DreamWorks Animation has adopted The Foundry’s FLIX collaborative storyboarding software for use in pre-production on its animated features. FLIX is a web-based visual story development tool that allows sharing of storyboard panels, facilitating early collaboration between departments.
Before The Foundry took over commercial development last year, FLIX was developed as an in-house solution at Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI). It has also been adopted by Warner Brothers Animation.
According to DreamWorks Animation director and animator Jill Culton, “FLIX has been an essential tool in streamlining our story workflow process, bringing it into the digital realm. We are now able to easily drop in or reorder storyboards, reducing time-consuming manual tasks that used to take us out of the creative flow.”
Gregory Brentin, Dreamworks director of workflow says the tool will also be used for projects in development for TV distribution. “Artists, writers and directors found that FLIX reduces the complexity of data management and enables a better feedback loop. Having proved beneficial to the feature pre-production workflow, we are now in the process of expanding its use onto more projects.”
“FLIX allows users to effectively manage the pre-production storyboarding process, through all the numerous iterations and changes. All those involved in a project, be it writers, directors or storyboard artists, can load up FLIX and see the latest version. They don’t even need to be in the same room or building,” said Yiotis Katsambas, FLIX product manager, The Foundry.
Katsambas went on to say, “The tool keeps track of all the data associated with project changes, automatically versioning the content thus ensuring users update the most current images in the story sequence. FLIX brings a new level of efficiency to projects and manages the technical complexities of collaboration and change with ease.”
www.thefoundry.co.uk
