Driving rapid production

workflows in a virtual cloud

environment that puts

security first for high value

productions.

Life in a start-up

In Silicon Valley… ● lease temporary office space ● hire the smartest people and promise

them a big piece of the IPO or company sale

● leverage virtual IT infrastructure, aka “the cloud”, allowing rapid growth without fixed costs

● develop “the product” in the cloud with engineers are partners around the world

In Hollywood… ● lease temporary production space ● hire the smartest people and promise

them a big piece of the back-end ● buy / rent equipment, manage local

storage, leverage 3rd party media service providers

● collaborate on the production via sneaker-net, FedEx, or fixed-cost file transfer services on the internet

A typical post-production example

●a production shoots on-location in some remote part of the world with globally sourced talent in all disciplines of the creation process

●when “the shoot” ends, the majority of the creative talent moves onto another production and small staff of production and post-production experts stay behind to edit and finish the film (director, cinematographer, studio executives included)

A typical post-production example

●as many as 10-15 collaboration partners are chosen (often through a bidding process), requiring rapid sharing of massive video data repositories quickly and securely

●the incredibly short timelines demand late night and weekend work from all parties

●the director, cinematographer, and studio executives often need to manage multiple productions in different locations around the world

The “big data” landscape of today’s productions

• 25 TB - 1 PB of video data on a single production

• 10-15 collaboration partners for sound mixing, color

grading, visual effects, editing, and studio approvals

• < 6 months of time typically available to the post production

process

• 2K workflows of yesterday are becoming 4K workflows

today, with even higher data requirements driven by high

dynamic range and wide color gamut science promised in

“Ultra HD” specifications - epsecially in VFX shots

• highly publicsized security failure events

The resulting challenges productions face

• Connecting multiple collaboration partners quickly and

securely

• Sending very large and rapidly changing media assets to

collaborators with delivery assurance

• Meeting the ever-changing challenges of production and

post production schedules (nights and weekends)

• Parking and landing large video projects in remote

locations on a temporary basis during the creative process

More challenges productions face

• Providing remote collaboration capability to supports

executives and talent who are often multi-tasking and

geographically challenged

• Accessing cloud service providers quickly and cheaply

• Delivering DR archival cost effectively

• Ensuring every media asset remains secure throughout

the process

The typical approach to meet the challenge ● While occasionally choosing specialized production studio

locations (i.e. Pinewood, Lantana) for post production, locations are typically chosen for tax credits or proximity to distribution studios.

● The result is often a scramble to find enough bandwidth for a digital workflow between post production collaboration partners. To compensate for timeline and bandwidth challenges, a “sneaker net” approach is often taken, with hard drives or tapes being ferried by courier, a “hodge podg”e of equipment installed in the editing process, and lots of flights.

The typical result

● release dates DO NOT MOVE ● executives get frustrated ● workflow efficiency goes out the window ● security posture suffers (expediacy over security)

Best practices to meet the challenge

● Many “high value” productions these days are choosing to shoot and post produce their movies at specialized production studios that offer “modern post production technology services”

● Other productions are choosing to post produce their movies in “media parks / offices” or with “studio partners” who have pre-established access to high speed bandwidth, providing them virtual access to “modern post production technology services”

Modern post production technology services

● High-speed bandwidth availability on a traffic-shaped or uncontended network (i.e. not the internet)

● Responsive security services to establish private collaboration between multiple partners

● File transfer services to share large video assets with multiple partners seamlessly

● Digital storage service options for post production workflow needs as well as the parking, landing, DR and short-term archival of projects

● Real-time, high quality remote collaboration capabilities

SOHONET: A MEDIA SERVICE

COMPANY For nearly 20 years Sohonet has been there side-by-side with our

customers, helping them deliver quality media content:

20 YEARS

EXPERIENCE

• 400+ collaboration partners connected quickly and

securely

• Fast, Flexible and Phenomenal service

• World’s largest private network for media

Connected Cloud Services made possible by a global private media network