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REMOTE WORKFLOWS www.postmagazine.com 24 POST MAR/APR 2023 SOHONET ACQUIRES 5TH KIND TO CREATE CLOUD WORKFLOW HUB LOS ANGELES — Sohonet (www.sohonet.com), which offers a private, high-per- formance network for the M&E industry, has acquired 5th Kind, the provider of a cloud-based, video-collaboration platform for film & TV production. Sohonet's realtime remote collaboration technology and media network, combined with 5th Kind's near-time dailies review functionality and asset workflow platform, will provide a secure, integrated and scalable collaborative experience for filmmak- ers. The companies believe the pairing will unlock significant opportunities for productions to reduce costs and timelines, especially as more creative workflows centralize assets and workflows in the cloud. "Content creation today is increasingly global, complex and data intensive," says Chuck Parker, CEO of Sohonet. "As Sohonet becomes a creative-centric asset hub and workflow management platform, we are focused on connecting industry talent with the tools and resources they need, to the many places that they now work." On what changes this will bring to the industry, Parker notes, "With more than 60 production facility partners supporting high-speed, on-set communi- cations for over 700 soundstages at premium locations across the globe, we believe we will soon deliver on the much-discussed efficiency and effectiveness of cloud-first workflows by enabling the near-time upload of original camera files (OCF) from the production's video village directly to the cloud." By delivering the OCF directly into public, private or hybrid cloud reposito- ries, productions can choose to anchor their post workflows in the cloud. This will allow partners around the world to collaborate quickly and cost effectively. As they integrate 5th Kind capabilities into Sohonet, Parker says they are excited about the opportunity to provide storytellers with the power of asset search, identification and workflow orchestration as they navigate and mitigate the complexities of content creation workflows. LUCIDLINK FILESPACES FACILITATES CREATIVE COLLABORATION SAN FRANCISCO — LucidLink (lucidlink.com) is helping to power remote collaboration for studios, brands and creative professionals via its Filespaces cloud collaboration SaaS product. Filespaces has been used on a number of recent projects, including The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, which won the Academy Award and for Short Film (Animated) and Best British Short Animation at this year's BAFTA Awards. The tool has also been used on the action movie Devotion, the hit FX show The Bear, and the theatrical feature Missing. By using LucidLink's cloud collaboration SaaS product, creatives can work together remotely and simultaneously on the same media files. Users working with creative applications, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer, Apple Final Cut Pro and Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve, can collaborate in realtime as if they were in the same location, cutting production and post production time, as well as the need for location travel and costs. "LucidLink's business literally took off at the onset of COVID, enabling remote creatives to access and use their data files, in the cloud, from any location," explains Dave Leopold, LucidLink's director of strategic development, M&E. "LucidLink Filespaces provides the fastest access to media assets stored in the cloud. Distributed TV and film production teams across the globe easily collaborate simultaneously on projects, like working off a local drive. Creatives can use any of their favorite applications, like Premiere Pro, Pro Tools, Resolve, etc., access data immediately, and collaborate in realtime on production and post production workflows seamlessly. If an application can read a file from a local drive, it can read a file from a LucidLink Filespace." In the case of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, which is current- ly streaming on Apple+, the film was created by British illustrator Charlie Mackesy, with a team of animators spread around the world. New to the world of feature animation, Mackesy relied on the expertise of animators based in as many as 20 different countries, including the US, UK, Australia, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Canada and Brazil. Artists were using a variety of editing platforms, including Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, Avid Media Composer and Blackmagic Design's Resolve. LucidLink Filespaces enabled cre- atives across the globe to quickly access all their media assets from the cloud for the same production. "Artists were able to join the working team quickly, as it was easy for them to install LucidLink and be up and running, rather than wait for machines to be delivered to start work," explains Ben Wood, senior support specialist at Nonemore. "Using LucidLink, everyone had access to the same file at the same time, and the collaboration process was seamless, while I had peace of mind that the files were secure and in one place."