Success Story
ORKA Postproduction Studio, known for VFX on Rambo V: Last Blood and Infinity Storm movies, is a Central Europe-based post-production facility located in Warsaw.
It has its origins in the late '90s, starting with the first generations of VFX Flame/Smoke online systems and 35mm telecine services. Today, the company employs over 70 artists and producers, delivering a complete set of post-production solutions, including on-set and virtual set services, offline suites, sound postproduction, several specialized VFX departments (composition, 2D, 3D, AI), colour grading rooms, and a reference laser cinema hall for screening, supported by DI specialists. The highest quality is delivered with an elastic and agile approach as a standard package.
“Besides art and craft, three important factors need to be maintained regarding this type of business,” says Marek Subocz, head of VFX at ORKA Postproduction Studio. “The first is communication: communication on all stages and with all participants—clients, internal teams, and external cooperation entities—in a standardized, reliable, and fast manner way. The second factor, related to the artistic domain and its specifics, is automation. Task repetitions and human errors consume time and money, directly affecting revenue. Starting with naming conventions, through versioning to publishing and archiving—all of it, or most of it, should be, one way or another, automated. The last factor is real-time project tracking, a picture of the current project's state, simply helping to manage and deliver” - Marek explains.
Concerning the complexity of post-production workflows, the pace of changes, and the multitude of tools, it’s quite hard to imagine a platform that may manage all of it and simply provide productivity of this type while being completely open to free customization. And this is what ORKA Postproduction Studio needed - a highly advanced, properly supported, and flexible platform for TV & Film post-production project management.
“Firstly, security is paramount for our team, which collaborates with various partners such as Netflix, HBO, Canal+, global brands, local and international AD agencies, movie producers, and artists,” says Wojtek Janiszewski, Head of Technology at ORKA Postproduction Studio. “Whether sharing content, workplace resources, or projects, adherence to security standards is the starting point,” he continues.
Despite security, working with a diverse range of clients and artists necessitates a tool for sharing the entire process and its artistic aspects to achieve demanding results. The tool should also integrate seamlessly with a variety of studio software like Autodesk Flame, Autodesk 3ds Max and the M&E Collection, allowing artists to open, version, and publish work directly without concerns about technicalities. Project management itself—creating projects based on predefined presets, adding teams, roles, automating and delegating tasks—was equally important.
It's a comprehensive package and sounds like a serious implementation of several different and custom tools and platforms to keep everything in check—major goals and highly desirable outcomes for ORKA Postproduction Studio.
Studio managers considered a few solutions, and Autodesk ShotGrid was on the list.
Autodesk ShotGrid offered the required functionality:
- communication tools on all stages and with all participants,
- naming standarization and automation of repetitive tasks,
- real time project tracking to help manage and deliver.
However, few people had the knowledge of how to properly implement it. It's worth mentioning that, despite post-production studios being technology-driven entities, not many of them have programmer teams and/or IT project management experience in this area.
The decision was made, and ORKA Postproduction Studio embarked on its journey with Autodesk ShotGrid. Initially, it seemed straightforward due to Autodesk ShotGrid's Python construction, but it turned out to be more challenging than anticipated. Tailoring the platform took several months, involved many trials and errors, consumed numerous hours, and resulted in only small progress. It required additional workforce and some important arrangements. The Autodesk ShotGrid implementation was restarted.
Locating the right individual or team was the true challenge in the entire process. The complementary part—finding documentation online, utilizing the Autodesk ShotGrid developer forum, or seeking professional support from Autodesk partner, like PCC Polska —was at their fingertips.
Priorities and basic requirements were established. Compositing tools took precedence, addressing project requirements like folder structure, naming conventions and so on. Next were VFX tools, followed by extra extensions, such as Resolve integration to interchange data between the DI and VFX departments. It roughly took another year to achieve these goals.
The business benefits are simple. Real-time project tracking and automation work brilliantly in Autodesk ShotGrid.
Compared to the previous decentralized project workflow, it reduces producers' workload by over 60%.
Manual tasks like project structure creation, file and asset management, or versioning—all gone for good. No more human errors, no time-consuming repetitive tasks.
Depending on project complexity, that’s a 10-20% increase in efficiency per team. In the most demanding projects, it may save every fifth pair of hands easily.
Autodesk ShotGrid also helps maintain industry standards, minimizes time for additional administrative tasks, or even studio helpdesk support. It literally relieves supervisors and IT, giving them time for other tasks. And artists can focus on what they like most – creativity.
Autodesk ShotGrid is an industry standard—everyone knows it, everyone uses it. More than 90% of customers require it. Very small teams or art boutiques might manage without it, but larger and more reliable structures cannot. Undoubtedly, ORKA Postproduction Studio, with sophisticated, fast-paced post-production workflows, managing dozens of projects, working with worldwide clients, simply can't.
Finally, the Autodesk ShotGrid service works. Autodesk has a dedicated web platform that monitors Autodesk ShotGrid, providing status, warnings, and alerts in case an issue occurs—an extremely rare situation.
Autodesk ShotGrid operates and delivers 99.999% of the time. That’s the same level of productivity and reliability ORKA Postproduction Studio offers to the market.
Post and the future
ORKA Postproduction Studio’ number of Autodesk ShotGrid seats in 2023: 60 and counting. The journey never ends. Having Autodesk ShotGrid on board means having developers on a contract.
Finding programmers specialized in the Autodesk ShotGrid platform for VFX studio was a challenge. Such specialists needed to understand the basic post-production philosophy and be capable of running and testing typical studio tools without additional assistance, but it's definitely worth it.
“The post-production environment grows and constantly evolves, and Autodesk ShotGrid follows it, increasing control and flexibility to our projects” - says Wojtek. - “At ORKA Postproduction Studio Autodesk ShotGrid is the logic behind talents, workflows, communication, and results, the essential Fifth Element. But the outcome is much bigger. Because of its architecture, Autodesk ShotGrid provides functionality that helps us with the most demanding current and upcoming challenges, i.e. AI and VFX integration.”
Project summary
Duration & delivery
Autodesk solutions
Services provided
Customer industry
Improving Asset Creation and Pipeline in Game Dev Studio - Render Cube S.A.
Render Cube is an independent Polish game development studio based in Lodz, Poland, providing outsourcing services and later developing games on its own (Monster League, Medieval Dynasty). The main problem after the early release of the second game turned out to be the high expectations of players regarding the quality of the final product. Render Cube wanted to deliver the final version of the game in the highest possible quality. This required filling the whole universe with the highest quality assets and animations. The entire game was built on Unreal Engine, so in order to take advantage of its capabilities, the models had to be prepared in a perfect way with a great topology. Also, the variety of models could have been problematic due to the short time until release.
CERTYFI-CAD: Enhancing and Accelerating the Design Process and Communication with the Customer - PD&M Collection
CERTYFI-CAD is a design office in Rzeszow, Poland, established in 2012. In its activity, it offers services in designing mechanical machines and devices for various industries. In all cases, the scope of design work is agreed with the client and the best variant is proposed in order to achieve the intended effect as soon as possible. The company employs qualified engineers with vast knowledge and experience gained during execution of various projects. Moreover, the team is distinguished by excellent knowledge of 3D design software. During many years of work on various projects, CERTYFI-CAD has developed its own style which is based on involving the client in the project so that the final product is one hundred percent tailored to his needs. One often occurring problem during such cooperation was the lack of an ability to quickly design assembly configurators with different variants of parts or presenting variants of individual parts.
Juice - improving communication in creating animations and special effects - implementation of ShotGrid (Shotgun) in Visual Effects & Sound Studio
Juice - a full-services Visual Effects & Sound Studio with strong branches in VFX, animation and design - has worked on long, short, TV and feature productions for HBO, Dolby, BMW, Mercedes, Coca-Cola, Nike, Netflix, Sony Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, and the BBC (e.g: Margrete –Queen of the North”- feature film; commercial of Playstation5, Xiaomi MI11I, Samsung; trailers: „Ares – Our greatest adventure”, Cyberpunk 2077 –Official E3 2019”, Netflix – The Liberator – TV series and many others). The company has many different departments: ART, COMPO, FX, LIGHTING, ADMINISTRATION and IT. Teams of writers, artists, audio post producers, and production supervisors dote over each delicate creation with skill and passion. With each project they want to give as much creativity as possible. But Juice had problems with project management and communication at what stage a given/specific project is at a given moment as well as with the flow of current information within the company.
Contact Partner Finder for help using the online search tool and more. The Autodesk Assistant can help with Autodesk products, answer questions, or send you to an agent.
Partner Finder Terms of Use
By accessing and using Partner Finder, you acknowledge and agree to the following Additional Terms as referenced in the Website Terms of Use: (i) Partner Finder may be modified, updated, interrupted, limited, suspended, or discontinued at any time without notice or liability; (ii) any query or request for information regarding a specific provider or provider services may be forwarded to that provider, however Autodesk in its discretion may retain a record to conduct business analytics to improve Partner Finder and other Autodesk products and services; (iii) Autodesk has no obligation to enforce any terms on your behalf against another user; and (iv) any feedback you provide in connection with a provider, including ratings or reviews, is a non-confidential “Submission” as defined in the Website Terms of Use. You are advised to conduct your own independent analysis and assessment of any information provided by or though Partner Finder, including whether a selected provider is appropriate for your particular circumstances. Without limiting the Website Terms of Use, Autodesk does not warrant, endorse, guarantee, or assume responsibility for any service advertised or offered by a provider through Partner Finder or any hyperlinked website or service. Autodesk is not liable for the content of this site, or for the consequences of any actions you may take based on information provided by, or through, this site. You release Autodesk and its affiliates and subsidiaries from all liability arising from your use of Partner Finder, including any hyperlinked website, service, or content.
Translation tool disclaimer
This page has been translated for your convenience using a machine translation service. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation; however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace human translators. As a result, this translation may contain errors and inaccuracies. Autodesk provides no warranties, either express or implied, about the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of the machine translation and disclaims all liability for any losses or damages caused by, or resulting from your reliance on, this translation. The English version of this website is the official version.
