Independent minded.(Editor's Note)(Delgo from Fathom Studios)

This month, an animation studio in Atlanta is celebrating the nationwide release of its first CG film, Delgo (see "Efficiency Experts," pg. 40), a true indie production from start to finish. In fact, this animated feature is atypical on a number of fronts, and that's what director Marc Adler intended. Delgo is independently created by Fathom Studios and independently distributed through various companies according to territories and channels. For instance, in the US, Fox is handling the DVD release, Freestyle the theatrical release, and Turner the cable release.

That kind of independent spirit started at the doors of Fathom. Over the course of the production, more than 300 people worked on the film. Some were off-site, but only after spending months at the studio in Georgia to get a full understanding of the project, their coworkers, and the production pipeline. While the pipeline is based on Autodesk's Maya, there were a number of homegrown solutions as well, including what Adler president/executive producer of Fathom Studios, and Warren Grubb, animation director/VFX supervisor, believe to be the cornerstone of the production process: Fathom's Storyline Web-based asset management system and collaboration tool.

Fathom used Storyline to post digital dailies of the film online throughout production. "Most studios lock down their projects due to piracy issues and just add some behind-the-scenes information on the DVD. We were showing the making of in the making," says Adler. This revolutionary revelation was well received: The site was getting a half-million visitors a month. Yet, as Adler discovered, there is such a thing as too much information. When some of ...