Why Open Architectures are Essential for Modern Media Production
EditShare CTO, Stephen Tallamy, explains how open architectures, open systems and open APIs are the foundation for modern media production platforms, enabling the industry to adapt to the ever increasing pace of change and need for flexibility and best of breed solutions.
FLOW and EFS provide campus-wide cloud-based media management and open storage for renowned educational institution
Boston, MA – December 3, 2020 – EditShare®, a technology leader that specializes in collaboration, security, and intelligent storage solutions, today announced that the UK’s National Film and Television School (NFTS) is standardizing its post-production, content delivery, and storage operations on EditShare’s EFS open shared storage solution and FLOW media management platform. By replacing its aging shared-storage platform with a mix of on-premise and cloud-based technologies, the prestigious NFTS, one of the world’s leading film, television and games schools, will increase productivity and more efficiently manage and share the content being created by staff and students.
Founded in 1971, and based at Beaconsfield Studios in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England, the School offers more than 30 post-graduate level courses across the film, television and gaming disciplines, including camera operations, directing, cinematography, sound, script supervision, and production accounting. The school realized it needed to update its current system, while implementing open, logical, and automated methods of file and project management.
NFTS has always taken pride in its earlier reputation as a “slightly anarchical” community of filmmakers, but just as that culture over time settled into a more organized and formalized environment, its technology and production infrastructures needed to follow suit, according to Doug Shannon, head of IT for NFTS.
“When I began here, there was no network,” said Shannon, who brought a professional background in post-production when he joined the School 20 years ago. “Everyone simply passed hard drives around by hand. We needed greater consistency and a more open production environment. Initially we moved to simple, departmental servers. Then, five years ago, we first moved to dedicated shared editing storage, but that system had come to the end of its usable life, with the support contract becoming unsustainably costly. It was time to move on.”
In addition to continually enhancing productivity and efficiency, NFTS is focused on giving its students a diverse educational experience with hands-on access to the latest generation of production tools used by professionals today.
“We aim to emulate real life as much as possible,” Shannon said. “Our students come here already knowing what they want to do, so they work with teams of specialists, much like any professional environment. It’s less about technology and more about helping people work to achieve their best within each role.”
NFTS was looking for an open media management and storage foundation to easily allow the use of multiple creative editorial and finishing tools. The School will use EFS and FLOW to support a range of connected solutions for editing, grading, animation and more.
“Companies have realized they have to be open,” Shannon said. “The proprietary world is gone. For us, openness was both an assumption and a requirement.”
He added that the EFS and FLOW systems help production teams adapt quickly to the different camera systems NFTS uses from Arri, Sony, RED and Blackmagic. “For example, FLOW supports formats in a clever way and doesn’t have to break up RED files into blocks.”
Security and remote collaboration were also key factors, especially with the school and the rest of the world still in some phase of COVID-related lockdown. “We needed something to help us work beyond our physical boundaries and give us the ability to look at rushes when working remotely,” Shannon said, adding the virtualized version of FLOW and AirFLOW are the perfect match for the school’s fast-turnaround production and review cycles. EFS underpins the on-premise and remote production workflow with best practice security file tracking to answer who did what and when.
With the EFS system in place, total shared editing storage at NFTS has increased from 490TB to 2.2PB, more than enough to meet the School’s current and even future requirements.
“Our enrollment is quite small at 500 students per year and we don’t see those numbers growing exponentially, so it’s an easy equation,” he said. “Most of our workspaces are around 10TB and an average film is 5 to 10 TB, with around 120 films in production and post-production at any one time. Also, using the Ark storage software is the easiest way to back-up an entire project. EditShare gives us a complete media production workflow. Everything you need for a film is there.”
“EditShare has worked alongside universities since its inception and understands the unique and highly diverse needs of faculty and students and have purpose built, yet open, solutions that sustain the academic setting while mimicking a real-world situation,” states Robin Adams, vice president EMEA sales, EditShare. “This insight and crafted solution, paired with EditShare’s cloud innovation, will help teachers and students hurdle the unprecedented challenges this year has brought and continue to connect, teach, learn, and create amazing together.”
For more information on EditShare solutions, please visit the website at www.editshare.com
About the National Film and Television School (NFTS)
Variety’s Top UK Film School 2020 and recipient of the 2018 Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema BAFTA, the NFTS is one of the world’s leading film, games and television schools. NFTS alumni have gone on to win 13Oscars and 145 BAFTAs with graduates including: double Oscar winning cinematographer Roger Deakins (1917) creator of global Netflix hit Sex Education Laurie Nunn and BAFTA winning director, Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here). The NFTS is a registered charity (313429). For more information see nfts.co.uk
About EditShare
EditShare is a technology leader in networked shared storage and smart workflow solutions for the production, post-production, new media, sports, and education markets. Whether you need on-prem, cloud, or hybrid solutions, our products improve efficiency and workflow collaboration every step of the way. They include media optimized high-performance shared storage, archiving and backup software, a suite of media management tools and a robust set of open APIs that enable integration throughout the workflow. Customer and partner success are at the heart of EditShare’s core values ensuring a world-class experience that is second to none.
Press Contact Cat Soroush Zazil Media Group (e) catherine@zazilmediagroup.com (p) +1 (631) 880-9534
UK’s top-tier post-production company selects EditShare’s automation, security and storage platform to increase future production efficiencies and add new services
Boston, MA – November 12, 2020 – EditShare®, a technology leader that specializes in collaboration, security, and intelligent shared storage solutions, today announced that leading UK post-production house Clear Cut Group, comprising of Clear Cut Pictures, The Edit Store and Clear Cut Nations and Regions, has made the decision to place EditShare’s next generation media storage EFS at the center of their operation with FLOW workflows significantly increasing the services offered to clients. The award-winning post-production team is known for their outstanding creative work on original factual, drama, short form and feature films. Producing content for global broadcasters, multiple co-productions, and OTT, the 24/7 operation boasts more than 120 edit suites on site and, since lockdown, has supported over 400 remote editors, clients and staff. Always noted for their innovative and flexible services, Clear Cut Group is building on its successful technology approach by adopting the high-tech but proven EditShare platform, maintaining its ability to work at the cutting edge of the most demanding distributed post-production workflows. EditShare expands storage and opens doors to new innovative service offerings and efficiencies that immediately benefit clients.
“With EditShare, you are buying a storage solution with so much more,” comments Jess Nottage, Technical Director, Clear Cut Group. “It ticks all of the boxes in terms of reliability, performance and capability, but it’s the extras, designed to enhance the creative process that will make us stand out from our competitors. EditShare’s FLOW, EFS and File Auditing platforms, enable us to expand our service offering with innovative creative solutions that benefit our clients without compromising on security. It’s a media foundation to underpin our business.”
With more high-profile projects produced in 4K, EFS media engineered storage architecture and file auditing capability gives Clear Cut Group the scalable capacity and enterprise-grade security they require. Native OS drivers eliminate data bottlenecks, while comprehensive file tracking provides a complete audit trail for content within the system, providing clear insight into users’ activities, including who accessed content, when they did it and where. With FLOW media management in action across all Clear Cut Group locations, the company has a new level of automation and remote capability that delivers new and innovative services for clients. Clear Cut Group’s Managing Director Rowan Bray explains, “We are only as good as our solutions we offer our clients. Every project is bespoke and thus, we approach each one uniquely. That uniqueness is inherent in EditShare products and people. EditShare is totally focused on creating fit for purpose solutions for its customers and a company where we feel we have a voice. This is more than a purchase, it’s a joint venture.”
Collaborating to #wintogether, the EditShare team worked closely with Clear Cut Group to ensure solutions and services supported the vision for the technical uplift with opportunities for future expansion through EditShare’s open APIs. Jess concludes, “Offering open APIs tells us a lot about the company and its culture. We are not locked in and that is attractive. If you want to do something, EditShare will enable it regardless of the vendor product with a can-do attitude.”
“We work with our customers on every level to ensure EditShare’s open solutions bring the resiliency they require to navigate the constant change in which they live,” states Robin Adams, vice president EMEA sales, EditShare. “It’s a true partnership in which customers are empowered and feedback has a direct impact on product evolution to ensure EditShare delivers the industry’s best performing media management capabilities and open storage platform.”
About Clear Cut Group Clear Cut Group comprises four companies: Clear Cut Pictures, The Edit Store (acquired by Clear Cut Pictures in January 2019), Clear Cut Nations & Regions (providing post production outside the M25), and ClearMotion (for VFX). Established in 1993, the business is renowned for providing highly creative post-production to a wide range of broadcasters and production companies. Offering full end-to-end post-production across four sites in London and across the regions, with location services as needed, Clear Cut offers 4K, HDR and SDR capabilities with bespoke solutions to deliver content to screen. The Group offers over 120 suites across their locations, as well as remote services, most recently exceeding 400 remote users of their edit suites since lockdown.
Contacts for Clear Cut Group:
Rowan Bray Managing Director Clear Cut Group (e) rowan@clearcut.cc (p) 020 7605 1755
Jess Nottage Technical Director Clear Cut Group (e) jess.nottage@clearcut.cc (p) 020 7605 1747
About EditShare
EditShare is a technology leader in networked shared storage and smart workflow solutions for the production, post-production, new media, sports, and education markets. Whether you need on-prem, cloud, or hybrid solutions, our products improve efficiency and workflow collaboration every step of the way. They include media optimized high-performance shared storage, archiving and backup software, a suite of media management tools and a robust set of open APIs that enable integration throughout the workflow. Customer and partner success are at the heart of EditShare’s core values ensuring a world-class experience that is second to none.
