How to do things

How to do things should be followed by how to do things efficiently and in a way that supports your collaborators, whether they are upstream, downstream or swimming along beside you. What is needed for someone else to take the next step?

There’s two types of knowledge, working and reference. Working knowledge includes whatever you need to do the work at hand, reference knowledge supports the work at hand eg notes about workflow and how problems were solved, technical esoterica, serial numbers, etc. As you progress, it’s important to learn to tell the difference and have a solid strategy for translating from one to the other. For example, when archiving a complicated project, convert working knowledge into reference knowledge with clear notes so that you can quickly come back up to speed if the project needs revisions months later.

“But one thing is certain-the technologies and techniques that we think of as being primarily a part of “visual effects” are really becoming the tools that will be used for *any* kind of sequential-image storytelling. Image manipulation has become the heart of postproduction, and knowledge of these concepts will benefit anybody who wants to work in that industry.” The Art and Science of Digital Compositing, Ron Brinkmann