Pipeline Consulting & Technical Solutions for VFX & Animation Studios

Grumbo Media is the independent practice of Joshua Bretag, a freelance pipeline consultant in Vancouver, BC with 20+ years in VFX and animation.

I specialise in helping studios and technical teams build smarter, faster, and more scalable production workflows. Whether you’re restructuring an animation pipeline, integrating new tools, or solving technical bottlenecks, I provide independent expertise grounded in years of production experience.

Services

Technical & Pipeline Design

Create, build, or repair your production pipeline.

I work with VFX, animation, and real-time teams to create efficient, future-proof workflows – tailored to your tools, team structure, and delivery demands.

Services include:

  • End-to-end pipeline design
  • Pipeline audits, optimisation and modernisation
  • Tool development (Python, CLI tools, UI, Shotgun/FTrack integrations)
  • Versioning, asset tracking, and data flow planning
  • Documentation and developer onboarding

Problem Solving & Tooling

Tackle legacy issues, missing tools, or inefficient workflows.
I build and support technical solutions that streamline production, reduce manual work, and improve team coordination.


Services include:
  • Custom scripts, utilities, and helper tools
  • Hardware or storage audits and optimisation
  • Metrics suite development
  • Integration of creative applications (Maya, Unreal, Houdini, etc.)
  • Automation of repetitive or manual tasks
  • Interoperability fixes between teams and departments

Consulting & Team Support

Get a flexible technical brain embedded in your team.

I offer short- and long-term consulting to help internal teams adapt to growth, new pipelines, or tooling transitions – with clear communication and deep technical understanding.

Services include:
  • Technical planning and documentation support
  • Onboarding materials and process design
  • Remote consulting or embedded dev support
  • Mentorship for pipeline TDs

Technical Skills & Tools

I’ve worked extensively across departments, pipelines, and platforms – from animation and rendering to systems infrastructure and cloud deployment. Here are the tools and technologies I’m experienced with.

Software

    • Foundry: Nuke, Katana, Hiero, Mari
    • Autodesk: Maya, 3DS Max, Shotgrid/Flow, MotionBuilder, Mudbox, Flame, Golaem, Arnold
    • ToonBoom: Harmony, Storyboard Pro, Producer, Jump
    • Adobe: Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Animate, Substance 3D, Media Encoder

Render Farm

  • Renderers: Renderman, VRay, Mantra, Redshift, 3Delight, Arnold
  • Render Management: Qube, Deadline
  • Cloud Compute: AWS Cloud Compute, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Pipeline Tools & Misc

  • Pipeline: FTrack, Shotgrid / Flow, Rez, Pyblish
  • Grooming: Shave and a Haircut, Xgen, Yeti
  • File Formats: USD, Alembic (ABC)
  • Other: Houdini

Systems & IT

  • Monitoring: Zabbix, Grafana, Graphite, Prometheus
  • Storage: Isilon, Whitebox, Qumulo, Pixstor
  • Cloud Platforms: AWS, Azure

Game Engines

  • Unreal for animation
  • Unity for animation
  • Godot for game development

Programming Languages

  • Scripting: Mel, PyMel, ActionScript, MAXScript, Qt Script (Harmony)
  • Languages: Python, C++, JavaScript, JSX, Lua, C#, Go
  • Databases: MySQL, Postgres
  • UI: Qt UI
Have a question or idea?
I’m happy to chat.