Managing freelancers in a small 3D studio

The short answer

Give each freelancer one piece of work with one written brief, one place for the files and one place for feedback. Agree the price, the rounds and the deadline in writing before they start, in their time zone. Review their work against the brief, not against what the client said in a call they were not on. Pay on time in their currency, and record the cost on the client's project so you know what the job made.

Hire for the piece, not for the person

The freelancers who work out best in small studios are hired for a defined piece: the furniture set for an interior, the product model from CAD, the character rig, the comp on three shots. "Help us with the project" is not a brief, and it is how a freelancer ends up billing for days of waiting.

Before you contact anyone, write down the piece in two lines: what goes in, what comes out, by when. If you cannot write it in two lines, the piece is not ready to hand over.

The brief

A freelance brief in a 3D studio needs six things. Most bad handovers miss two of them.

1. What the deliverable is, technically: format, software version, scale, units, naming, polygon budget or render settings.
2. What it is for: the final image or shot it ends up in, so they know what the camera will see and what it will not.
3. References: the client's references and your own, with a sentence on what to take from each.
4. What is out of scope, said out loud ("no UVs needed on the back of the cabinet").
5. Feedback rounds included and how notes will reach them.
6. The deadline, written with a time zone, and the date of any interim check.

Attach the files to the brief, not to a separate message. If the freelancer has to ask where the latest model is, you have already lost the hour.

Agree the money before the work

Agree a fixed price for the piece or a day rate with an estimate, the included rounds, and what happens if the client changes the brief. Write it down; an email they reply "agreed" to is enough for small jobs, a short contract for bigger ones. The contract checklists cover the clauses, including who owns the files and that they cannot show the work before the client publishes it.

Agree the currency too. A freelancer in another country quoting in their own currency is normal. What matters is that you record the cost in that currency with the rate on the day, so the job's margin does not drift when the exchange rate does.

Feedback without the telephone game

The client gives notes to you, not to the freelancer. Your job is to turn those notes into a list the freelancer can act on:

• One list per round, on the piece of work, numbered.
• Each line a change they can make and tick off.
• Your own notes in the same list, marked as yours, so they do not get two lists.
• Anything vague goes back to the client before it goes on the list.

Never forward a client email thread to a freelancer and ask them to "pick out the relevant bits". Half the notes will be about other images.

Time zones and deadlines

Write deadlines as a date, a time and a time zone. "Friday" means different things in Lisbon and in Manila. For anything with a client review attached, set the freelancer deadline at least one working day before the client deadline, so there is time for your review and one fix.

Ask for work in progress early: a clay render after the first day, a draft at the halfway point. Problems found on day two cost an hour; problems found on the deadline cost the deadline.

Files and access

Freelancers need the files for their piece and nothing else. Do not give them access to the whole studio drive or to the client's other projects. Apart from confidentiality, it saves them from working off an old version they found in a folder.

For delivery back, agree a naming convention with the round in the name (sofa_r2.fbx) and one place to upload. If they deliver by a link to their own cloud folder, download the files the same day; those links expire or get cleaned up.

Paying them

Pay on the terms you agreed, and if you can, pay faster. Small studios compete with large ones for the same good freelancers, and paying in a week rather than sixty days is one of the few things a small studio can always offer. Ask for their invoice when the piece is approved, not when the client pays you.

Record each freelancer's cost on the client's project, in their currency, so the project shows its real margin. A job quoted at 6,000.00 with 2,500.00 of freelance work in it is a different job from one with none.

When it goes wrong

Sooner or later a freelancer delivers late, delivers something that misses the brief, or goes quiet. Check the brief first: most misses trace back to something that was not written down. If the brief was clear, say what is wrong in specific terms, give one chance to fix it with a new deadline, and have a fallback ready, which for a small studio usually means doing it yourself. Pay for what was agreed and delivered, and keep a short note on the project of what happened. The note matters more than it seems; six months later it is the only record of why you do not hire that person again, or why you do.

Doing this in OIO

In OIO each piece of freelance work is a ticket on the client's project. You send the freelancer a link to that ticket; they open it in a browser with no account and no seat, read the brief and the checklist, download the files, upload their work, comment, and set the ticket to done. Each round's notes go on the checklist, so they and you see the same list. They see only their ticket, not the rest of the project or the client's details.

Their fee goes on the same project as a cost in their currency, at that day's rate, next to the client's quote and invoice. The project page shows the budget against what has been invoiced and paid. OIO does not receive the freelancer's invoice or pay them; you record the amount and pay them as you do now. More on OIO for 3D studios, and the day rate calculator helps when you agree a day rate.

Questions