03 / DREAMWORKS ANIMATION
BUILDING A GLOBAL IMF PRODUCTION WORKFLOW
When DreamWorks moved away from a proprietary production tracking system and into ShotGrid, IMF needed more than a new place to track tasks. We needed to translate an established global workflow into a new system without losing what already worked - while creating better connections between departments along the way.
ROLE
Production Coordinator, IMF
FOCUS
Production Operations · Workflow Design · Systems Migration · Change Management
THE CHALLENGE
IMF supported multiple productions at once, all at different stages and with different schedules, needs, and production nuances.
As the studio transitioned into ShotGrid, the challenge wasn't simply recreating the old tracking system. It was figuring out what needed to stay consistent across IMF, what needed to flex by show, and how the new system could better connect our work to the departments around us.
One of those gaps was the handoff from Lighting into IMF. There wasn't yet a fully established ShotGrid process for reliably surfacing when upstream work was ready for us to begin.
My Role
I partnered closely with the IMF Department Head and Department TD to understand the department's established workflow and translate it into a scalable ShotGrid framework.
My role sat between production needs and system design: mapping how the department actually worked, identifying what needed to carry over from the previous system, and building a structure that could work consistently across productions without forcing every show into exactly the same process.
What I Did
I built global and show-level ShotGrid dashboards that gave IMF Production visibility across multiple projects while still allowing us to manage the needs of each individual show.
Working with the Department Head, we also established a clearer Lighting to IMF handoff. Designated Lighting status updates could surface ready work directly within IMF's tracking and task ecosystem, while a lightweight human heads-up kept communication between teams intact.
For artists, we intentionally kept tasks, notes, statuses, and inbox workflows familiar so the transition didn't require relearning how to work just because the underlying system had changed.
I also created an IMF Production Manual documenting the broader operating model - roles and responsibilities, cross-department handoffs, review cadences, tracking conventions, inventory management, artist assignments, dailies workflows, and production best practices.
To support adoption, we created documentation, training, and recorded walkthroughs, then continued troubleshooting and refining the workflow as teams used it in production.
The Outcome
What started as a systems migration became a more connected and repeatable operating model for IMF.
The new framework gave the department consistent global and show-level visibility, established a clearer Lighting to IMF handoff, and brought incoming work more directly into the task and status workflows artists were already using.
Just as importantly, the transition preserved familiar ways of working while creating documentation and training that made the process easier to adopt and maintain across productions.
The framework continued to be used after I left DreamWorks, evolving with the department over time.
What I Took From It
A new tool doesn't automatically create a better process.
This project reinforced something I've carried into my work since: start by understanding how people actually work, preserve what's already effective, and use the system change as an opportunity to fix the gaps that weren't working.
The goal isn't just to build a workflow that works on paper. It's to build one people can actually use.