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Industry
March 17, 2022

The art of collaboration & communication in film

How to master it.
Nyamka Ganbold
Industry
March 17, 2022

The art of collaboration & communication in film

How to master it.
Nyamka Ganbold

Film is one of the most collaborative of all the arts and is constantly changing. From script to music, every step of filmmaking is being done in a highly collaborative way, involving many people with different kinds of expertise. To manage everything with your crew so that everything falls into place, good communication is crucial.

Openness, empathy, listening and questioning are the important characteristics for effective, efficient and tactful communication. That’s not really news, but somehow we don’t all manage to communicate that way. And when it comes to complex working process, effective collaboration plays as significant a role as communication.

As mentioned before, film is a constantly changing industry. It goes shoulder to shoulder with the fast-paced development of new methods and emerging technology. Digital workflows in film have become native to process and with that, film production has in some ways transformed into a more complex world than it was before.

The working process in film is getting more and more complex


Rebekah Cacino touches on this in her talk on “Next-level collaboration: The future of content and design”. She is a content strategy and UX consultant and studied how successful teams collaborate. In her talk, Rebekah Cacino reflects on how the collaboration of Pixar animation “Toy Story” was done in a new way. The traditional animation process was quite simple. Each task was done by one department or an individual.

When they were done they could easily pass it to the next department and so on. However, Pixar’s digital animation process was contrary to traditional methodology. It was more complex. The tasks were overlapping and repetitive, and no one department or person could claim responsibility because everyone was involved at the same time.

Upon listening to Rebekah, we immediately related these challenges to those of film music. Communication and collaboration are essential to streamlining tight delivery schedules, and there are many moving parts.

Communication and collaboration are essential to streamlining tight delivery schedules.

Keeping track of different communication channels is inefficient for the workflow


Let’s think about feedback loops and the different communication channels where you can easily lose the track of which feedback is the most recent and where, on which channel, it has been communicated.

Yes, cloud based collaborative tools like Google Drive, Dropbox, chat tools like WhatsApp and Slack are making communication easier. But it is still time-consuming if you have to find a specific comment and forgot which platform it was on - was it an email, WhatsApp message - and are we sure about which version we’re talking about on Google Drive or Dropbox? Confusion here is a killer. This happened once to our CEO, Tobias Wagner. He addressed feedback notes to later find out he was working on changes to the wrong scene. A perfect example of good communication gone bad.

In her talk, Rebekah Cacino quotes an author who said “Meeting the demands of a multi-device web is less a problem of a technique, and more one of communication”. If you agree with this, well, you haven’t heard about us yet.

Imagine a collaborative tool where you can upload your movie, audition unlimited pieces of music against it, invite your team to participate with feedback - all in one browser, in one project. AND, then you can license music straight inside the platform. Meet freque.

According to Rebecah Cacino’s view, the values of next-level collaboration are:

  • create alignment = deliver better outcomes
  • remove politics = launch faster
  • reduce rework = decrease cost
  • boost morale = increase productivity


Freque does it all. You create alignment and deliver better outcomes by having everything in one place - freque. You remove politics and launch faster with transparent communication - freque. Furthermore, you reduce rework and decrease cost because all feedback is clearly tied to the music and video you’re discussing.  Click on a song and only feedback about that song appears. Goodbye confusion - freque.  And last but not least, you boost morale and increase productivity because all the tools you need are in one place. You’re simply more creative when you have everything you require right in front of you.

Not convinced yet or have questions about freque? Just sign up for early access, and we’ll show you.

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Industry
March 17, 2022

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Film is one of the most collaborative of all the arts and is constantly changing. From script to music, every step of filmmaking is being done in a highly collaborative way, involving many people with different kinds of expertise. To manage everything with your crew so that everything falls into place, good communication is crucial.

Openness, empathy, listening and questioning are the important characteristics for effective, efficient and tactful communication. That’s not really news, but somehow we don’t all manage to communicate that way. And when it comes to complex working process, effective collaboration plays as significant a role as communication.

As mentioned before, film is a constantly changing industry. It goes shoulder to shoulder with the fast-paced development of new methods and emerging technology. Digital workflows in film have become native to process and with that, film production has in some ways transformed into a more complex world than it was before.

The art of collaboration & communication in film

The working process in film is getting more and more complex


Rebekah Cacino touches on this in her talk on “Next-level collaboration: The future of content and design”. She is a content strategy and UX consultant and studied how successful teams collaborate. In her talk, Rebekah Cacino reflects on how the collaboration of Pixar animation “Toy Story” was done in a new way. The traditional animation process was quite simple. Each task was done by one department or an individual.

When they were done they could easily pass it to the next department and so on. However, Pixar’s digital animation process was contrary to traditional methodology. It was more complex. The tasks were overlapping and repetitive, and no one department or person could claim responsibility because everyone was involved at the same time.

Upon listening to Rebekah, we immediately related these challenges to those of film music. Communication and collaboration are essential to streamlining tight delivery schedules, and there are many moving parts.

Communication and collaboration are essential to streamlining tight delivery schedules.

Keeping track of different communication channels is inefficient for the workflow


Let’s think about feedback loops and the different communication channels where you can easily lose the track of which feedback is the most recent and where, on which channel, it has been communicated.

Yes, cloud based collaborative tools like Google Drive, Dropbox, chat tools like WhatsApp and Slack are making communication easier. But it is still time-consuming if you have to find a specific comment and forgot which platform it was on - was it an email, WhatsApp message - and are we sure about which version we’re talking about on Google Drive or Dropbox? Confusion here is a killer. This happened once to our CEO, Tobias Wagner. He addressed feedback notes to later find out he was working on changes to the wrong scene. A perfect example of good communication gone bad.

In her talk, Rebekah Cacino quotes an author who said “Meeting the demands of a multi-device web is less a problem of a technique, and more one of communication”. If you agree with this, well, you haven’t heard about us yet.

Imagine a collaborative tool where you can upload your movie, audition unlimited pieces of music against it, invite your team to participate with feedback - all in one browser, in one project. AND, then you can license music straight inside the platform. Meet freque.

According to Rebecah Cacino’s view, the values of next-level collaboration are:

  • create alignment = deliver better outcomes
  • remove politics = launch faster
  • reduce rework = decrease cost
  • boost morale = increase productivity


Freque does it all. You create alignment and deliver better outcomes by having everything in one place - freque. You remove politics and launch faster with transparent communication - freque. Furthermore, you reduce rework and decrease cost because all feedback is clearly tied to the music and video you’re discussing.  Click on a song and only feedback about that song appears. Goodbye confusion - freque.  And last but not least, you boost morale and increase productivity because all the tools you need are in one place. You’re simply more creative when you have everything you require right in front of you.

Not convinced yet or have questions about freque? Just sign up for early access, and we’ll show you.

You may also like

Top 10 film composers

What do we know about Hans Zimmer’s Oscar winning film score for Dune?

What is the process of composing music for a film