Cinergy

A collaborative production management tool for film and TV crews to track every element of a script, streamline communication, and eliminate costly miscommunication.

Project Summary

Cinergy is a software platform built for film and TV productions to bring clarity and structure to an inherently chaotic environment. By uploading a script, Cinergy automatically extracts scenes, page counts, and characters, giving every department a shared foundation. Crew members then annotate every production element including props, costumes, animals, stunts, VFX, set construction, and more, so the platform becomes the single source of truth for the entire production.

My Role

This was the only project at Delfs’ Engineering where I collaborated with another designer. I worked alongside a Lead UX Designer and Jordan Jacobs, Emmy award–winning art director and Cinergy co-founder, in weekly design sessions spanning several years.

My primary focus was designing the Element Breakdown system and Report Generator, core features that Cinergy relies on to deliver production-wide clarity. While the general style guide had been established, I was responsible for designing original workflows and interfaces within this framework.

I also contributed to creating reusable Figma design system components to ensure consistency across Cinergy and the companion mobile app, CinergyGO, which I helped conceptualize and design after uncovering new user needs during on-site research in New York.

The Problem

Film and TV productions involve hundreds of people and countless moving parts. Without Cinergy, crews rely on emails, word of mouth, and scattered spreadsheets to track critical details like props, costumes, and continuity photos.

Information was siloed within departments. Props might be logged in spreadsheets, photos stored in Dropbox or personal phones, and updates buried in old email chains. This led to miscommunication, lost details, and critical delays that cost productions thousands of dollars.

When plans changed, as they always do, getting accurate answers from department heads could take hours or even days. Productions needed a single source of truth where every department could log, update, and share information in real time.

Users and Research

Cinergy was designed for the entire production crew, with particular value for departments who track thousands of details on a daily basis.

Most user research came through Jordan Jacobs, who shared his deep industry expertise and connected us to working crew members. We conducted user interviews and demos with Prop Masters and department heads, receiving enthusiastic feedback and identifying pain points.

We also visited a Netflix production in New York, where speaking directly with crew revealed new needs. This insight inspired the creation of CinergyGO, a mobile app allowing crew members to quickly photograph and auto-tag props by scene, character, and episode, syncing instantly to Cinergy’s database for easy retrieval later.

Design Process

We worked part-time on this project over four years, meeting weekly to delegate tasks, review mockups, and iterate.

I was often assigned feature-focused tasks like designing workflows for uploading and tagging prop images for example. Each week I presented updated designs, incorporated feedback from the Lead Designer and Jordan, and refined them until we were satisfied. Once finalized, I passed designs to developers with detailed walkthroughs.

Throughout the process, I contributed to and maintained a shared Figma design system to keep Cinergy consistent and scalable, ensuring both the web platform and CinergyGO aligned visually and functionally.

Challenges

The biggest challenge was displaying massive amounts of production data without overwhelming users. Crews include many older professionals accustomed to paper-based workflows, so the software had to feel intuitive, legible, and approachable.

We solved this by prioritizing clear labeling, visual hierarchy, and streamlined navigation, making it easy for users to find what they needed quickly without being buried in complexity.

Solution

Cinergy’s final design balances robust production tracking with ease of use. The Element Breakdown pages and Report Generator became cornerstone features, enabling crews to organize, export, and share critical data on demand.

Following our visit to New York, we rapidly prototyped and launched CinergyGO, giving on-set crew a fast, intuitive way to capture and categorize element photos directly into Cinergy’s database. The speed of turning user feedback into a working prototype reinforced Cinergy’s value to potential users and generated even more excitement across departments.

Impact

Though still in development, Cinergy has already generated enthusiasm and validation from industry professionals. Early demos received strong praise:

I love this script app... It’s so flexible that people can make it as complex and rich as a production is willing to go... Cinergy just gets it.

— James Bolenbaugh, Art Director, HBO’s Westworld

On a personal level, Cinergy has been my favorite project to date. As someone passionate about movies, I loved gaining behind-the-scenes insight into the production world and contributing to software that solves real, costly problems for an industry I admire. This project strengthened my collaborative design skills and reaffirmed my drive to design products I believe in.