Michael Schmueck

Mike is a seasoned Producer / Production Manager with 12 plus years experience between animation and Visual Effects for large companies and small independent teams. His proven success at process development has allowed him to manage both day to day production challenges and long term change management needed as Director of Studio Programs, VFX for Exceptional Minds. 

Mike began his career working in animation, coordinating for every major department in the CG animation pipeline. During this time, he worked with in-house and freelance artists, as well as outsource vendors in China, South Korea, and India. Notably, Mike managed a matte painting team with artists spread between Los Angeles and Nanjing during the production of Duck Duck Goose with Original Force. 

Moving over to visual effects, Mike spent a season working at CoSA VFX where he worked on shows including Lethal Weapon, The Walking Dead, The Passage, Reverie, and Agents of Shield. This experience led to an opportunity with Netflix. Mike spent 4 years building out NetFX, from the original efforts testing the cloud VFX platform workflow with a small team local to LA to opening / managing / supporting our Mumbai office as it expanded to over 750 total users in 2021. During the early days, Mike coordinated projects including A Series of Unfortunate Events S3, The OA S2, and Bird Box. Proving out the efficacy of the NetFX platform, he transitioned to creating scalable systems for multiple teams. Major efforts included cross functional onboarding / identity systems, VFX pipeline development from a production perspective, team performance analysis / report generation, resolving client relationship concerns, and potential project capacity allocation.

Arriving at Exceptional Minds as the Studio Production Manager, Mike jumped into process creation, management of ongoing production work, and development of the autistic artists employed in the Visual Effects studio. Using data driven analysis learned during his time at Netflix, Mike has developed new metrics for studio performance. However, his main focus has been on creating a positive, growth environment for his artists including regular feedback, clear understanding of expectations, and sharing his experience while allowing the artists to make their own mistakes. Watching their growth has been inspirational and motivating, which makes Mike even more thrilled to continue this development as Director of Studio Programs, VFX at Exceptional Minds.