THE BUSINESS SITUATION
That storage prices are constantly dropping is a cliche, but over the years that fact has helped to bandage over some of the workflow and capacity problems that broadcasters and production companies face. Storage full? Buy a new box. Throwing storage at the problem has typically been easier than solving the problem. Treating the symptoms rather than curing the disease. As a full-service creative production company based in Berlin, OMSTUDIOS had the same capacity problems as everyone else, but they realized that they needed to think beyond just adding storage, and more about how they can produce content more efficiently.
We’re constantly under client pressure to deliver to their deadlines, and we simply can’t afford to have our creative talent wasting time,’ said CEO Marcus Poellen.
It was this thinking that led OMSTUDIOS to invest in STRAWBERRY for their Post Production workflow. STRAWBERRY is the central tool for managing OMSTUDIO's Media Composer and DaVinci Resolve projects. Editors create their projects in STRAWBERRY’s simple user interface and then work from within the STRAWBERRY project mounts. The ‘Project Mount’ technology removes the headache of manual storage management, allowing creatives to focus on being creative.
They don’t need to worry about preparing the workspace before they can get to work, and after they are finished, they don’t need to deal with cleaning up that workspace or going to another location to work in a different application. Editors work in the Project Mount, whether they are using Media Composer, ProTools, or DaVinci and STRAWBERRY automatically organizes the content on the central NAS storage. Teams can also share assets and projects with each other, eliminating much of the copying that tends to happen in the chaos of post-production.
Our project organization is greatly improved – giving editors more time to be creative. Now we can move projects to archive in a timely fashion, freeing up expensive spinning disk storage.
Marcus Poellen, CEO and Co-Founder OMSTUDIOS
PREP ONCE, EDIT ALONG
By sharing projects and assets, STRAWBERRY reduces duplication on the storage, but that’s not the big win for OM.
When we prep footage for editing, we do it once, and it’s available on all of our suites without having to reindex Media Composer projects,’ added Marcus Poellen.
Before STRAWBERRY they had multiple assistant editors that were tasked with prepping content to their editing suites before the creative team could work. With STRAWBERRY they need only one, freeing those resources for other tasks.
The integration between Color Grading and Editing is also a major benefit, as the DaVinci operator can access editing projects and content directly (and vice versa) without having to push media back and forth. That was a key time loss before STRAWBERRY for OM. Editors and producers were stuck waiting for content to be transferred between the different worlds.
In STRAWBERRY, the DaVinci user simply adds the Media Composer project to his grading project and all of the content is linked and available in his Resolve project. OMSTUDIOS also uses their DaVinci suite to create Avid-ready MXF proxies for the Media Composers when it’s free, so in that case, Editors can link the individual proxies into their project without having to use AMA linking. Also, by taking project structure and organization out of the hands of the creative team, admins can gain control over how the projects are structured This ensures that when freelancers come in, they have clear boundaries to what they can and can’t do. The interface is also simple for a new user to work with. Marcus elaborates, ‘In the three years we’ve used STRAWBERRY, not a single freelancer has complained about working with it.’
ARCHIVAL AND RETRIEVAL MADE EASY
When projects are finished, OMSTUDIOS Admins or eligible users can send the entire project to archive. STRAWBERRY collects all of the project content into a .tar file so that their open source backup tool has only one large project file to write off to LTO tape. The key here is that proxies of the project content remain visible in STRAWBERRY, so users can preview and search the archived content just like the production storage. This helps OMSTUDIOS when it comes to repurposing old advertising campaigns. Editors use the archive actively and can trigger restores easily from the same interface they are using to create editing projects.
The STRAWBERRY environment is constantly evolving for OMSTUDIOS. Next up: Adding their Virtual Reality work in After Effects and integrating with Nuke and Shotgun to simplify the VFX pipeline integration with post.
ABOUT THE SOLUTION
Supermicro NAS connected via 10GigE, CentOS Linux server running STRAWBERRY, 4x Avid Media Composer Suites, 1x Davinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere for 360 VR, After Effects, Nuke, Shotgun.
ABOUT OMSTUDIOS
OMSTUDIOS is a full-service creative media production company based in Berlin-Kreuzberg, providing high-end film and commercial productions on multiple channels. Our multi-disciplinary departments leverage creativity, design, motion, visual effects, virtual reality and post-production.
ABOUT FLAVOURSYS
Made by editors for editors. FlavourSys is a production software company, delivering innovative products designed to improve the day-to-day workflow of media production companies. Our dedicated team consists of a diverse group with rich industry experience. We work with small to large production facilities, universities, film and broadcast productions, advertising agencies and more.
Want to learn more? STRAWBERRY is used worldwide by leading Broadcasters, Post Production Facilities, Film Schools, and Advertising agencies.