CASE STUDY
Creative Operations Production Systems Workflow Design Team Enablement
Working as a Photographer within SCAD Visual Media, I saw recurring friction in production planning, shared information, equipment workflows, and technical support—and opportunities to make each more structured and accessible.
My contribution has been to identify recurring workflow problems, research and implement practical tools, and help photographers, producers, retouchers, and work-study students use more structured ways of working.
THEGOALISSIMPLE
Less time managing the work.
More time doing it.
THE APPROACH
I look at where recurring production work loses time, information, or clarity—and what practical structure would make it easier to manage, repeat, and hand off.
Find where recurring production work is losing time, information, or clarity.
Organize information and workflows so they are easier to find, use, and repeat.
Reduce unnecessary manual steps and make recurring work easier to manage.
Put practical tools and workflows into place around how the team actually works.
Help the team use the systems, solve problems, and carry the workflow forward.
Improving how recurring production work is planned, organized, accessed, and supported.
Working inside a high-volume creative production environment made recurring friction easy to see. I looked for places where information was scattered, processes depended too heavily on memory, or repetitive work could be structured more effectively—and built practical systems around those needs.
Identified StudioBinder as a better alternative to fragmented pre-production workflows and proposed its adoption within Visual Media. It centralized call sheets, schedules, talent information, and recurring production details into one planning system.
Built a searchable ClickUp location database combining scouting imagery, production information, and location-specific knowledge. It turned scattered folders and individual memory into a reusable resource for future shoots.
Helped bring a digital inventory platform into the Visual Media workflow and built the studio-equipment inventory. It replaced an Excel-based process with structured records and digital checkout management, improving visibility and accountability.
Simplified how model availability is collected for upcoming shoots. Rather than having producers interpret hundreds of individual email replies with inconsistent schedules and responses, I introduced a structured form-based workflow that captures availability in a consistent format and makes the information easier to review during production planning.
Replaced an Excel-based model list with a structured ClickUp system where model information is collected through forms, organized through extensive custom fields, and made searchable and filterable by relevant production criteria. Producers and creative directors can quickly narrow the model pool by academic program, location, interests, student status, approval status, and other profile information instead of manually searching through a static list. I later developed an Airtable prototype to extend the workflow with automation and faster model-card creation; in testing, it reduced model-card creation time by approximately 99%, but the Airtable version was not permanently adopted.
Became a technical and workflow resource for photographers, producers, retouchers, and work-study students—helping troubleshoot tools, share production knowledge, improve processes, and support adoption of better ways of working.
The strongest systems make recurring production work easier to find, manage, repeat, and hand off.
Sometimes it’s structure.
Sometimes standardization.
Sometimes automation.
Sometimes enablement.
The process should support the team.
Not slow the work down.