The major technology shift in the entertainment industry from traditional film to digital medium and the corresponding transition to digital asset creation, management and distribution brings with it an urgency to identify the fundamental elements of next-gen workflow that should be common to all solutions.  A foundation of data and metadata interoperability within a workflow framework acceptable to all major constituents will avoid format wars and proprietary solutions.

“When there is no effort to define guidelines for the underlying framework of an emerging technology,” noted Ken Williams, ETC executive director and CEO, “multiple formats evolve and battle for supremacy – like Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD, Beta vs. VHS – bringing uncertainty, inefficiency, and confusion to the marketplace, and slowing product adoption and business growth for all players. This effort will work to avoid those pitfalls in the evolution of production.”

“This is an opportunity to rethink processes and workflows, including exploring the adoption of various cloud-based tools and services for the evolution and future of film and media creation, production and distribution,” said Erik Weaver, project lead at ETC.

The launch of the project follows an initial organizing meeting in late December 2012 when more than 30 representatives of major content, cloud, consulting, and related firms gathered to determine the need and scope for such a unifying effort.

The meeting and a series of follow-up discussions and interviews produced agreement on seven primary areas of focus for the Production in the Cloud project, which are:

• Transport
• Data/New Digital Negative
• Metadata
• Framework
• Security
• Distribution
• Archiving

A cornerstone of the ETC Production in the Cloud project is the development of interoperable solutions designed on an open framework. The ETC project will utilize the widely accepted OpenStack as the platform on which to develop.

“The mission of OpenStack is to produce the ubiquitous Open Source cloud computing platform that will meet the needs of many production environments regardless of size, by being simple to implement and massively scalable,” said Mark Collier, chief operating officer of the OpenStack Foundation. “Our thriving community has produced powerful software and an innovative ecosystem to achieve that goal across a diverse set use cases.  We welcome ETC to the growing number of media and entertainment companies, major retailers, and scientific research projects advancing the OpenStack mission.”

The ETC enjoys a longstanding history as a neutral think tank and research center within USC’s School of Cinematic Arts that convenes executives, innovators, thought leaders and catalysts along with the academic resources of the university.

Interested companies are encouraged to contact Erik Weaver eweaver@etcusc.org to discuss how they might participate in this initiative.

The post ETC Announces Launch of Production in the Cloud Project appeared first on ETC.

Entertainment Technology Center Inaugural Digital Town Square

“On-set Workflows: Pain Points, Opportunities and Indicators for the Future”

Case Study Panelists:

• Steve Barnett – vice president, feature post production, 20th Century Fox, “Life of Pi,” “Avatar”
  
• Gigi Coello-Bannon – supervising producer, “Criminal Minds”; co-producer, “Carnivale,” “American Dreams”
• Anette Haellmigk – director of photography, “Game of Thrones” (Season 3), “Big Love” (season 3 – 5), director of photography/second unit, “Starship Troopers”
• Eric Steelberg, ASC – director of photography, “Juno,” “(500) Days of Summer,” “Up in the Air”

Additional Panelists (subject to change):

• Larry Chernoff – ceo, MTI Film
• Dan Lebental, A.C.E. – editor, “Iron Man,” “Iron Man 2,” “Elf”
• Stephen Sommers - director

What: Symposium examining the challenge of designing and executing optimal on-set workflows for feature film and TV productions. Discussion will focus on the questions that filmmakers ask to clarify the requirements of a project; the demands placed by tent poles, independent motion pictures (medium to micro-budget), premium TV dramas and episodics; and the plethora of new solutions on the market. Effort will be made to determine if there are patterns and commonalities across specific kinds of projects and, if so, to begin to identify those benchmarks. A white paper will be published detailing the event’s findings.

Who: Both the speakers and audience will be comprised of studio production and postproduction executives; top-tier above and below-the-line filmmakers; union, guild and association leaders; postproduction company executives and their principal creatives and technologists; entertainment technology company executives and senior technologists; and student filmmakers.

When: February 7, 2013

Participation: Registration will be on an invitation, space available basis. Safe harbor principals will apply—there will be no media coverage—and the audience makeup calibrated to support a thorough, balanced and open dialogue between constituencies invested in the topic.

Why: Because digital technologies are upending production, because of the plethora of new solutions, and because of a lack of established best practices, filmmakers, studios and networks almost always reinvent the wheel when they design the workflow for a feature film or TV shoot. Decisions about dailies, color space, file formats and backups, on what needs to be done and where and when it should be done, are made without data from similar projects, without the necessary clarifying information and without knowledge of all the options. The goal of this symposium is to define choices, shine a light on the underlying reasons behind the selection of one route over another, and explore whether there are optimal on-set workflow solutions for projects that face similar challenges.

Sponsored by 

The post Digital Town Square appeared first on ETC.