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Less admin, more boarding.

Take each animation job from first hold to final invoice. The studios holding your dates, the stages each client signs off, and the hours and invoices for every booking, in one place.

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Open calls, fairs and grants for animation

An explainer is a project with its own canvas. The storyboard lands as a grid of panels, the client's note goes on a sticky beside the one to redraw, the animatic drops in as a video, and the project's task list shows what's been signed off.

The admin that comes with booked animation work

A freelance animator's calendar is held by studios that haven't booked yet. A first hold costs the studio nothing and can sit for weeks. Once a job is booked, the client signs off stage by stage, and a change after the animatic is the expensive kind.

  • The first hold that never books

    A studio has held two weeks of November since September. Nobody has called to book them, and another studio wants the same days.

  • The change after the animatic

    The client approved the animatic three weeks ago. Now they want a new opening shot, and the approval is somewhere in an email thread.

  • The days past the booking

    The job was booked for ten days and ran to thirteen. The extra three are in a message to the producer, with no rate written next to them.

  • The agency waiting on its client

    The spot aired in the spring. The agency says it pays you when its client pays it, and it has said so every month since.

At the puppet set

See every shot left before delivery

A stop-motion spot is a project with each step as a task: the animatic, each shot, comp and color. Today lists what's due across every job, so shot 4 gets animated on schedule, and the hours on set are logged to the project as you go.

Hands bending a stop-motion puppet's arm on a small tabletop set

Keep every studio's hold on one board

Start a pipeline from Blank and name it Holds, with Second hold and First hold as stages and Booked and Released as outcomes. Each studio is an organization on it, with the dates in its notes and the day it said it would confirm as the results deadline. When a challenge comes in, log it on the first hold's card with tomorrow as the next follow-up. The studio that books moves to Booked, and Promote to project starts the job with the studio as client.

How outreach works

Get each stage signed off, with a date

Rename your project statuses to the stages a job moves through: Script, Storyboard, Animatic, Animation, Comp and Delivered. Each sign-off is a task with a due date, linked to the job and to the agency's producer, so it shows on their record too. When the animatic is approved, tick it off and move the job to Animation from its status.

How projects work

Tools for the full animator's year

Festival deadlines, the summer market and the fall's commercial work come around every year. Each one has a place in Plya.

  1. January to February

    The Annecy deadline

    Annecy takes short films until mid-February. Exporting the festival cut and filling in the entry are tasks dated before it.

  2. March to April

    Ottawa opens

    Ottawa's entries open March 1 and are free, with a Commissioned category for commercials and title sequences. Which of the year's jobs to enter goes in a note.

  3. May to June

    Annecy and the market

    The festival and its market, Mifa, run in late June. Annecy is listed in Opportunities, where you can mark it Attending.

  4. July to August

    After the market

    The studios and producers you met at Mifa go in Network, each linked to their studio, with a note on what they're making next.

  5. September to October

    Ottawa and the fall's jobs

    Ottawa runs in late September, and the fall's commercial work gets booked. Each job is a project with its sign-offs as dated tasks.

  6. November to December

    The year's last bookings

    Before studios close their books, the hours from each booking go on an invoice. Finance shows what's paid and what's still open.

Keep each studio's terms with the studio

A note linked to the studio's organization holds what you agreed: your day rate, how long a day runs, how days past the booking are billed, and who releases a hold. When a producer calls with a new job, open the studio in Network and the terms are there.

Made for every kind of studio

Plya for every craft and practice

Spend more time animating

The holds, the sign-offs and the invoices go in Plya, where you can find them.

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