• Pipeline Overview
The pipeline consists of several key sections including re-production, production and post production. Each section consists of several different and equally important sub section that must all be accounted for in some capacity.
• Pre-Production
Pre-production is the section in which most of the planning, concepting, budgeting and acquiring of key assets is done. Typically speaking no actual product is available during this stage, although concept art is made during this stage if funding is required as to better influence the chances of acquiring said funding.
Planning during this stage is important, this is to layout what you believe is required for the success of your project, this includes but is not limited to finding out your budget, staff requirements and resources needed. The budget needs to account for any staff wages, purchase of required equipment, advertisement and account for some "unforeseen circumstances" that may include delays in production, replacement of faulty equipment an hiring of new staff.
The concepting stage of pre-production doesn't just involve the creation of the end products initial designs it also includes a lot of research into the current any available audiences and currently existing competition, this can help mould the end product to better suit the currently existing target audiences.
• Production
Production is the main area that work is commenced on the actual project, a lot of this will already have been laid out during the pre-production stage, but this stage puts it into action. During production you have to take into account that the pre-production may have been miscalculated and changes may need to be made during production. Although this stage consists of the bulk of creating the "final" product that is intended to be displayed in front of the audience, it usually gets, minor changes during post-production.
• Post-Production
This stage consists of taking the assets created during production and improving/finalising them into the product that will be released into the public. Typically the work carried out during post-production is based on feedback from testing the product on your intended audience either through demo products or appearing at expos, then altering the final product based on feedback. In recent years post production can also include bug fixes, as it has become much easier to address issues with products and developing fixes for them.