VFX industry and Covid-19: when flexibility comes in handy

Covid-19 pandemic has turned the world upside down in recent months as we’ve all been aware of. It’s been a rollercoaster ride for which flexibility turned out to be indispensable. Petar Jovovich, VFX supervisor and Crater studio’s founder, and Milovan Mladenovic, executive producer and partner, talked about how the work at Crater studio changed and adapted to the emergency state in Serbia and around the globe. Having in mind that most of the clients Crater studio works with currently come from China, India and USA, Petar and Milovan got an overview of the effects pandemic has had in different parts of the world so far. Currently, Crater studio operates both from home and from their office in Belgrade, abiding by the protection protocole and safety measures.

 

How did the state of Covid-19 emergency affect Crater studio and your team?

Milovan: We had to organize very quickly and efficiently this switch in work - from office to our homes. The fact that we had a project going on was particularly challenging. In the first month we didn’t have any new projects on the horizon because I think that everyone needed some time to adjust and figure out what’s going on, and what to do. Later on we started getting some new inquiries and we even took on new projects. However, communication with current clients was a bit slow during the first few weeks so the deadlines were also extended.

Petar: We were very quick to shift to working from home, since most of our organization in our studio is already online and we also have some colleagues working remotely for quite some time now. Remote programmes did cause certain issues but nothing that slowed us down. Working from home has been accepted fairly well, some of our team members even work better from home. It was really important that we set a working system and information flow so that we keep the team in the loop all the time.

 

 

What are your predictions for the VFX and post-production industry in the coming months? Is there anything you think will significantly change due to pandemic?

Petar: I believe that the content will have to adjust to the situation - this is where virtual production comes in handy. Traditional shooting and set time is not really necessary in order to create new content. But the pause in production will have its consequences. Some of the international post-production companies are already experiencing the vacuum caused by lock-downs. Those that can will either shift to full CG content or wait for next projects, which inevitably leads to the fact that teams will get smaller or bigger depending on the workload. In simple words, it’s really necessary to be flexible right now or at least first in line to get the next project.

 

Milovan: Production will be more focused on full CG content. Some of the biggest studios has already started doing this - they are pulling out animation projects they had laying around. On the other hand, everything that’s been put on hold will resume as soon as the conditions allow and the pandemic dials down. We’re keeping in touch with our clients we would’ve already been working with if it hadn’t been for Covid-19 and the good news is that they already are planning to restart projects that were put on hold due the pandemic.

 

 

How much will safety protocols and protection measurements affect the team and work with clients? In what way?

 

Milovan: It really turned out that remote work has been very successful for us. We managed to supervise everyone’s work and individual efficiency due to the fact that this whole situation was new to everyone and also we didn’t know what to expect. In a way, I think that this imposed work from home has brought a better organization and efficiency of the team.

 

Petar: The only question is how the clients and studios would adapt long-term when it comes to the protection of material that is worked on from home and not from the office. There’s also been a lot of talk about Cloud and that really has been a solution for some time now, for certain parts of the process such as rendering. When it comes to VFX, I think that Cloud is still far fetched due to extensive information flow and file size.

 

Is it possible to plan anything right now?

Petar: There are certain things that we can’t influence and this is where we have to adapt. Good thing is that dates are set for getting back to film sets. We’ll just have to keep an eye on how things will go on from that point.

 

Milovan: All our plans and goals have been maybe a bit postponed but they’re still on.