t see it then it wasn’t an issue on their end. To abate further frustration, I had a meeting with the heads of both teams and a compromise was reached where the series team would try to minimize the amount of iconic moves in the show that would require extreme distortion of the character models so that the video team could have a chance at replicating them in game. Additionally some of the animators were moved over to the video game team in order to help with clean up of existing animation and creation of new ones.
