Sohonet, the global experts in connected cloud services for the Media and Entertainment industry, today announced that leading industry figures from Electric Theatre Collective, Milk Visual Effects, Amazon Web Services, Pixit Media and Teradici will be joining Sohonet’s Virtual Workstations panel at FMX, Europe’s premier conference for the Digital Visual Arts, this April.
The panel will focus on how and why VFX companies such as Milk and ETC are looking to host their workstations in the cloud, with a focus on block and file-based storage they require. Details will be shared on how it can be achieved securely and cost-effectively, whilst providing a seamless and enhanced experience for the visual effects artist.
Both Milk and ETC were quick to identify how access to “unlimited compute power” could drive the creative process to reach new heights and both companies utilise Sohonet FastLane to securely leverage public cloud platforms, enabling them to deliver award-winning work, on schedule and in budget.
Ben Roder, CTO of Sohonet said, “We’re extremely excited to welcome both ETC and Milk to our panel at FMX. We see that the industry is now truly embracing the power of cloud computing with speed and enthusiasm, considering how radical it seemed not so long ago. At FMX 2016 and 2017 our focus was largely on rendering in the cloud and to me hosted VFX workstations in the cloud is a logical next step.”
Sohonet will also be joined by leading storage-solutions provider Pixit Media, who will offer invaluable insight into how VFX companies can scale operations, multiply workloads, reduce latency in cloud use cases, and improve performance issues. Teradici will also be on hand to explain how their end-to-end cloud-ready solution is enabling companies to access a high-powered VFX workstation from anywhere and what this means for their businesses.
Dave Goodbourn Head of Systems at Milk Visual Effects, said, “Having the ability to expand our resources at the drop of a hat is essential. Working with Sohonet and Pixit to build a pipeline not just for our render needs but workstations too has helped us in working on projects that would previously have been beyond the scope of a facility of our size.”
Chris Bond, Founder, Thinkbox, an Amazon Company, agrees, “The Sohonet Media Network and their FastLane service, paired with Amazon EC2 Spot Instances, helps deliver more value for our customers. We want to help creative teams around the world create compelling content by providing them with the power of Amazon Web Services and Thinkbox Deadline. The addition of technology from Pixit and Teradici creates a compelling combination of performance and value.”
ETC’s Head of Engineering, Samuel Reid, said, “We’re delighted to be joining Sohonet at FMX this year. Our joint work with them, AWS, Pixit and Teradici have allowed us to utilise tight deadlines, access global talent and match our OPEX with our clients proposals. We are looking forward to sharing the results with the FMX audience in Stuttgart.”
For more details on how to attend the panel, click here.
About Milk Visual Effects
Milk Visual Effects is an Academy Award-winning, independent visual effects studio focused on creating innovative and complex sequences for feature films and high-end television.
Since Milk’s launch in 2013, the studio has won an Academy Award for its work on feature film Ex-Machina, an Emmy for TV series Sherlock and three BAFTA Television Craft Awards for the BBC’s Doctor Who and drama Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
Milk’s credits also include Alex Garland’s Annihilation; Warner Bros.’ Fantastic Beasts And Where to Find Them; Kingsman: The Golden Circle; Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise and Free Fire; The Divergent Series: Insurgent (Lionsgate/Summit); Poltergeist (Fox/MGM), The Martian (20th Century Fox); Brett Ratner’s Hercules (Paramount/MGM), Netflix’ Altered Carbon; Paramount’s The Alienist; Phillip K Dick’s Electric Dreams (Channel 4/Sony/Amazon); Class (BBC); The Last Dragonslayer (Sky), ITV’s Thunderbirds Are Go and virtual reality filmTree (New Reality Company).
Milk’s recent work includes UK special venue theatrical project ‘Dinosaurs In the Wild’ which saw the studio create a ground-breaking rendering solution to process almost 80 million frames using Google Cloud Platform, in just 10 weeks.
Milk was named one of the top 100 fastest growing British tech companies in the Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 in September 2017. Milk has studios in London and Cardiff.
About Sohonet
Sohonet connects storytellers by innovating technologies and collaboration with worldclass services. For more than 20 years, the fully independent Sohonet has been the leading global expert in connectivity and data management services for the media and entertainment industry. Sohonet offers a range of connectivity, data management, storage and compute solutions that enable clients to manage store and transfer valuable and critical content quickly, securely and effectively. All backed up by unrivaled technical support. The Sohonet Media Network is the largest and most established private, high-performance network for the media and entertainment industry connecting the leading studios, production and post-production facilities across the globe and providing high-speed access to established and emerging cloud platforms. For further information please visit www.Sohonet.com
About Electric Theatre Collective
Electric Theatre Collective are a visual effects company with a difference: we are a young collective of artists and makers with a point of view and we pride ourselves on our new ideas, creativity and above all, people. From our humble beginnings in 2011, we have won a reputation for quality work, innovation and visionary style. Now into our sixth year, our London and LA studios encompass a wealth of talent across all disciplines of visual creativity; CGI, 2D, animation and colour grading. We have grown from a team of four into an innovative collective of artists, makers and agitators, celebrating technology and diversity, empowered by industry-leading software.
We have the intimacy of a small company yet have the creative fire of an industry powerhouse. In past year alone our work has summoned hurricanes for Jose Cuervo, had Naomi Campbell singing Wham! for H&M and got Beyonce into Formation.
About Teradici
Teradici is the creator of the PCoIP remoting protocol technology and Cloud Access Software, the leading solution for a cloud-ready future. The company, founded in 2004, is focused on its core mission of seamless delivery of workstations and applications for end-users.
Teradici’s PCoIP® technology is the most secure remoting technology in the marketplace, enabling visualization of even the most graphics-intensive applications. Teradici Cloud Access Software, built on PCoIP technology, enables enterprises to securely leverage public cloud GPU instances to confidently lift and shift the most graphics-intensive Windows or Linux applications to the public cloud, avoiding costly rewrites.
The company’s technology is deployed by Fortune 500 enterprises, government agencies and service providers from around the world. Teradici also partners with leading cloud providers to continue delivering the best user experience and enabling our customers’ the ability to scale to millions of users.
About Pixit Media
Pixit Media provides a modern approach to address the challenges faced by the Post Production, VFX & Broadcast Industries delivering enterprise-class storage infrastructure with a truly software defined approach. By combining the best of breed technologies from on premise into the cloud with a Global view of their data, we empower customers with the freedom of choice, eliminating vendor lock-in and driving efficiencies throughout the end to end workflow. The company has quickly become the de facto standard for Post and Broadcast in the UK, and we are expanding into Europe and the Americas. Our solutions are deployed by leading content creation and distribution organizations around the world. We have been counted on to deliver numerous commercially successful Oscar, BAFTA and Emmy winning TV, Film VFX, CGI, Sports Broadcasts, Commercials and Music Videos.
