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For years, Dell Technologies has collaborated with industry leaders Sony Innovation Studios, MPC Film , Important Looking Pirates and Animal Logic.
Academy Awards and nominations don’t just happen. They are the result of inspired ideas, talented people, hard work and, these days, a whole lot of computing and data processing power, not to mention ample storage. A range of award-winning visual effects and animation studios already rely on Dell Technologies and their partners to make their work the best it can possibly be. Here, a look at a few industry leaders whose businesses are thriving, thanks in part to their collaboration with Dell Technologies.
Launched in June 2018, Sony Innovation Studios (SIS), a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, is pioneering production technologies to deliver state-of-the-art entertainment experiences. Housed in a soundstage on the Sony Pictures Studio Lot in Culver City, California, SIS is empowering storytellers around the world to produce content using new technologies, tools and techniques. Among these new technologies, SIS is working to advance real-time volumetric virtual production with the launch of its revolutionary Atom View software solution. Atom View is a point-cloud rendering, editing, and coloring software solution. Beginning with a high-quality volumetric image acquisition, Atom View produces a photo-realistic three-dimensional recreation of a physical environment which can be used for volumetric virtual production of motion picture or television content.
“Where, before, it would take days and days and days to try to process all that and get it together. My Precision workstation actually allows me to do that quickly.”
–David Bailey, Director of Volumetric Image Acquisition, Sony Innovation Studios.
Filmmakers can also use this technology to shoot in front of a large on-set LED screen thereby allowing directors, cinematographers, and actors to experience the background and scene live as if they are actually there. It provides creative flexibility where film productions can take place at any time in front of different environment and scenes the same day at the same location.
MPC Film, a division of Technicolor, is an award-winning visual effects and computer animation company headquartered in London, with facilities located in Los Angeles, New York City, Montreal, Amsterdam, Bengaluru, Paris and Shanghai. The company has worked on such films as 1917, The Lion King, Blade Runner 2049 and The Jungle Book,
among others. MPC Film is the world’s largest computer-generated production company.
“The explosion of data and the expectations of managing high-end productions with demanding schedule necessitates that we provide the most comprehensive and user-friendly tool sets."
–Biren Ghose, Country Head for MPC’s India facility
In other words, MPC Film requires a lot of cutting-edge technology to repeatedly turn out Academy Award-winning films. Considering that simulations like water, fire or destruction generate terabytes of data, it takes a huge amount of computing power, data processing and storage to keep the workflow moving. To meet these demands, MPC Film employs Dell Technologies, including Dell Precision workstations, Dell PowerEdge Servers, Dell EMC Networking and PowerScale/ Isilon Storage.
Important Looking Pirates (ILP), one of Scandinavia’s biggest visual effects and digital animation studios, is well-known for its world-class work on such films as Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and The Shallows, as well as television productions Black Sails, Westworld and Lost in Space.
“The fact that I can now remotely connect to my workstations from at home means that the late nights have been pretty much reduced to zero.”
–Juri Bryan, Head of Effects at ILP
Animal Logic uses a wide range of Dell Technologies to create such nonlinear pipelines and improve workflow, without sacrificing artistic output. This includes Dell Precision workstations, Dell UltraSharp monitors, PowerEdge servers and Dell EMC networking. The company also employs the Dell EMC management platform, which Sarsfield says is easy-to-use and includes relevant tools for the industry.
"For me, who’s very much focused on artist workflow, that’s the most important thing, having a collaborative partner that can understand and meet our needs.”
–Aidan Sarsfield, Head of Production Technology
In the case studies of Sony Innovation Studios, MPC Film, Important Looking Pirates and Animal Logic, Dell has clearly supported the work of each of these industry partners. Working together,they have configured the right hardware and software to optimize each client’s creative output and workflow, while eliminating bottlenecks and collaboration friction.
Dell Technologies is an invested partner in helping its media and entertainment industry partners achieve their creative and business goals.
And in most of these cases, their collaboration has resulted in the studios receiving some of the industry’s highest accolades in the form of Academy Awards or nominations for their work in visual effects and animation.
To read more regarding case studies and Dell Technologies’ suite of tools, please download this whitepaper.
