Post Production in the Cloud
To what extent is it possible to move film post-production into a completely distributed cloud-computing environment?
Film production has seen major changes in the last decade. Although hot new video cameras often take center stage, a lot of the most important new technologies are living in post. It’s true that the hot new video cameras are driving a lot of new post production technologies. “All Digital” workflows are not easy. Consider the American Society of Cinematographers’ recent efforts to standardize color decision lists (CDLs). As digital files are passed through the post-production pipeline, these standards will allow color decisions to carry through in a non-destructive way. It may seem odd that something like this was a problem, but then you must remember that this is a new wild west of standardless technology. I would argue that standards (or a lack of them) are not the whole problem, nor are they the most interesting solution.
With Amazon’s release of Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) and Simple Storage Solution (S3), there has been an explosion of new ventures in software development to outsource heavy computation to Amazon. Maybe it’s just history repeating itself, as we’ve come full circle to the days when one large mainframe was shared by many who paid based on their usage. The appeal of such a system is the virtually limitless computational power available. Need to bring up a thousand servers to crank away at a huge data set? Go right ahead…
But wait a minute, do you need a thousand servers? An elastic cloud is good for uses where there is need to scale both up and down. If you needed a thousand computers all the time, you’re better off buying a thousand computers. If you need a thousand computers for 7 days a year, the cloud is your dream come true.
So that brings us (finally) to the point. Why can’t digital post-production be moved into the cloud? In particular, I’m thinking of compositing and effects processing, color correction, and onlining. Also, I am considering mostly small to medium, independent post-production houses.
The advantages:
- All the computational power you need to crank away at a 4K DI.
- Easy transfer of material through the pipeline.
- Instant feedback.
- Location insensitive. That color genius living in Siberia can do the job.
The disadvantages:
- There is a high initial cost to get all the data into the cloud in the first place.
- There are concerns about privacy and security of the data.
- The tools do not exist yet.
I’m sure there are many more advantages and disadvantages that I’ve left off the list, but I’d like to at least get the conversation started. If anyone knows of any projects related to this, let me know. Post production has been largely a closed game with few players. The possibility of lowering the cost of entry for small to medium sized post-production houses could expand that market in a way that really benefits the independents.
What’s next?