Michael Cioni Frame.io Global SVP of innovation
What are the challenges facing the media industry right now? Work hours for crews, minority representation, insufficient benefits and better safety regulations are the top-of-mind issues making headlines across internal industry outlets and mainstream news. That applies to everyone in the industry. For decades, we’ve heard about the plight of VFX workers, as visual effects studios have folded after working crews for 80- or 100-hour weeks – and editors who’ve faced tighter budgets, longer hours and a lack of benefits. The industry needs to allow the humans working in it to have a better work-life balance. On the post-production side, we’re also focusing on evolving the short-term solutions that Covid-19 thrust into our workflows. In 2020, the post-production community rallied to deliver a rapid response to an unforeseen situation. The biggest changes are often set in motion by external events. The pandemic triggered a chain reaction, perpetuating a new era of media and entertainment workflows. Although the lasting effect Covid-19 has had on the economy and global workforce are devastating, the opportunity for reformation and refinement should be welcomed. Crises tend to bring people together,
and never before had we all collectively faced something this big. Tell us your hopes for 2022. My biggest hopes are for the lessons of this challenging time to act as catalysts, changing the process of filmmaking forever. The pandemic has created an opportunity to make lasting changes that can literally save lives, and to accelerate our technological journey into the cloud. Both can result in a healthier work-life balance, without compromising creative control. Ultimately, no one knows the exact outcomes that will be ushered in, but I am certain that the technology changes are not only long overdue, they will be permanent. What are the three most useful pieces of technology for your business? For me and my business, it’s Frame.io C2C, Slack and Keynote. If you could invent any technology, what would it be? There is a real opportunity for innovation in using high-powered, rare-earth electromagnets in the film business. When making movies, many shots are designed to essentially eliminate the notion that a camera even exists!
If you think about it, tripods, dollies, gimbals and Steadicams are all tools designed to remove the human element of a shot, so it’s almost floating. But all these physical set-ups require bearing a lot of weight, which causes friction. Magnets can be configured as a frictionless technology, and it’s possible that – instead of setting up dolly tracks – cameras could literally float across surfaces. Magnets that are attracted can create strong friction bonds, and hold things together. Reversing currents and using voltage could give users the ability to dial in offsets, counterweights, and control static or fluid movement with a simple rotating dial. Plus, since magnets have not been introduced to the film business, it’s an area that’s ripe for innovation – with unique and niche application. There is a wide area of untapped invention living within magnets, because a silent, floating camera is what a lot of creative people want when telling stories. Magnets are one of the world’s only technologies that have the ability to be silent while defying gravity. What is the piece of analogue technology your business has got the most use out of? As a technologist and futurist, it’s easy to focus totally on emerging technologies, but that doesn’t mean analogue is bad or isn’t here to stay. A perfect example is that, no matter how many billions of computers or phones are sold all around the globe, the humble pen and paper are never going away.
THE INDUSTRY NEEDS TO ALLOWHUMANS TO HAVE A BETTERWORK-LIFE BALANCE
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