We've learned to work with stand-alone products, like email, Notes, Excel, Word, ftrack, calendar, Whatsapp - really different ways of interacting with each other and some of them, in their own way, are very local
I too have re-colored many fields and bars in Excel
One person does it this way, the other does it differently
There's just never been a form of unified communication and collaboration when it comes to software
I heard about Yamdu early on and I've always liked the idea that Yamdu is a tool that captures a lot of what we see here in terms of problems and what comes up in a production
That's the collaborative goal we want to achieve together

Verena Vogl (VV): For me, the first point of contact was with Liebesdings in early 2021
At first, I was skeptical
It was not very comprehensible for me
How could a platform map what we move from A to B every day? Can software solve our problems at all?

What specific problems could you face in your day-to-day work in (of managing and in coordinating projects?) production management and coordinating projects?

VV: In our daily lives, for example, it's about contacts that you need quickly
Appointments that you want to double-check
In general, it's all about looking for things to coordinate with others across many projects
And that brings me to the point where Yamdu surprised me
It's super easy to switch back and forth between projects at the push of a button
One minute you are in the calendar in the project Liebesdings, the next minute you need a contact from KaDeWe and then a cast list for Rumspringa
Previously, you had to think first: Was it in Dropbox or on my desktop in an Excel file, or was it in an email? Today I open Yamdu in the morning and find everything bundled in one place, project by project
Very simple

We’re glad to hear that. Now you don't want to run Yamdu alone, but you want to add team members. What was your experience with this?

VV: Inviting or adding team members is quite simple
However, I have saved various text modules in Word so that I can quickly have the necessary module ready for the invitation text and insert it into the Yamdu invitation
At the beginning, I didn't pay that much attention to it, but it's super important to get everyone settled in right from the start
Writing to them: Hi, this is Yamdu and this is the reason we're asking you to use Yamdu
With a semi-personal message, acceptance goes up immediately

Florian Schneider (FS): It was similar for us with Servus, Baby
On average, we can say that the team members who had already had contact with Yamdu continued to use it
For those who were new to it, we had to break down reservations here and there and give them a moment to get to know the tool
On the whole, however, it was well received
It certainly helped that someone was answering in the support bubble; there were people behind it who were happy to help and who understood our industry

"With Yamdu, we give the team a common tool and free ourselves from individual solutions, different storage locations or individual hardware
"
Florian Schneider Producer and Managing Director at PSSST! Film

So the crew registrations ran smoothly for the most part?

VV: Yes
What was more of a hurdle for me at the beginning was the question, have I given the team members the correct access rights? Does the person see what he or she is supposed to see - and what he or she is not supposed to see? I had a hard time with that in the beginning
Yamdu offers new possibilities in terms of transparency, which is good per se–With many presets, it's much better than Dropbox and tailored to our industry
But you can also decide for yourself what you really want to share; and that on a very granular level
That was still very unusual with Liebesdings as my first project
It took two or three projects to get to know Yamdu and to trust Yamdu
Today I can proudly say: Yes, I want Yamdu! And I trust Yamdu

Salomé Tomasek (ST): At the time of my first contact with Yamdu, for KaDeWe, I was on the other side
I was added to the project
I thought that was very good; it made me curious to have such a shared workspace
I also understood right away that I could find everything about the project here
Of course I remember that I was worried, just like Verena, if the access rights would really work out
It takes time when dealing with such systems
I think the more Yamdu can show in the future who is on the mailing list or something similar, the more secure you feel
This is essential for sharing production data
I found and still find the idea of Yamdu superb, no question

What advantages does Yamdu bring, to you personally, for your work as a coordinator or in production on a day-to-day basis?

ST: The automatic generation of watermarks, for example, is a huge relief
When you send documents like screenplays, Yamdu automatically adds personalized watermarks - in a way that makes them impossible to remove
What used to take hours can now be done with one click - including tracking
We've even had problems with Adobe & Co in this regard
But you can also see the challenges
It would also be possible in Yamdu to store the script, and Yamdu would point it out to the team, and the team could virtually use it themselves - including individual watermarks
But that doesn't work on a broad scale yet
People just expect to be sent files like the script, but at least out of Yamdu
I'm sure we could save more time with Yamdu in the future if the crew gets used to it

FS: From a production point of view, we work under tremendous time pressure
Not only with the series
New technical tools are making everything more flexible: lighter cameras, lighter lighting equipment, right down to the software
And that is the reason why we chose Yamdu
Yamdu gives us more agility and flexibility in production

Can you think of a concrete example?

FS: With Yamdu, we have a common hub for all important information that everyone can always access
From staff and cast lists, which we can "dial" directly via the platform but also the mobile app
All the essential information from scripts to shooting schedules, call sheets, and calendars
This information can be accessed on set or in the office and is always available in the latest version

Especially in the current shooting situation, which was influenced by Corona, it meant that we were independent of where we were actually working
Regardless of whether it was on set, in the office, or even in home-office, there was no problem for the team member to continue working with Yamdu in the usual manner
If crew members were completely absent due to Corona, for example, we were able to quickly integrate the replacement into the ongoing production using Yamdu
After all, all you have to do at Yamdu is assign the position or change the access rights accordingly with a few clicks
This meant that the work could continue without any loss of information

So, was that more difficult before Yamdu?

FS: Before Yamdu, we didn’t know of any collaboration tool that would allow us to keep the core information of complex production processes together in one place so that we could work on it together and thus transfer it to other production stages without any losses
In the past, everyone tried to keep their information together individually
Information and documents were in emails or resided on individual laptops, shared files in different dropboxes

But you were always dependent on individual order and individual team members, which is fatal
Teams thrown together means tools thrown together
So there are always gaps in information - from development to pre-production, to the shooting team, the final delivery, and the broadcaster
And then important "informants," such as assistant directors or coordinators drop out after the shoot
But you remain dependent on their knowledge, lists, files and calendars

With Yamdu, it's easy to seamlessly plug in, pass information to the next production stages, because everyone works in the same software with different, but flexible, access rights to protect sensitive data
All data and information in one place from pre-production to shooting, post-production and delivery
A game changer if you work almost exclusively with freelancers, as we do in film
With Yamdu, we give the team a common tool and free ourselves from individual solutions, different storage locations or individual hardware

ST: As far as I know, we also no longer run crew lists in parallel, just in Yamdu
The advantage is simply that everything always looks uniform–that's what Yamdu has brought, including reusability
Yamdu was also used for Guglhupfgeschwader
And now, when I prepare the new (film) installments to the Eberhofer franchise, I naturally use the old project and the old staff list as a template
Even if I don't add all the team members right away
In my Yamdu projects, I want to be alone at first and prepare everything properly
Then I add the people
The ones we've already shot with are in the database anyway

VV: True
That's important for acceptance from the team
We don't invite the crew until we have something to offer
The script is in there, there are already the first dates, there's a shooting schedule, etc
Yamdu's power can unfold when people can work together in real time
And for that, it has to be filled with life
And if it's done well, you'll notice how artificial hurdles and spatial distances between departments disappear

Does that also apply to post-production?

NG: We discovered for ourselves how to create templates for the plans and make them usable again in Yamdu
After all, we have to see Yamdu as a platform that can map the different project types at Constantin Film and Constantin Television: Feature films for cinema, feature films for TV, series productions - with different numbers of episodes
This is a Netflix-owned title, while this is a Netflix-licensed title, and so on
And here we want to offer templates that our colleagues can just quickly get started with

Is the influence of post-production greater nowadays than it used to be?

NG: At the very least, it can be said that the post defines where it will go
And it's only consequential to think from the onset about what will have to be delivered to whom at some point
Of course, this also affects the choice of cameras, formats and other technological issues
But it's also very much related to planning
In our everyday lives, things change all the time
And with Yamdu, everyone can see changes immediately
You don't have to read emails
It's just there
You automatically create facts
Of course, to do that, people have to be willing to accept opening Yamdu in the morning and saying, this is my single source of truth
That's a process

ST: Yes, it will eventually, but it will take time for crews to adjust
Because of the insane amount of information we distribute
Even if you're asked the same question three times a day
Actually, in the future, we want to say, "Have you looked at Yamdu yet?" For some people, it's not easy to get used to something like that