Timeless Strategies for Modern Work: Elevating Pipeline Workflows.

Every new advancement in technological ability comes with the impulse to do more ‘now that we can’. If we elevate scope along with our newly acquired ability then our logistical limitations grow in proportion – resulting in an outcome that is no different from finding ourselves exactly where we were before the advancement came into being. I hope you’ll find wisdom in the following paragraphs that are applicable to any endeavor including your own.

21st century technologies such as Virtual Production enable indie filmmakers and creatives of all types to accomplish ‘more with less’.

This advantage can be, and often is, negated when we lack the wisdom and discipline to gracefully accept the liberated production bandwidth offered by new capabilities while declining the impulse do more because our tech allows us to do more.

We stand to gain the most when combining technological advancements in independent filmmaking while retaining a workflow that operates as if logistical and creative restrictions, within reason, still apply.

For example, listen to Ridley Scott talk about the tools deployed to make non-exciting resources look spectacular and imagine employing these same strategies in your own workflows when you have so much capability at your disposal – it’s a recipe for stress-free, efficiently streamlined, iteratively enjoyable creative output.

“By shooting at night, you save money and it looks better. It’s always raining, it looks better. That’s what it’s about. And why is there always smoke? Because I haven’t got enough money, it looks better. So those three elements are always in my armory. Night, wet, smoke.

Ridley Scott

As a child I consumed countless filmmaking documentaries on the topics of behind-the-scenes operations for ‘under-dog’ Hollywood productions.

I watched, studied, and rewatched these documentaries as I absorbed the insights, perspectives, and experiences on offer from every department.

Today, as a producing director and visual effects supervisor I find myself revisiting these documentaries. I find the passage of time has distilled the bulk of the content down into pieces of timeless wisdom that apply today as much as they did decades ago.

Traditional Limitations In Modern Virtual Production Pipelines.

Virtual production technologies lift many of the logistical constraints in filmmaking. We can record scenes in any number of inaccessible locations without the need to budget for crew and kit to be transported around the world.

But with fewer creative and logistical restrictions comes the impulse to negate any advantages by filling the newly liberated production bandwidth with more and more details. It’s tempting to build more when more is achievable, but ‘more’ isn’t superior to ‘better’.

Ridley Scott, Robert Rodriguez, and Sophia Coppola offer many useful, widely applicable insights into guerrilla filmmaking that allow any of us to ‘punch well above our weight class’ achieving more than our budgets and resources permit.

#indiefilm #realtimeVFX #filmmaking #iphonography #mentalhealth, #mentalbandwidth