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My name is Gwénaëlle Dupré. I have worked in cartoon TV show production for more than 13 years, working my way through almost every position: from Second Assistant Director to Head of Production, as well as Technical Director. Because of this extensive experience, when studios face complex situations, the first person they think of is me! I like that, as it always leads me to interesting productions. The trade-off, however, is that I have to be creative all the time.
A few years ago, I worked on a very ambitious production with a lot of funding. Unfortunately, one of the investors decided to leave the project. This left the project underfunded. To deal with that, they changed the animation studio contractor. The new studio offered a lower price but did not have the skill set to meet the expected deadlines or quality. As you might guess, problems quickly occurred, and things went really wrong.
Halfway through the first season, the production was almost a year behind schedule. Worse, the quality was way below expectations. This is when they decided to call me. They knew I love challenges and would probably accept their mission. They were right, but this time I had one condition: I needed total control over how we worked and how the money would be spent. After a few discussions, they accepted, and the deal was done!
Now, let’s go back to the state of the production. It was the first time I had ever seen a broadcaster refuse an episode due to low quality. At the animation stage, 80% of the shots were sent back as retakes. The reasons were mainly technical: missing heads, color pops, wrong background lighting, extra arms on characters, etc. Obviously, we had to work incredibly hard to ship the first season. It was exhausting, and there was no way to keep doing things the same way. That’s why, for the second season, everyone (both the producer and the contractor) agreed to change the workflow. But one question remained: change it to what?
I did some research, trying to find a magical management methodology that would make everything great. There was no obvious way to improve our situation until one night when I was having drinks with some friends who work as software engineers in another industry. I explained my situation to them. They smiled; it reminded them so much of their own jobs. This was where I heard about Agile methodology for the first time.
Agile Methodology: Fundamentals
Because I didn’t know the main principles of Agile methodologies, I did what anyone else would do: I typed "Agile Methodology" into a search engine. There were tons of results; it was like discovering a whole new world. I spent the night reading articles on the web, especially on Wikipedia.
This is what I found: Agile methodologies are based on an iterative, incremental, and adaptive development cycle. They respect four fundamental values expressed through twelve principles.
The four core values are described in the official Agile Manifesto:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools: This reminded me that relationships among peers, especially between the animators and the director, are key.
- Working software over comprehensive documentation: This made me realize that the image inside the frame must be perfect, but what happens outside the frame doesn’t matter.
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation: We work closely with our customers. When issues occur, we work with them to find a solution rather than calling a lawyer.
- Responding to change over following a plan: Artistic retakes, director changes, or shot simplifications are not deterministic.
Therefore, all the main principles are applicable to animation. I introduced my peers to them, and everyone felt we were on the right track.
SCRUM
Once I learned the Agile principles, I realized there were several types of practical methodologies. I was looking for a “cooking recipe” to apply. Once again, Wikipedia helped a lot. I chose the most popular methodology, named SCRUM, which is based on three main concepts:
- Transparency: SCRUM emphasizes having a common language between the team and management. This common language should allow any observer to quickly get a good understanding of the project. It also dictates that everyone should be informed of progress and major decisions.
- Action: We established a common vocabulary and made extra efforts to be more explicit when sending retake requests. We made retake information accessible to everyone.
- Inspection: At regular intervals, SCRUM proposes taking stock of the different artifacts produced to detect any undesirable variations.
- Action: We were already doing this inspection work on the producer's side when receiving deliveries. What was missing was that no one was checking the work on the contractor's side! We set up a quality check on the contractor's side.
- Adaptation: If drift is noticed during the inspection, the process must be adapted.
- Action: We identified recurring retakes and found ways to eliminate them.
We thought that, on the producer's side, we had something that could work. We had a strong common ground; it was more about changing habits than reinventing the wheel!
Convincing the Contractor
It was obviously necessary to convince the studio contractor. What made things easier was that SCRUM is based on iterative and incremental progress. This is very similar to our animation process (Layout T1, T2... Anim T1, T2, etc.), so we were off to a good start.
Ultimately, we convinced them by emphasizing that it would not only benefit the quality of the animation but also their quality of life. At the time, turnover at the animation studio was a huge issue! From one week to the next, you weren't sure if you would be talking to the same artists or production staff. Therefore, the risk of making things worse by changing the way we worked was small, while the potential payoff was huge.
Main Phases of SCRUM Implementation
There were four important things we wanted to put in place:
- Splitting the department teams (layout, animation, etc.) into smaller groups of 4 to 5 people, called SCRUM Teams (S-Teams). Every team had its own representative.
- Holding preparation meetings before each sprint.
- Running daily meetings within the SCRUM teams.
- Performing review meetings at the end of each stage.
We wrote custom guides for all positions: the customer, the production managers, and the supervisors of each step. Everyone now had a common language and common processes.
Setting up the SCRUM Teams (S-Teams)
The first step was to split the large teams into smaller ones. The goal was to have seniors, mid-level artists, and juniors on the same team to improve the overall skill level and prevent juniors from being left behind. Then, for each team, we selected a representative. The supervisor on the artist floor would mainly talk to the representative instead of everyone, giving them more time to check the final deliveries.
To apply these changes, we had to build trust. When I was at the animation studio, I spent a lot of time explaining to the teams who I was, what I was doing there, and the purpose of all these changes. There were about 40 to 70 people per stage, and the meeting room was not very big.
I had to give the same presentation to several batches of people. I remember making jokes during my speech to make everyone more comfortable. For the first group, it went well; people laughed and asked questions. It was the same with the second group. But when I spoke in front of the third group, people just stared at me. They kept silent. No laughs, no questions. The exact same thing happened with the fourth group. I was worried, but finally, things went back to normal with the fifth group. Still, something was bugging me.
Later, I had face-to-face discussions with the CG artists. Asking a question in front of a large group can be scary, so I wanted to give them the opportunity to talk to me directly in a safe environment. I quickly realized that the artists had different native languages: Chinese, Thai, Malaysian, etc., and they didn’t all understand English! I finally understood why I had no reaction during some of my meetings: some of them had understood nothing. Worse, they were isolated while they worked. This communication barrier was the main reason behind the insane turnover on the production. So, I added another constraint to my S-Teams: each team must have at least one English speaker able to translate for the rest of the members!
Rethinking the Way We Deal with Retakes
Now that we had a new team organization, the most important thing to fix was the number of retakes. Having between 70% and 90% retakes in T1 leads to a vicious cycle. It means the time allowed for the next episode is reduced by the time spent on retakes. It was like the teams had two episodes to do at the same time. Because of this, quality went down, which resulted in a consistently high retake rate.
The first step was to quickly reduce the backlog of running retakes. We decided to dedicate one S-Team entirely to retakes while the others focused on new shots for the next episode. However, when a CG artist was assigned to this position, it was often seen as a punishment. The motivation of the retake team plummeted. To avoid that problem, we decided to rotate the responsibility, assigning a different team each week to handle retakes.
This time, it was a success; the number of running retakes dropped quickly.
Once the vicious cycle was broken, we had fewer retakes per episode to handle. We were able to bring the amount of retakes back to a normal level. At that point, we dispatched retakes to all S-Teams, eliminating the need for a dedicated retake team.
When a team received retakes, we made sure they were handled collaboratively by the whole team. Prior to that, the animator who originally did the shot had to handle their own retakes.
The first benefit of this new approach was getting a fresh pair of eyes from other animators, which improved the overall quality. The second benefit was that juniors (who obviously had more retakes) didn't have to spend too much time agonizing over their shots. The seniors and mid-level artists were able to fix retakes faster, and more importantly, they could tell the juniors exactly what they did wrong. As a result, juniors acquired new skills much faster.
Setting Up Agile Sprints
With SCRUM, you define meetings (called rituals) on a regular basis. The timeframe between the main rituals is called a sprint. We decided to go with a one-week sprint. This meant that at the beginning of the week, we defined a to-do list (sprint planning), and at the end of the week, we discussed the results (retrospective).
During each sprint, the S-Teams chose for themselves which sequences to work on. Most of the time, a sequence required several sprints to complete.
The immediate benefit was that the initial brief stayed fresh in their minds and wasn't forgotten after weeks of work. Prior to this, the production had been working on a 6-week cycle, which was far too long. It was hard to remember the Director's brief over that time. Shortening the shipping cycle led to more accurate shots.
The second benefit was improved shot hook-ups (continuity). Because the teams worked on shots that followed one another, it was easier for them to exchange poses or animations and verify the hook-up between the shots.
Daily Meetings
The hardest element to put in place was the daily scrum. The goal was for the artists to show what they had done the day before to the other artists on their S-Team, ensuring everyone shared their opinions. Shyness was hard to break, but once the process was accepted by everyone, the number of technical retakes dropped quickly. With five pairs of eyes on a shot, the slightest color pop or extra arm was quickly spotted and corrected.
The overall animation improved. A junior could show their work, and a senior would offer advice. By making this feedback loop systematic, we managed to remove the “shame” factor of asking for help.
Task Boards
Each S-Team wrote their name and the name of the sequence they chose to work on onto a card. All the cards were then placed on a task board. We categorized shots by their state of progress: To Do, In Progress, To Check, and Question. Each day after the daily scrum, the representative of each S-Team updated the task board.
As a result, the supervisor could focus exclusively on the shots to check or address those marked with a question. They no longer had to waste time collecting information. They simply had to walk around the studio to see where their teams were at. They knew exactly what they needed to work on.
This also provided a major advantage for the production team. They no longer had to check in with every single artist to see what they were doing. They just had to look at the board to instantly know the progress of the show. This saved a tremendous amount of time, allowing us to focus on planning for the future instead of constantly checking on the past.
Sprint Review and Retrospective
Sprint reviews and retrospectives were the least successful rituals. The goal was for the whole studio to get together and watch the episode at the end of a sprint. For instance, the animation team could give their opinions on the layout, helping to avoid future retakes.
However, it took too long to gather everyone to watch an episode (26 minutes x 3 steps: layout, animation, and compositing). In the end, only the supervisors watched the previous stages to give their feedback. We found a solution, but it didn't involve everyone the way we had originally hoped.
Ensuring Our New Methodologies Were Applied
To make things happen quicker, we sent an Animation Supervisor and a Layout Supervisor on-site. This ensured the methodologies were properly applied, technical problems were corrected efficiently, and the overall quality was improved.
Conclusion
Overall, it was a massive success. We delivered Season 2 on time and with much better quality without exceeding the initial budget.
We dropped our T1 retake rate from 70% to 30%. The CG artists were happier, and turnover was close to zero by the end of production.
By adapting the SCRUM methodology to our production, we improved communication among peers. It allowed us to fix our biggest issues (language barriers and the skill gaps of junior artists). We were then able to avoid retakes and shorten the feedback loop. Finally, everyone was more motivated, and the overall quality increased significantly.
When dealing with production management, there is no silver bullet. Nevertheless, I encourage you to try new things and fine-tune existing methodologies to adapt them to your needs. The Agile SCRUM methodology worked great for us, and you should give it a try. The results can go far beyond your expectations!
