41 TECHFEED Production in the Cloud
9. Media workflows are non-destructive and
ovieLabs (aka Motion Picture Laboratories) is a non-profit research lab run by the major Hollywood movie studios. The organisation works to drive tech innovations to help the studios thrive in a fully digital industry. Last year, MovieLabs released a white paper outlining a vision for media creation in the year 2030. Written in conjunction with participants from each major studio, The Evolution Of Media Creation (movielabs.com/white-paper-downloads) sets a blueprint – a goal – for tech innovation in the film industry. At the top of the ten principles laid out in the white paper is the centrality of the cloud. 1. All assets are created or ingested straight to the cloud and do not need to move. The remaining points, when not explicitly citing the cloud, all involve augmentation by or operation within it. 2. Applications come to the media. 3. Propagation and distribution of assets is a ‘publish’ function. 4. Archives are deep libraries 5. The preservation of digital assets includes the future means to access and to edit them. 6. Every individual on a project is identified, verified and their access permissions efficiently and consistently managed. 7. All media creation happens in a highly secure environment that adapts rapidly to changing threats. 8. Individual media elements are with access policies matching speed, availability and security to the economics of the cloud.
dynamically created using common interfaces, underlying data formats and metadata. 10. Workflows are designed around real-time iteration and feedback. The paper isn’t meant to prescribe a sudden revolutionary transformation. MovieLabs’ attitude to their wish list is more a pick and choose kind of model: “(Not) every technology is applicable to every title, and filmmakers will independently decide what to take from this paper and how to apply it to their individual productions.” But the paper takes as its starting point the idea that the cloud will be the hub through which this evolution is realised. “In our vision of the 2030 creation process, all assets, from the first script to every captured file, every computer- generated asset and all associated metadata, will be stored immediately upon creation in the cloud.” MovieLabs is careful to use the term ‘hyperscale cloud providers’ rather than ‘public cloud providers’. Their rationale for jettisoning the word ‘public’ in describing cloud companies is “there is nothing inherently ‘public’ in their offering and the word may get in the way of understanding the role they fulfil”. And let’s face it, given the deep paranoia about content theft at studios, the notion that content would live anywhere with the word ‘public’ in its name is an absolute non-starter. The vision anticipates a future of cloud- native acquisition devices, from cameras to microphones, which connect directly to the cloud. This would allow assets to be instantly archived with proxy files immediately available for viewing. Dailies could be reduced to what the white paper dubs “immediates”, with a studio exec observing the shoot in near-real time from the comfort of his bathroom.
Uncompressed files in the cloud could be made immediately available to other teams in the production – editors, colourists, VFX artists – to do a first pass of material or to provide immediate feedback to the director. “The cloud files represent a ‘single source of truth’ for reference purposes and enable everyone in production to see and understand the latest version of an asset, which helps with version control issues. An audit can track how and by whom that asset has changed over time.” The report notes that some work is still needed to get cloud technologies up to speed. It petitions hardware, software and cloud vendors to work together “to design cloud-integrated systems that can securely create, encrypt, validate and store captured assets in cloud object storage over advanced data communications networks”. CLOUDERHOSEN The MovieLabs white paper was part of the inspiration for a day-long experiment at the HPA Tech Retreat in February. This year, the Hollywood Professional Association’s popular event was used as a proving ground for an entirely cloud-based production. In this year’s HPA ‘supersession’, attendees were treated to the making of an 11-minute film, The Lost Lederhosen . Organised by Joachim ‘JZ’ Zell of digital services company Efilm, the Lederhosen event brought together an extraordinary number of companies filling every gap in the cloud workflow, including Arri, Red, Canon, Blackmagic Design, Sony, Zeiss, Sigma, AWS, Sohonet, FilmLight, Frame.io, Avid, Teradici, Pixelworks, Colorfront, Skywalker Sound, Ambidio, Epic Games for its Unreal Engine, The Foundry for Nuke and SGO for its Mistika cloud workflow manager. The short was directed by Steve Shaw, ASC, and shot by fellow cinematographer Roy Wagner. Both have decades of episodic TV experience under their belts and know how to shoot efficiently and solve problems on the fly. I DID NOT EXPECT A LIGHT BULB TO HAVE DATA. IT BLEWMYMIND
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