What is a Digital Assets Coordinator?

When I try to explain what exactly it is I do in work, I’m used to people’s eyes totally glazing over and seeing that what I’ve said go in one ear and straight out the other, and, like Chandler in Friends, I’ve accepted that none of my friends or family actually know what I do.

Digital Assets Coordinator / Manager is a very new role in the Film & TV sector, and one that doesn’t usually exist on lower budget/less complex productions.  Basically, the job of a digital assets coordinator is to ensure that they have all of the most up to date versions of important files, and know exactly where they are on the online filing system (usually production company-specific sites that are very similar to dropbox or Google Drive) 

As films/TV Shows are becoming more complex/getting bigger budgets, productions have found it really useful to hire one person to keep track of all of these important documents. As it’s such a new role, there are very few people out there right now who’ve done it before, and so, if you do it once, chances are, you’ll not be out of work for too long. 

Digital Assets Coordinators can be across any department (as necessary) but I’ve only ever been in the role as part of the Art Department, who’re the team responsible for designing sets for the movie/TV show.

Some of the files/documents created by the art department include concept art (artwork drawn/painted in the early stages to convey an idea of what the sets will look like before they’re built/taken further in the design/build process), set drawings (architectural-style construction drawings), as well as documents that are created purely to be used as visual aids when discussing the design process.

As you can probably imagine, the first version of each piece of concept art, or construction drawing is never what gets issued to construction to be built, and so, more or less from the get-go, there are several different versions of each document floating around in people’s inboxes / computers as meetings/pitches are held and updates are made.

Given that big-budget features can often have 100+ sets/locations, with several different versions of these documents for each set/location floating around, you can imagine how easy it is for important files to be confused/people to be working off the wrong document.

When a Digital Assets Coordinator is in place, they’re the one who makes sure that everything on the production’s dropbox is up to date, and they’re the one-stop-shop for departments to ask for important documents, so they can triple check and be doubly sure that the work everyone has is the latest, most accurate and up to date version.

As well as keeping on top of the Art Departments’ documents/filing system, I’ve also been in charge of the filing and distribution of storyboards, animatics (animated, video file versions of storyboards) and previs’ (previsualisation, a more sophisticated, 3D animation of what the scene will look like, usually generated by the VFX department). 

These documents are incredibly important and ensuring that every department is working off of the correct version is vital, miscommunications on changes/updates to the boards/previs’ can cause massive problems if realised too late.

Another responsibility I’ve had as Digital Assets Coordinator is collating any and all relevant materials and building presentations ahead of meetings held between the Heads of Department. For example, say there was a ‘Characters’ meeting, I would put together all of the documents/concept art I had on the characters in script order, and get that presentation approved by the Production Designer (Head of the Art Department), as well as reach out to any other relevant departments to check if they had anything I could include (so for the characters example, I would have had to reach out to the costume department)

If there were any notes the heads of the relevant departments had (i.e., something I had being out of date, not wanting to include something, etc) I would implement them and get the final sign off before I went into the meeting, plugged my laptop into the big screen, and ran the materials which drove the meeting.

The main reason I have to have the meeting materials prepped so far in advance and approved is that you NEVER want to pull something on screen and have an HOD tell the room that that file was superseded this morning (even if no one told you, that’s why we have to check!) or that they weren’t ready to show it to other departments yet, it’s always best to play it super safe.

Remember when I mentioned that Digital Assets Coordinators need to keep the server super up to date and know where everything is? A big reason for that is that sometimes meetings can go off on a tangent, and instead of the materials you have prepped, an HOD might ask you pull up a totally random (and even superseded) file, be it a year-old piece of concept work, a construction drawing, or a site map/location photo, in the middle of the meeting. 

I found this to be one of the most nerve-wracking parts of the job because, when I tell you, the 30 seconds it takes you to pull up that file (if you even find it straight away) feels like an eternity, but there is a pretty sick sense of satisfaction when you nail it, and I love getting to be a fly on the wall for those all-important HOD meetings. I get a fantastic insight into how the production’s actually put together and how big decisions are made, which will really benefit me as I progress in my career (even if I don’t know what the next step is)

As a super nosey and highly organised Type A person, Digital Assets is a role I really enjoy, and given that I’m only on my second big budget fiction (usually referred to in-industry as ‘drama’, even if it’s not actually a drama) job, I really see it as a fast-track pass getting into the room where those decisions are made and learning about the processes at the very top of the ladder.

I hope this helps de-mystify what a Digital Assets Coordinator does (at least, from my experience), and MAYBE this’ll help my inner circle better understand what I do Monday - Friday, but I’ll probably still be the Chandler Friend to be honest.

Stacey Xx