Communication and Teamwork in the VFX Industry
At first this might sound unnecessary after all a 3d artist should focus on their shots and deliver them to the next guy, right? Not exactly.
Yes you should work on your shot but not only you, everyone has to work as a team. You just can not think about your own scene and be done with it. You have to think about the artist before and after you. Just like I wrote about in my article HERE, you need to be able to fix issues that you have with your scene because the guy before you might not always deliver you the assets as you imagined. Maybe you are a character animator and the modeling or rigging department sent you the character but it is not the way you particularly wanted or has errors. If it is not something major you need to fix and make the model or rig work for you to animate. If you go back to the previous guy for every little change, things will get out of hand and both you and him will lose a lot of time. It is the same with the shots/scenes/assets you deliver for the next person. For example you will be sending your animated character to the shading/texturing or lighting department, they might fix the issues they have with your animation. I am not saying just send your scene if there are errors. Try to send an asset as clean as possible.
Therefore being open to getting rid of small issues is a must, what is even better is if there is good communication and teamwork you can talk with those departments so you’ll get an asset that is more suitable for you, also deliver your animation to the next person as they want. This will make everything run smoothly and easily, at the same time save time for everyone. It doesn’t mean you’ll lose time while trying to deliver an asset which is suitable for the next artist, on the contrary, it sometimes means you have to do less work.
I have worked with people that didn’t care about other departments. They would just sit on their machines put on their headphones, even eat at their desk and go home in the evening. I know that some artists like to focus and do not want to get distracted, I respect that. However, it prevents the teamwork synergy to happen.
Another important aspect is realizing a mistake in a shot that is not related to you and not doing anything. Like seeing your animated character is not moving but they still render the scene because that is their job, to render. He knows that the character should move but doesn’t care. Don’t be that person that makes things difficult for everyone.
Language is also important in achieving the invaluable teamwork environment. If you are going abroad make sure the office talks the language you can speak. I know that a new job abroad requires a lot of research like cost of living, salary, accommodation etc. and you can simple forget about language. If you don’t know Spanish and go to a Spanish local VFX house that speak only Spanish, the communication part will lack. This will probably be addressed during the interview but make sure the languages align.
I know most companies now use a chatting software these days like Slack, Lync, Zoom etc. However, some might not, so be proactive and ask people to install a communication software at least. It won’t make them lose anything and will make things easier. Especially for remote work and freelancers, to be in the loop and communicate properly you can’t always wait for the lead or supervisor to contact you. This software option will also help with the guy with his headphones since you can’t talk to him any other way.
In interviews, I always get asked the question; “are you willing to relocate here?” This is basically the question that means “do you know how important it is to work in a team?” Because the recruiter knows that being in the office (relocating) will make communication much easier. I worked with some studios abroad remotely that had amazing communication over Slack. Every little detail was written there, it was used both for small talk, jokes and memes to serious discussions, feedbacks and even salary talk with HR. The messages were always saved and stored. It is great and as I said it made things run super smooth but being in the office with other artists is still superior. As an FX artist myself, going near the modeling guy and talking with them, pointing at the screen for the details is much better than Slack. (or telling them to give thickness to walls for destruction simulations)
Remember the goal for everyone in a studio is to deliver the highest possible quality in the shortest amount of time. In my opinion one of the most important thing to be able to achieve that is with the synergy everyone creates with the team which is basically done with communication.
Some artists (like the headphones guy) prefer to work alone, they often tend to be generalists that can take care of everything by themselves. In addition, what I mostly observed is those people often work as a solo freelancer with clients which is perfectly fine. Even in a team environment like a VFX house they tend to not work there for long periods of time and quit to become a freelancer.
