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RA “Mandarin” – Case Study

This month, Konstantin Kharitonov talks to Dmitrii Filippov of Mandarin Ad Agency.

Konstantin Kharitonov: Hi!

Dmitrii Filippov: Hi to you too! (smiles). Is everything ok? Any trouble with the armed men?

K.Kh.: No, not this time, everything is fine! But let’s be honest, things are pretty strict around here… Maybe a little too strict…

D.F.: Well, we aren’t selling pastry around here. TV is serious business.

K.Kh.: Maybe we should start on that subject? Tell me a little about your company. What do you specialise in? Who are your clients? Or is that a state secret? (Smiles)

D.F.: First and foremost, we are an advertising agency, although lately we have been branching out. Lately, I myself have taken on a large number of various projects that have nothing to do with advertising. There are jobs that have to do with the production of video clips and all kinds of 3D stuff for advertising. These days I mostly work with the movie industry, animation, 3D, and everything to do with mass-media entertainment. Our clients are primarily the kind of people who are interested in projects that are ‘out of this world’, original and unusual. These people want to change TV-viewers for the best, to make them go ‘Wow!’ at the key moments, when in fact they are sitting on a couch eating popcorn. We are interested in the viewer, the clients are interested in the viewer, and it is in the viewer’s interest to say ‘Wow!’ more often. That’s how we live: it’s all in the name of the viewer.

K.Kh.: How very humanitarian of you! What kind of projects are you working on right now?

D.F.: At the moment, all our ‘Chinese armies’ are toiling away on animation for the ‘Big Race’ project on Channel One. The channel has recently bought new equipment that allows them to air unusual ads and previews at the bottom of the frame. Basically, if we say that a single shot is the frame, we can stick an image at the bottom of the frame – this can be something in 3D, it can be a video-clip – some kind of interactive on-screen graphic that tells you that in, say, 5 minutes you can enjoy the latest movie ‘Boom!’. And other stuff like that. It sounds like a pretty straightforward way to do this, but I haven’t seen anything like that yet. Or, rather, I’ve seen some, but they are not quite right… we need something new! So we’re want to suggest something crazy, unusual, flashy! I won’t talk about future projects, though, I don’t want to jinx it.

K.Kh.: And that’s alright, no need to do that yet. We’ll see for ourselves when the time comes. Meanwhile, tell us how things got started, when did major projects start to roll in and you decided you needed specialised software to manage them?

D.F.: Truth be told, it all began a long time ago, way before I got involved with production. I had only just joined the TV-center. Back then, we wanted to fully automate the production of TV-programmes. Cerebro didn’t exist yet, but there were a few major project management apps. To work with them, you had to have a room-full of weird servers running Oracle. It cost an arm and a leg and you really needed an advanced degree in rocket science to use them. Before pressing the ‘Power’ button, you had to read through a million-page-long manual under close supervision from specially trained engineers… After a year or two, we began to produce 3D and video. We became a full-service agency and I saw this great word on the Internet – ‘Cerebro’. I logged on to the web-site, watched a video, it was very clear and easy to understand. I was really glad to find it, because at that moment I really needed something like that – I had staff working all over the country and the world, and it was a lot more convenient to have everything in one app, without FTP and other concoctions from the previous century. We were working on some TV advert then, so we gathered everyone and started to communicate through Cerebro.

K.Kh.: What criteria did Cerebro fit for you?

 D.F.: Well, I may be wrong, but right now I don’t know about any other software that can work with every kind of media. I mean, yes, there are some bugs in iOS, which I’ve mentioned before (on the Cerebro Facebook Page – ed.), but to be honest that’s not a problem. I always have my wonderful Mac with me, and I can always open any video people send to me. Basically, if you have Cerebro, you have a live link-up with everyone who works with you. But we understand that you can’t set a link-up unless there is a TV on each end. In this case the ‘TV’ is your laptop, and everything depends on how much effort you have put into it. The more advanced it is, the better Cerebro works. If your laptop supports all sizes of video, all possible formats, and so on, if you have thousands of codecs installed, than there will never be a problem, and everything is really simple. Although I still don’t get why .RAR files are opened with the VLC player, but that’s not the point…

K.Kh.: We are currently working on a new codec, AVC, which is used by VLC. That way, we will finally be able to provide full support for every kind of AVI and all Windows Media files. But still, why did you choose Cerebro in the end?

D.F.: The main reason I chose Cerebro is that I have a Mac myself and it’s very difficult to find software that works well on a Mac. But here I found a fully competitive product that I am very happy with. And the best thing is that it works on Macs, iPhones, and iPads.

K.Kh.: How did your employees, freelancers, and clients react to Cerebro? How long did it take them to get used to it? What problems were there?

D.F.: It’s a well known fact that we live in a country of contrasts, and no innovation can be introduced without problems. There will always be some generation that will say: ‘We don’t need this, we’d rather keep working the old way, on paper, with pencils’… You just need to come up with an explanation that makes people feel personally invested in the change. You can’t just tell someone that in the name of corporate morale and team spirit they need to get to grips with the basics of this software called Cerebro. No. You need to make them understand that this really is simple and useful, that it will significantly speed up not only the production process, which is something that no-one but the manager needs, but also the employee’s personal work process and their connection to the outside world. You don’t need to use e-mails, upload files to FTP, come up with dozens of passwords, and so on. Of course, at the moment the Internet connection can be a little slow, but I think this is just a matter of time: the Internet is growing like crazy, and soon enough gigabytes will download to your laptop in the blink of an eye. And Cerebro is an important part of this process.

K.Kh.: Do you use the drawing function, text and audio commenting?

D.F.: To be honest, I began my career as a copywriter, creating advertising concepts, working out original synergies in ads, all kinds of things to do with words. It’s easier for me to explain something in writing than by talking to people. In any case, when you use audio commenting, people don’t see you. You can’t point your finger to this or that details. But I do use the drawing function sometimes. When we worked on the ‘Big Race’, we had very tight deadlines and really didn’t have enough time to get to know all the functions, but I’ve gotten the hang of it, more or less, – the Gant diagrams and all the other stuff, even though I didn’t really have time for all this administrative work. Ideally, I think, there should be a special person who would oversee this and who would know the app from top to bottom. Then I could just come to them and say, ‘Peter, we launched a project today, we have so-and-so many employees, so-and-so many subtasks, the budget for each employee is this, etc.’ And he would then get everything in order and let me know the figures.

K.Kh.: Well, we’ve found that people like that are usually ‘Mary’ rather than ‘Peter’. People that create and assign tasks, who are called project coordinators, they are usually female. I don’t know why, but this is the case in any large company.

D.F.: I’ll keep that in mind.

K.Kh.: Tell us, have any of your clients switched to Cerebro?

D.F.: Yes, why wouldn’t they? For example, we had this situation with the Russia State Lottery. The staff there are all very active, the sales manager and the brand manager, they all got the hang of Cerebro in a hurry, as they say. We uploaded the project and began talking through Cerebro straight away, they commented on our work. This really speeds up the process, because you see comments and responses live and not when it’s too late, there’s no turning back, and the project is an ‘epic fail’. If you don’t have Cerebro, you try to avoid sending materials as much as possible, so, basically, you get some frame of reference, then you send the mid-way result, and then the composited result, and that’s it. The client doesn’t see anything else. Here, you have subcategories: you have modellers, you have artists, compositors, animators… One way or another, they all depend on each other, and they send each other materials, and the client can see all of this and comment on the production process. There is, however, one giant drawback – as a rule, the client has no understanding whatsoever of the creative process. So, if they see a piece of animation that hasn’t been composited yet, they can have a fit, thinking we’re ‘useless’.

K.Kh.: Well… Generally, it would be better to only give clients limited access, not the same as for employees. Then the client will only see those messages that have been set as ‘Client Visible’. Of course, this can only be set by the project manager, not just any employee, and the manager can decide, what they want to show to the client. Speaking of this, what do you think we need to work on? What do we need to improve?

D.F.: I am a huge fan of Apple, and I’m used to seeing my desktop and my computer as a whole as something interactive. If I move my mouse to the left edge, there’s a light on the left, if I move it to the right – there’s a light on the right, everything is so interactive and user friendly. The whole thing is there to make people love it and enjoy it. Your entire work is like a game, like a quest. Really, though, I’m completely satisfied with Cerebro as it is. I think that Cerebro is really cool. I don’t really see the need to add feature after feature. So, ok, I may need a MOV file without compression using the Pro-res422 codec, but it’s just as likely no-one else needs it. So why add it to Cerebro?

K.Kh.: I see. By the way, we will release a SDK soon and people will be able to add whatever they need. So, for example, if you attach a Pro-res to a message, Cerebro will automatically create a MOV and put it there, so that people who don’t have Pro-res can see it.

D.F.: Well, I don’t really see the point of tinkering like that, because I have a Mac. Macs are very intuitive, they don’t really force you into anything. To open a Word document, you don’t need to do a million pointless things, you always have this large W button at the bottom of the screen. You just click it, and that’s it. I think it should be the same way here – if someone needs something, they can install it separately. We are not playing Tetris here, we are making important decisions and solving difficult problems – you can just help us and not overload us with a hundred more features that only give me a headache. You know, one guy I really respect once told me: ‘Dima, your generation is a generation of trade experts: no-one knows the innovations of the digital market like you do! And you can’t really think of anything new. But you can come up with original things! Then, maybe, you don’t need to be so obsessed with innovation? Maybe you just need to do things that attract attention?’

K.Kh.: That’s pretty good! There’s also this saying: ‘The key to success is simplicity’. Let’s always remember these wise words!

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“Smeshariki” get a 3D-volume with NVIDIA

Sorry, this entry is only available in Russian

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Case Study – Advance Digital

This month we’re interviewing Yulia Kozhevnikova from the Advance Digital advertising agency.

Please tell us a little about your company.

We are one of the leading web-advertising companies in Russia; when you look at the advertising volume of our clients on the web, we are in the top three. In the past two years, we have been actively developing the creative department – more specifically, ‘digital creative’: from banners to more unusual things such as projection, 3D, and so on.

What in particular do you do? Do you specialize in any particular media, like the web or the print? Could you maybe tell us about some of your clients? How long have you been using Cerebro, and what kind of projects do you use it for?

We’ve been using Cerebro for the past 6 months. We only work with the web, and my particular division is devoted to creative work for the web. As far as I know, out colleagues from the media department have also begun using Cerebro for their needs.

At the moment, for example, we are developing a number of web-sites for one very large client, and we’re also working on a number of web-pages for a well-known perfume brand. These are the kinds of projects we use Cerebro for. We’re also always have a few smaller things happening: banners for ongoing advertising campaigns, things like that.

Why did you decide to look for a project management system?

Thanks to a client.

It’s kind of a long story. Out holding (Gruppa ADV, http://www.advgroup.ru – ed.) has its own management system, which is, unfortunately, ill-suited to the kind of work we do, although it can be useful to some for accounting purposes – time-tracking, etc. There’s no access for clients or freelancers. At first, out software engineers tried to systematize the work we do, but their approach is kind of different, and it was hard to explain their ideas to accounts.

Then we won a bid for a contract with a large client, and one of the conditions was that we use a project management system. We chose Cerebro.

I wish more of our clients had clients like that!

What do you do first when you open Cerbero? How do use it in your work, how do your employees use it?

Personally, I never close it at all. One of out past sales directors taught us to never shut down the computer – so we never close our e-mail clients and never shut down computers. To this mantra I’ve added ‘never close Cerebro’. If I need to do something, I just switch over to its window and do it. We do everything in Cerebro – assign tasks to employees, pass files over to the client, discuss details with them, use it as an IM, and so on. Some clients even refuse to discuss anything unless it’s by phone or in Cerebro. And since you can’t always spend half an hour talking on the phone, it’s easier to just message them with what we’ve done and how. We send them mockups, JPG and PSD files, documents — everything.

We are not using the statistics system, and haven’t got a good grasp on budgeting, but we don’t really need them at this stage.

When did you realize that all employees are using Cerebro, and how hard was transition?

Designers switched to Cerebro straight away, it’s very convenient for them, so they use it, and the software engineers are exactly the kind of people who would love it.

Some people never made the switch, and I don’t they ever will. It’s the kind of creative people who aren’t necessarily good with new tech.

For example, copyrighters are used to writing copy, so it’s hard for them that they need to open some app, send some kind of ‘Review’ or ‘Report’… In the end, we realized they don’t really need it and stopped trying to force it on them, since their work is different. Especially given that they never talk to the client.

How long did it take to integrate the system into your workflow?

I think it took us about a week to get comfortable. The client spent, maybe, a month asking questions, worrying that they deleted something they should not have or that they couldn’t do something they wanted to. Also, at first I used to give them administrator status and then take it away all the time, and they couldn’t understand why yesterday they could assign tasks, and now they can’t. But we got the hang of it quickly, that the business we’re in – you have to be quick on the uptake, or you get left behind.

If you had to choose a project management system for an advertising agency that had never used one before, what criteria would you look at?

We focused on usability, how easy it is to work with the system. Everyone uses it, so, as I’ve mentioned, people in accounts have to understand how the system works, too – after all, we are not software engineers, we are simple users.

We also tested the system on the client, whether it suits them or not. Plus, we had to consider whether we could introduce the system from a technical point of view – so the first people to ask were IT-administrators and programmers, since it’s an important issue.

And what about the specific features – if you worked with media other than the web, would Cerebro fit your needs?

I think that it’s a very convenient system for an advertising agency (especially once you get the hang of reports…). And it’s very convenient that you can open it to freelancers. It’s a great system for all kinds of graphic design and Client Service, as well. So, I think, it would work great for video-production and print design, too, not just the web.

What size of files do you usually upload to Cerebro?

It varies. I once had to upload something like 800 MB… But mostly they are under 200 MB or so.

Do you use the drawing function or audio comments?

Yes, we do – both text and audio, if we can’t be bothered to draw and it’s easier to just talk. Not everyone, though, has a headset – although we’ve bought a few for this particular purpose, so that problem is no longer there. Drawing is convenient, too, of course, as some our clients used to do this in MS Power Point, which means we had to spend more time on it. Now they just ‘scribble’ in Cerebro.

What do you think is missing in terms of drawing?

I think everything is in place, I don’t see any weak spots.

How many clients have you managed to convince to switch to Cerebro?

For now, only the two largest ones: one for the media department and one for us. There’s also another client, whose tasks are managed in Cerebro, but who doesn’t have access to it. That is, we work on several projects there, but only two of the clients have access.

What would you improve, add, or change in Cerebro?

One small niggle is that you can’t have a text message notification when a comment is added.

As I see it, the system isn’t well suited to things like generating reports. I don’t mean accounting for internal needs, but rather things like invoicing where you can summarize costs, man-hours, and so on.

And in our industry, it would be ideal if you could not only transfer Flash files, but also comment on them, like with video. This is the kind of thing we need

And, finally, a major gap is user role customization. At the moment, some of our clients can see, for example, the time spent on their tasks, even though they don’t need that information. That’s because we have to give them the ‘Supervisor’ role, where they can assign tasks to us, instead of the ‘Client’ role.

Yes, we know about this and we are working on customizable access rights (with user presets), where the client can assign tasks in one part of the projects, but wouldn’t see some things like budgets and hours.

Yes, that would be great!

Thank you very much for your time.

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Case Study – N3

This month we talk with Timofei Penkov production director of N3.

Timofei, could you tell me a little bit about the history of your company?

The company is more than 6 years old. At present, we are one of the leading post-production companies in Russia. We specialize in the production of graphic elements for TV channels and computer-generated imagery for advertising spots. We very rarely work with special effects for cinema, although this is always a possibility for us. When it comes to CGI, we prefer motion-design for TV and complex advertising projects the most.Andrei Golikov, who has worked at N3 since its foundation, is the head of the company.

What projects have you worked on lately, and what are you working on now?

Right now we are producing four elaborate advertising spots and one full-HD broadcast for NTV+’s stereo-channel. Before that, we made a few ads and on-air packages for such TV-channels as Rossiya-2, DTV, and REN, the design for TV-programmes on the Russian Channel 5, Rossiya, and a few others. Even before I joined it, and certainly after, the company was working with, I think, all the leading TV-channels in Russia.

When and on what kind of projects did you begin to use Cerebro?

We started using Cerebro about a year ago. It took a while to get used to it, but in the end I prevailed and now we use the software a lot. We switched to the local version, because we were too dependent on the Internet connection, its speed and so on, and when you are using something a lot, such limitations are difficult to live with. So, it’s been about a year since we’ve started putting all imaginable tasks that need to be done to complete a project in Cerebro.

What helped you get used to Cerebro?

For me, the moment you know that a piece of software has caught on is when everyone knows where to look for things. It’s been a while since anyone has asked: ‘Where’s this file or the other?’ It’s always in Cerebro, attached to your task.

As a manager, which functions of Cerebro do you use the most?

We don’t use budgeting in Cerebro, because the reality of the market is such that the budget is decided long before the project starts, and the final budget is confirmed basically during the bidding process. By the time the project begins to be fleshed out, all the budgets have been fixed upon and there are no financial discussions. But I’m absolutely sure that if a company, say, only works with freelance designers, this function could be extremely useful for the head of that company. They would probably have an hourly rate of some kind, and they could calculate and analyze the invoice for the whole project at once. We use Cerebro for the dailies and as a database. All comments, all dailies, and every time we send something off is recorded there, which can be very helpful during discussions with the client.

Do you use the Gant diagram? Or do you use something else for scheduling?

Yes, we use it. We used it a lot at first. However, because it doesn’t always stack up to reality, we tend to use it for larger projects now, which last more than three weeks. For us, the Gant diagram is a planning tool, when we need to see, where things overlap. But I would also like to be able to use colour-coded tags, as it would be easier for me to look at the colour and see whether the status is ‘I’ve sent off the materials, awaiting reply’ or ‘There has been a reply’.

Do you use the drawing function, text comments, audio comments?

We use text comments all the time, we’ve made it our standard policy. If something isn’t in Cerebro, it’s as if it never existed, especially in discussions with clients. For example, instructions over the phone may be heard, but not carries out. This is why we always have text comments. Everyone needs them – both the person who is told to do something, and the manager who tells them to do it. We haven’t really been using the drawing and audio functions, because we have an open-space office and don’t have any one working from home, so if something needs to be discussed, we can do it at the office. The art-director, when we are discussing a project, tells everyone how they see each task and the clip as a whole. Then, when people get actual instructions, they sit down together with the art-director, who explains exactly what he wants from them. Because we can have a lot of tasks, and most of them are quite small and short, we usually don’t need any further comments in terms of execution. This can happen with large cinema projects, but we don’t use it.

Are you getting more sleep now that you’re using Cerebro?

Well, I’ll never get enough sleep, but there’s no feeling of chaos now. This is what Cerebro is for, it helps to get rid of information overload. Now everyone knows, where everything is. Everyone knows, what they need to do, everyone knows where to look for information, everyone knows, where to put things. And this is about one-third of the task as a whole. Before we had Cerebro, there were these folders ‘In’, ‘Out’, ‘Mail’, ‘Complete’, ‘Complete 2’, no-one knew where to find anything. Now all the dailies and the complete clips are in Cerebro, and it’s a lot easier to work with information.

Which Cerebro client are you using? Mac OS, Windows, Linux, Web-based or maybe the iPhone app?

All the designers are using the Microsoft Windows version, and most of them don’t need anything else, they don’t even use Cerebro at home. There are a few guys who love to work so much that they’ve installed Cerebro on their computers at home. People come to the office in the morning and say: ‘Oh, hey, a comment, great!’ The pop-up notifications are working great for us. Personally, I use Cerebro all the time, I’ve installed it everywhere – on my iPad, on my iPhone, on my Macbook, on the computer at work… But I’ve customized everything, so that I can use PPM to comment something on the iPad or upload it, and so on. By the way, on the iPad the images look bolder and, let’s say, prettier. It would be great if you could write messages when you are offline, and then sync them with the database.

Yes, we are working on that at the moment. And we will add these functions to the main Cerebro version as well, so that you can edit, comment, and create items on your laptop without an Internet connection. What else would you like to see in Cerebro? Do you find the interface usable?

At first, everyone hated the interface, as we have a company-full of creative types, they all criticised it, said it was unusual and hard to use. Mostly people use the navigator with the lights, nothing else. I don’t have any real problems with it. There are a few little annoyances, for example, how you need to always enter numbers when you name tasks, so that they are sorted by name, which is quite inconvenient.

Yes, we are working on a sorting function with arrows up or down.

That would be useful.

Are there any other programs that you think should be integrated with Cerebro workflow?

You should just make it possible to improve Cerebro with a SDK and to export data to other applications.

Yes, we’ll release a SDK soon, which will make all of this possible.

Thank you for answering my questions.

Other works on – http://www.n3workshop.com

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Case Study – Ulitka

This month we talk with Eugene Barulin director of “Ulitka Post”.

Tell us a little bit about the history of your company, please.
Ulitka started out as a small, low-profile company of three-four people, who did all kinds of not-so-large marketing projects. We emphasized our ‘boutique’-like quality (I hate that word, but it’s easier to explain things that way). We paid particular attention to technological developments, the administrative pipeline and so on. The company grew little by little, we expanded into the movie industry and had The Night Watch and The Day Watch as our clients. Then we began to take on larger projects such as Wanted. By volume, Ulitka was the largest contractor in Russia. We continue to actively work on computer graphics and animation for marketing companie and movies. So the company has a long and rich history.

What kind of projects do you use Cerebro for?
We have always aimed primarily at developing the technological division, so we have always paid a lot of attention to organizing the production process and to such complex things as reporting, planning, risk management and so on. So when we realized we needed specialized software, we started using Cerebro. This changed the way we do business quite a bit – now we have a new tool which can take care of much of the routine work. This helped us a lot in creating a simple and transparent system of business operations. Now all projects at Ulitka are done through Cerebro. Any project that is not in Cerebro does not count as a project and no one works on it. Even if it’s a small TV-ad, whipped up in three days, we use Cerebro for it.

What difficulties arise in the process of project management, and how Cerebro helps you overcome them?
The usual difficulties are the same each time. Firstly, it’s the fact that the process is not transparent, especially where the project is complex. The classic problem in project management is tracking the project and managing it as a whole, rather than one thing at a time. Every business needs projects to be completed on time and with the best value for money, which can be very difficult, especially for complex projects – you need to track a huge amount of details and tweak the process to fit the deadline, the financial resources and so on. When you have software that helps to do it, things get a lot easier. Cerebro is one of the most transparent and easily customizable software products, which helps to create a fairly linear plan for the project which remains familiar to most managers. Cerebro does not have the far too technical mindset which some other applications have.

How long have you been using Cerebro?
We’ve been using the software for over a year now.

Do your clients use Cerebro?
Yes, of course. We have universal accounts for our regular clients, where clients can access Cerebro and look something up. But the thing about our company’s use of Cerebro is that Cerebro is not simply a way for clients to comment on our work, but a work tool used inside the company. We use it for intra-corporate communication: supervisors comment on the artists’ work on all levels, art directors comment on the supervisors’ actions, and so on.

Which Cerebro client are you using? Mac OS, Windows, Linux, Web-based or maybe the iPhone app?
We mostly use Windows. We only have one Mac in the office, in the editing studio, and Cerebro is installed there, too. Sometime I access Cerebro from my iPhone, but for me this has more to do with monitoring what happens at the office rather than with any particular project.

Do you use the audio-visual commentary feature often?
Generally, very few people make audio comments, since we are all sitting in one office and if anyone wants to say something, he can tell it in person. But because things that people say can get forgotten quickly, corporate work at Ulitka is based on written communication. When people write they often do it a lot in a much clearer and concise way than when they talk. And sometimes when you write something, you come up with the solution yourself, so you don’t need to say anything.

How often do you draw over the videos and images?
All the time. Drawing is a lot more important, because it’s harder to say: “In the top right corner three pixels above the eye”, than it is to draw an arrow. Moreover, drawing is sometimes used as a way to sketch something.

How long did it take your employees and clients to get used to working with Cerebro?
Implementation speed depends on the project timetable, and we implemented Cerebro very quickly because just then we were switching from one project to the next. So for a time, a very short time, we tried Cerebro out on some small semi-projects, and then implemented it for a large project straight away. The movie The Black Ligtning was the first major project which was done in Cerebro from start to finish. Since then all our project are done in Cerebro.

How convenient do you find the interface?
Any tool is just that – a tool, if you can use it, it becomes convenient for you at some stage. Of course, I was used to other types of interfaces, but now I think the Cerebro interface is quite convenient, I know where to look for things. Of course, were you to ask me about improvements, I’d have something to say, but right now the interface is fine by me.

Are you planning to work with stereo? Would you be interested in stereo-commentary as a feature?
Stereo  is an inescapable trend, it will become a part of our everyday life any day now. We will work with stereo in any case, but it depends on what kind of projects they will be and when they will come up. There are some projects which we are thinking about in terms of stereo, but they are not the kind of projects which we wouldn’t be able to do without the ability to work with stereo in Cerebro. But if Cerebro got a stereo interface, we would, of course, use it.

How often do you use Mikogo web-conferencing and Wacom tablets when working with Cerebro?
We tried web-conferencing, and it works. In our field it may not be particularly useful, because we mainly use Cerebro within the company. But having this ability is great. It would be great if you could integrate more applications and integrate with the iPhone and the iPad. And we use Wacom, of course.

Do you have any ideas on how to improve Cerebro?
I would be very happy if the iPhone and iPad app was more functional. I would like to be able to  make comments, look through the material and so on. The easier it is for me to see what is happening on my phone, the more comments I make, and the work gets done quicker.

Thank you for answering my questions.

PS: In the new issue Cinefex (Russian version) published an article Eugene Barulin “Nobody knows the full stereo power.”

You can read rull article in a magazine Cinefex or on the website edition (Russian).

Such an experimental platform – Stereolaboratoriyu – I, Alexander Gorokhov (head of the studio CG-factory) and Paul Perepelkin organize in September 2010 in the Scream School on the faculties of postproduction.

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Case Study – Vedis

This month we talk with Alex Duk director of visualization departament company Vedis.

Could you please tell me about the history of your company, about your department?

We are a part of a large residential construction corporation in Moscow. Our particular department specializes in computer graphics, architectural visualization, and advertising for Vedice Corp. The major part of our work is in architectural visualization but recently we have been working on commercials quite a lot.

Were there any projects that might be familiar to a wide audience?

Well, yes, there was a fairly large marketing campaign for Marfino and Nakhimovo residential developments – everyone who follows the market for inexpensive residential real estate would have heard of them.

Why did you decide to use Cerebro and what had you used before that?

We had not used anything before we started using Cerebro. We did not have a dedicated project management system. We had a database, the supervisor just told people what to do, and he was the only one who had this information – we did not have a centralized system. Our department is quite small, so it usually didn’t cause any problems. But we still thought that we should fix it because from time to time things would go awry: someone would forget to do something or wouldn’t do it on time; sometimes a task would be set, but whoever was supposed to carry it out didn’t know about it… That was the first problem.

And the second thing was that as head of the department I used to spend days and nights in the office and so everything was under my control. But know the situation has changed somewhat, I have to spend a lot of time out of the office, but I still need to know what goes on there. For example, conflicts in schedule can mean that nothing gets done: when my employees come to the office in the morning, I am not yet there and cannot give them any tasks, but when I get to the office they have already left and, again, I cannot give them any tasks. Now, I do not have to meet someone in person to set a task, I can do it when it is convenient for me. Now I know who does what, what stage they are at… Functions like Dailies are very convenient, very useful: I can track what tasks my employees are working on right now.

Which Cerebro client are you using? Mac OS, Windows, Linux, Web-based or maybe the iPhone app?

We use the Windows and 64-bit Mac OS clients, as well as the iPhone app.

Do you have any clients who work with Cerebro?

We do not have any clients like that at the moment, but our holding company does not share a building with us, and we some internal clients there. We still have not done it, but we are planning to implement a client account, so that customers can see what goes on inside our company.

How long did it take your employees to switch to the software?

Not long at all, literally abour three days. First, I created a template structure for all projects, and the next day we began to use. On the first day people had some questions, then we switched on the Dailies function, which also took a bit of time to get used to, but then everyone got to grips with it.

What about the audio-visual commentary? Do use this feature often?

Most of the time I use text and pictorial comments, that is, about 80 per cent of the time I work with comments in images and video, and I am not always comfortable with audio comments. I use voice and actions in maybe 20 per cent of my comments, so that is where audio-visual commentary comes in, and I do not use the text comments on the forum at all. I love how you can make a comment right on the image or in the video, I do not have to explain that the third guy from the left should have a larger nose. It is easier to just write: “Make the nose larger”, and draw an arrow to the nose.

How convenient do you find the interface?

The interface is horrible, it really needs to be simplified. It is not intuitive, and thank God that most users do not have to work with it that deeply, so people usually get what they need to do quickly. But the interface is not intuitive. But I would not say it is really unbearable, once you get used to it, things get easier.

Do you have any wishes for future releases?

In general, the software does everything I need. But it would be more convenient if the computer client had the same function which the iPhone app has: the ability to work off-line. Sometime this is really necessary: when you do not have access to the Internet, and all the data is on your hard drive, but you have to go and search files out by hand just to use the software. This is probably the only things that is missing for me.

How often do you use Mikogo web-conferencing and Wacom tablets when working with Cerebro?

I have never used Mikogo, and as for the tablets… A few times, maybe, I usually draw with a mouse.

Are there any other programs that you think should be integrated with Cerebro workflow?

We would be very interested in integration with Duma, since we use both programs a lot. It would be nice if task description or the final render could show up in one of them. For example, if you could start a render in Duma, tick a box and then see the result in a Cerebro task. I tend to use Cerebro as a file management system, too, I do not even know where project files are stored: I always ask people to attach their work to Cerebro, so that I do not have to sift through folders.

Thank you for answering my questions

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Case Study – “Petersburg”

We are proud to present a new cycle of interviews on how Cerebro is used in companies.
This month we interviewed  Elena Chugunova and Anastasia Pashenkova, project managers at “Petersburg” animation studio.

Please tell us about the history of your company.

The “Petersburg” studio was created in March 2003. Our studio is the only one in Russia where the whole production process is in digital format, using the latest computer technologies.

Our creative team incudes over 100 specialists working on powerful graphical stations for 2D and 3D animation. This is why “Petersburg” ensures fast production rates for animation series, corresponding with european standards. In order to support young talents and to help develop love for the arts the studio also features a school for animators, storyboarders and directors, and also courses for animation film script writers, that are open for everyone.

We try to fully realize all of our knowledge and experience in our work. And the work of our team was acknowledged at various festivals: Grand Prize of the China International Cartoon and Digital Art Festival (China, Guangzhou, 2005), People’s Choice Awards at the International Festival of TV cartoons Cartoons on the Bay (Italy, 2005), nominated for National cinematography prize “Golden Eagle” in 2008 and 2009 in “Best animated movie” category, etc.

On what projects are you using the program?

At the moment we are working on creating a full-length cartoon. This is a movie about the new adventures of the popular Smeshariki characters, that find themselves in a big city. We are using the latest technologies on the project, including 3D format. We are using the Cerebro program on the production of this full-length cartoon for 2 years now.

How efficient is using Cerebro for your business?

The Cerebro program allows us to effectively distribute human and time resources, plan the production process, track task fulfillment and keep up with the whole project production process. Cerebro has a flexible structure that allows, if necessary, us to add new task types and change old ones. You can easliy see the productivity of each separate employee, using the User Stats option.  The Project Stats function allows you to evaluate the level of project completion. A major plus of the program is the opportunity of working with remote users and the opportunity of working out of the office.

What difficulties do you experience during the process of organizing work on a project? What versions of Cerebro do you use Mac / Win / Linux, Web or, perhaps, IPhone?

During the process of work on a project you sometimes need to edit or change work that has already been done and correct mistakes, and Cerebro allows us to quickly react to such alterations. We use 2 operational systems on the project (Windows and Linux) and Cerebro works well in both systems.

How fast did your team get used to the program?

As our team consists of creative people, the first stage of implementation caused a negative reaction, but after the first week of work in Cerebro our employees were able to appreciate all the advantages of the program: convenient task setting options, task list, tracking of time necessary to fulfill a specific task, payroll control options (for contract workers).

Do you often use the audiovisual reviewing tool?

Screenshots allow quick evaluation of work, but we do not actually use the function itself, as the key employees all work on the studio.

Do you have any recommendations to make the program more convenient?

A very important function is work with animation files only through Cerebro, by-passing all browsers, and also control of all work file versions.

Is the program interface user-friendly and convenient from your point of view?
The program interface is very convenient and user-friendly.