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What are CAVE Dailies?
What are Dailies?
In a nutshell, Dailies are feedback sessions where the supervision team will sit down (usually in a screening room) with the artists to give clear and informative notes on what needs doing to push an asset or shot to final. In a production environment, this tends to happen every day.
The supervision team is usually composed of the VFX Supe, CG Supe, and Asset Supe, plus the producers (Supervisor and Coordinators) and with the artists and TDs, they’ll review the latest iteration of an asset or a shot. For example, a modeller may submit a model turntable render, or a lighting artist may submit the raw renders and a slap comp of their work.
The work would then be reviewed by the supervisors and notes will either be given, or the work will be approved.
For most production environments, you’ll usually find two types of Dailies:
- Crew Dailies – for the internal team
- Client Dailies – between the supervisors and the clients
With Crew Dailies, you may also find that these could be broken down into sessions for specific departments. For example, you could have a Modelling Dailies session or a Comp Dailies session.
For some departments, before your work is reviewed by a VFX or CG Supe in a Dailies session, you may also have a desk review with your asset or shot lead. You’ll want to do this where possible as the last thing you’ll want to do is put something in front of your supervisor that is not yet ready to be reviewed.
Without a doubt Dailies can be intimidating. In the real-world, you could be sat in a dark screening room and maybe the feedback you are being given. although fair and just, is not being presented in an encouraging manner. Or maybe you were going in to the session thinking you nailed it, and suddenly your work is being torn apart. Some may say that you need a tough chin, which I think to a point is true.
For me, Dailies is a fantastic way of improving your communication skills and also your artistic eye. It is a skill to be able to both take creative and technical feedback, and also give such feedback. Dailies allows you to gain an understanding and appreciation of what a supervisor is looking for, and it is a time that allows you to defend your work and explain your motivations. In this industry (and in many others), if there is one word that sums up why something went wrong, it is usually communication (or a lack of it). Dailies allows you to get fresh eyes on your work, to explore new possibilities and hopefully, to connect with your audience. When it comes to art, the reason most of us are in this game is to connect, to have our work mean somethign to someone else. So I say, embrace Dailies. Take the feedback, for better or worse, and use it to push your work and your skills.
CAVE Dailies
So what are CAVE Dailies?
CAVE Dailies is our way of trying to replicate an industry standard, industry style feedback session. But more importantly, we are not here to rant and rave, we are here to educate and to help push your work and skills though discussion, drawovers and experience. Through live online sessions and working with industry professionals such as Heads of Department and CG Supervisors, we’ll analyse submissions from students and provide feedback to truly enhance your knowledge and skills.
In order to bring you an authentic experience, we are extremely happy to be working with the SyncSketch team in order that or processes will be similar to what you’d find in large VFX, animation and games studios.
This essentially involves:
- Students submitting their work to a review playlist
- Supervisors reviewing student work
- Notes being provided to students
When do the sessions run?
We’ll be looking to run Dailies sessions on the first and third Wednesday of the month, between 6pm and 8pm GMT (yeah – I know, we should call it Bi-Monthlies). We’ll be running the sessions like your standard webinar via Zoom. The sessions will be recorded and then uploaded onto the website, so if you cannot attend a session, you can catch it later on.
If I submit my work, will it definitely get reviewed?
Depending on the number of submissions to each session, there could be a possibility that we don’t manage to work through everyones work. For each sesssion, we estimate that we’ll be able to get through 5 to 10 submissions, and although your work may not always be under discussion, the notes given to your peers will be of direct, very real value for all students.
How do I sign up?
You can sign up easily by subscribing to this page: CAVE Dailies
CAVE Dailies is FREE, or if you’d like to support the team, you can subscribe for a monthly fee.
If you need a step-by-step on how to do so, check out this doc here: