Anchorpoint at Zazu

Learn how Zazu, a global creative union, streamlines their motion design projects for clients like LinkedIn and FIFA using Anchorpoint for asset management.

Matthäus Niedoba
September 7, 2023
5
min read
Content

Zazu.tv is a concept-driven creative union founded in 2012 and is designing motion content for clients across the globe like LinkedIn, Thomson Reuters and FIFA.

In this interview I talked to Matas Zaloga, who is one of the founders along with David Leatt and Ugnė Zalogienė.

still images by zazu
Stills done for Login 2022 by the team at Zazu.tv

Matas, could you tell us more about yourself?‍

While studying Animation at the University of Derby, UK together with partners I started a company Zazu Studio Limited. It was a slow start as I learned everything by doing. Fast-forward to this day, I am a Vilnius, Lithuania-based visual communication specialist and a motion designer leading a concept-driven creative union Zazu.tv. 

Over ten years in the industry, I and my team crafted motion design content for brands worldwide such as LinkedIn, Olympic Channel and Thomson Reuters to name a few. Therefore, at Zazu.tv, I mainly oversee art direction and project pipeline from start to finish. Today, we mainly focus on producing branded motion graphics content in the fields of sports and architecture. 

On the other side of the spectrum, I also teach motion design at the Academy of Arts, Vilnius. As well as, I am a motion design evangelist who’s building a Lithuanian motion design community. 

stills by zazu
Stills done for Nabr, a housing design company, co-founded by Bjarke Ingels

Tell us about the pipeline at Zazu?‍

Our team is mainly working remotely, and our pipeline is based on cloud solutions. Tools we use that make it all work:

  • Slack for team chats and communication.
  • Google Workspaces for general business tools such as emails and docs.
  • Google Meet for video conferencing.
  • We switched from SyncSketch to Frame.io for video annotations.
  • Dropbox Capture for quick screen recordings.
  • We switched from Notion to ClickUp for the task and project management. 
  • Figma for brainstorming.
  • Adobe Creative Suite, Cinema 4D and other Maxon tools for production
  • Anchorpoint for managing assets and tying it all together.

When did you start using Anchorpoint?‍

We started using Anchorpoint in August 2022. Since our projects vary in complexity, we mainly use Achorpoint for more complex ones.

Motion design project structure in Anchorpoint
How Attributes are used to organize tasks in Anchorpoint

We had a tiny technical issue, where new users had to make an Anchorpoint-specific folder within the Dropbox project folder to be kept offline. Other than that it worked fine and we had no significant issues while getting started. 

We understand that it is never perfect. However, everyone who uses Anchorpoint at our end appreciates new features and stability improvements.

‍What problems does Anchorpoint solve for you?

Anchorpoint solves asset management problem. You don’t have to waste time looking for a certain asset when you work with different motion designers. Creatives can focus on what they do best - do cool stuff.

Which features do you use the most?

We mostly use the following:

  • Personal tags to assign a file or a task to a user. 
  • Lists for team-level progress tracking and approval.
  • Video annotations for dailies.
  • Quick previews for viewing different file formats.
  • Favorites for keeping focus on important assets.
  • Timeline for tracking.
Motion design project structure in Anchorpoint
Using links to quickly navigate to mood boards in Figma

How did you hear about us?‍

My colleague loves trying tools in their early release stages. After using ftrack at the studio where he previously worked, he opted to try Anchorpoint beta. He loved it so much that we were persuaded to try it in Zazu’s pipeline too. Once we tried beta releases, we never looked back and using it since.

Would you recommend Anchorpoint to your friends?‍

I would highly recommend Anchorpoint to anyone who wants to put things in order, no matter the workflow.

Thank you so much, Matas, for taking the time. Learn more about Zazu.tv

Manage your production files

Anchorpoint helps you to distribute files, setting up folder structures and automate your pipeline with simple Python scripting.
Learn about Anchorpoint