Here is an everyday math bit that we can all appreciate the next time we have a workflow decision to make. Creative time, plus technical time equals the total time you have to produce your next project. Basically, you want to operate with a workflow that minimizes technical time, thus maximizing creative time, which makes the most of the fixed amount of time you have for a given project.
Break It Down
Let's take a closer look at the variables. Total time is the time that your budget allows. Unless you're working for free, you have to hit your deadline or eat the cost overrun.
Creative time is time spent producing what matters the most to the client in the end. Color schemes, design elements, textures, sound, refined edits and revisions; all the tasks a client and viewer will directly evaluate and consume.
Technical time is eaten up waiting on renders, compression, setting up compositing rigs, unpacking or adjusting your camera and so on. Technical tasks are not consumed by the viewer of your product. A viewer doesn't care about the rig you built in After Effects to move a particle system around a logo. They also don't care that you spent 9 hours setting up lighting or reinstalling Final Cut Studio... again. Your client and each viewer will only scrutinize and consume the final product in all its compressed glory. Technical time is of course necessary, but should be efficiently scaled back whenever possible.
Dollars Make Sense
The bottom line is what makes the workflow equation important. Viewers want to watch top quality content and clients want the best product for as little cost, both time and money, as you can possibly deliver.
Next time you're setting up a project, think about how to eliminate technical jobs to make room for more creative tweaking. How about shooting solid state instead of videotape, or upgrading to a 64bit OS and 64bit applications to speed up renders. Maybe work on setting up compositing rigs when you have some down time so they're there for you when you need them. Same situation with graphics, try to design a few components you could save in a folder to use in your next web or multimedia project. And don't forget to organize a set of commonly used snippets. Weather you're writing action script, HTML, CSS or an After Effects expression, a set of snippets will save you time.
Think Efficiently
Everyday, creative and technical time will battle it out to see which one will dominate the total time of your next project. To the point, technical time must loose this battle.
