VFX Bid Exchange

Company

Netflix

Year

2024

Role

Lead Designer

Challenge & Approach

Scale the visual effect (VFX) bidding process

Netflix manages thousands of VFX bids across productions each year, yet the process relied heavily on manual coordination across spreadsheets, email, and disconnected workflows. This created operational inefficiencies, limited visibility into financial decisions, and made it difficult to manage changes at scale.

VFX Bid Exchange centralized the end-to-end bidding process into a single platform where Netflix and VFX studios could define scope, manage bids, track revisions, and maintain financial history. The platform streamlined collaboration, improved transparency and decision-making, and established a scalable foundation for VFX production operations.

Principles

Principles

[001]

Manage work

at scale

Standardize workflows and centralize bid management.

[001]

Manage work

at scale

Standardize workflows and centralize bid management.

[001]

Manage work

at scale

Standardize workflows and centralize bid management.

[002]

Optimize

resource selection and visibility

Surface the right information at the right time to support informed decision-making.

[002]

Optimize

resource selection and visibility

Surface the right information at the right time to support informed decision-making.

[002]

Optimize

resource selection and visibility

Surface the right information at the right time to support informed decision-making.

[003]

Increase

operational efficiency

Design workflows that reduce friction and automate routine tasks.

[003]

Increase

operational efficiency

Design workflows that reduce friction and automate routine tasks.

[003]

Increase

operational efficiency

Design workflows that reduce friction and automate routine tasks.

[004]

build &

intelligence

Engineering leads development, optimization and training.

[004]

build &

intelligence

Engineering leads development, optimization and training.

[004]

build &

intelligence

Engineering leads development, optimization and training.

My Role

Drove platform strategy and workflow transformation.

Owned concept through delivery. Collaborated with production studio, finance, and engineering partners to simplify complex bidding processes and create a scalable foundation for VFX operations.

How things work

How things work

Manage work at scale

Define VFX scope of work for each shot directly in media context to reduce miscommunication

Optimize resource selection and visibility

Optimize resource selection and visibility

Provide information on vendor specialty, price and availability

Increase operational efficiency

Increase operational efficiency

Standardize bidding format and manage changes in a centralized place

Provide financial transparency

Provide financial transparency

Ensure VFX work is tracked against a timeline and budget

Result

Reduced operational overhead at scale

By replacing fragmented workflows with a transparent, scalable system, the platform reduced operational overhead and empowered teams to make faster, more informed decisions.