Becoming

CG Studio Manager

 

Often at the head of small or medium-sized companies, 3D studio managers are director, manager and administrator at the same time.

Parole de pro

Les qualités de l’ESMA, c’est les qualités d’une école de très haut niveau. Qu’un court-métrage de l’ESMA soit retenu pour les Oscars, c’est amplement mérité !

Kristof Serrand,
Directeur Artistique, Dreamworks

PAROLE DE PRO

L’ESMA est une école incroyable… L’animation et les effets spéciaux produits par les étudiants sont impressionnants à tout point de vue. Je suis toujours impatient de voir les projets de fin d’études !

Dylan Sisson
Technical Marketing Specialist, Pixar

Kristof SERRAND - Directeur artistique Dreamworks
Dylan Sisson Technical Marketing Specialist, Pixar

THE MISSIONS OF THE CG STUDIO MANAGER

In the CG industry, the studio manager is a key position, to which many enthusiastic professionals aspire.

It is an extremely versatile position. Indeed, the CG studio managers are in charge of organizing the positions, defining the budgets, closely monitoring the accounting, but also the projects and their progress…

Their missions are therefore very broad, very complete, and require extreme versatility, reactivity and availability.
Overall, the quality of a company manager is notably assessed on the basis of his/her speed in decision-making within his/her structure and in general.

HIS KNOW-HOW, HIS KNOWLEDGE

To become a digital studio manager, a minimum of two years of higher education in graphic or applied arts is required.

Like any head of a company, he is above all an entrepreneur : his goal is to keep his company running. This is why its extensive address book is very useful, especially when it comes to obtaining projects from production companies.

This CG professional must ensure the quality of the work of his teams, by dealing directly with the various artistic and technical contributors planned for each project, or by relying on various supervisors (animation supervisor, FX supervisor…), depending on the size of his company.

His finesse, rigour and meticulousness, and his ability to keep an overview are some of his main assets, as well as his mastery of DTP and computer graphics software (XPRESS, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator…).

Obviously, the manager displays a strong sense of organization, an ability to listen, to manage while appealing to his creative and artistic sensitivity.

On a managerial level, a good business manager must be able to adapt to circumstances and be positive.
The studio manager regularly carries out a technical and technological watch with his team on software, tools and hardware to keep track of the latest trends.

CAREER DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

The studio manager works in a graphic design studio, or within an advertising, a press or a publishing company. He can also work as a freelancer. His working hours may be irregular, depending on production requirements.

The profession of CG studio manager is often a field in which CG professionals succeed after having proven their worth, as employees or as independent workers.

Over the years, the manager can gain responsibility and take over the management of a larger structure.