Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1434261
D E PA R T M E N T 43 KEYFRAME EVALUATE AND TEACH The work has come in, and it's close, but not there yet. The more hands-on person might be tempted to step in and quickly finish up the job. That's how Davila was inclined to proceed as a storyboard direc- tor. But as a supervising producer, she realized that the process wasn't working. Back when she was the storyboard director, she could open up the story- board file and mark the poses she wanted or give the revision notes and say, "Here you go. I wrote down which shots need what. Get to work on this, give it back to me, and I'll review it and send it on to the editor." Now that she's supervising, she attends meetings with executives to discuss music, casting, and other aspects of the show. She no longer has the time between reviewing and sending work to the editor to make final corrections herself. "I found that the more I did [this], the more I was stretching myself too thin," she says. "And I wasn't really letting [my staff] learn. I had to back off." SET YOURSELF FREE A good manager knows their strengths and weaknesses as well as the strengths and eanesses o their tea ne o the benefits of becoming a supervisor is the ability to delegate things that are less in your wheelhouse to team mem- bers who A) might be grateful for the assignment and B) might therefore do it more skillfully than you would. There's no shame in giving a task away. It can be one of the best ways to set up an effective system, according to Walker. "To me there is nothing more powerful than saying to a second-in-command, 'Look, you are fantastic at this. It doesn't come as naturally to me. Would you be interest- ed in taking over this aspect?' This is incredibly empowering," she says. "Don't be afraid to delegate stuff just because your brain doesn't work as well in that area. That's strength, not weakness." Osman's views are his own and not those of Cisco Systems. WINTER 2021 43