Shotgun & Thinkbox Offer Integrated Production Tracking & Deadline Render Queue Management

Connectivity between Deadline and Shotgun to be previewed at NAB 2011

Shotgun Software, the web-based project management and collaboration system, and Thinkbox Software's Deadline render queue management software, today announced their intent to integrate their tools, offering visual effects, animation and digital production studios an out-of-the-box solution that greatly increases the speed of the render and review workflow and provides insights into how studios are using their render resources. This integration will be unveiled at the National Association of Broadcasters Conference (NAB) April 11-14 in Las Vegas, NV. "Our clients render and review their work thousands of times during the life of a project, so inefficiencies in that workflow can be frustrating and costly," said Don Parker, co-founder and CEO, Shotgun Software. "The goal of this integration is to provide our clients with a toolset that helps them iterate and collaborate on their work as efficiently as possible."

Added Chris Bond, president, Thinkbox Software, "After spending a large chunk of my career as a Visual Effects Supervisor, I'm a big proponent of optimizing pipelines to make everything run more smoothly on a show. Having Shotgun and Deadline talk to one another is really exciting because it offers facilities large and small access to an incredible level of flexibility and control. The ability to run Deadline renders directly through Shotgun, and benefit from all of the automated note-taking, data gathering and tracking that entails allows projects to maximize resources and run much more efficiently."

The Shotgun and Deadline integration enables a seamless render and review data flow. When Deadline starts a render, a "Version" is automatically created in Shotgun with key metadata. When the render is complete, Deadline updates Shotgun with a thumbnail image, paths to frames, render stats, and playback links. Shotgun then dispatches out targeted notifications with links back to the work. Studios can then view the Versions in various contexts, create reports, and organize work into Playlists for review sessions where they can quickly take Notes with Shotgun's "Note App."

Access to Shotgun-Deadline integration is free for Deadline users who are on an active maintenance subscription and will be included in Deadline 5.0. A public beta will open shortly after NAB to qualified customers.