A typical shot is rendered in separate layers, such as foreground elements, middle-ground character performances, and an out-of-focus background set. Over the past year, I tracked all of the 160 shots or shot-layers for Catching the L Train on a pipeline spreadsheet, where only final, locked shots were labeled in green.
With only two shots remaining to polish and lock, the board is almost entirely green!
BY THE NUMBERS
The 160 separate shot layers resulted in more than 24,000 finished frames. Each scene was rendered several times before the lighting, FX, and performances were locked. Rendering was handled by a render farm of 12 dedicated computers running 24/7 for months at a stretch to make this 6.5-minute film possible.