Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/860302
www.postmagazine.com 5 POST AUGUST 2017 BITS & PIECES DUSSELDORF, GERMANY — Elements (www.elements.tv), developer of advanced solutions for unrestricted collab- oration in shared media workflows, showcased new and improved features in its Media Library at the recent MPS Media Production Show in London. Elements' Media Library, a media asset management, sharing and editing tool, provides practical features through a user-friendly HTML5-based Web interface. By allowing us- ers to (pre-)view, share and even comment on media assets across virtually all applications, the Media Library not only functions as a standard MAM tool, but also as a communica- tion portal, simplifying and streamlining everyday tasks and approval processes. One of the new and enhanced features introduced at MPS is an even closer operation with Adobe Premiere Pro. "Elements stands for simplicity of collaboration in shared media workflows," says André Kamps, CEO of Elements. "That's why our media storage appliances, including our awarded all-in-one solution Elements One and Elements Gateway, make it easy to connect virtual- ly all workstations to a shared file system on the central storage, including Avid Media Composer with full Avid Project Sharing and Avid Bin-locking support. The Media Library takes this even further, not only with a seamless integration with Premiere Pro but also by providing unique features to simplify teamwork, such as our visual workflow automation tool." Adobe Projects and Sequences can easily be created in the Elements Media Library interface from a production manager's desk, freeing up valuable Edit Suite resources. With Elements' Adobe Premiere Pro plug-in, editors can seamlessly browse, search and import assets and work with the previously created projects and sequences. Changes in the Adobe sequence are committed back to the Elements Media Library interface, providing further collaboration. With an intuitive graphical user interface, it's also easy to set up automated workflow processes. As part of Elements Media Library, the workflow manager can be enabled on ev- ery Elements media server and storage appliance to launch even the most complex workflow automation tasks with sim- ple drag and drop functionality. Other features embedded in all Elements appliances embrace virtually all tools required on a daily basis, such as a compre- hensive user and rights management, an intelligent file manager and a task manager for cus- tomized workflow automation, all of which are managed through the GUI for ease-of-operation. NEW FEATURES IN ELEMENTS MEDIA LIBRARY OSLO, NORWAY — Soundly (http://getsoundly.com), a startup audio technology com- pany, has announced that Storyline Studios — a full post production film facility and Norway's largest supplier of film technical infrastructure and equipment — has chosen the cloud-based Soundly, sound library and editing tool to streamline and coordinate its audio and video editing workflows. For Gisle Tveito, a 26-year veteran, supervising sound editor, dubbing mixer, and one of the owners of Storyline, getting the sound design process to run closer to parallel with the video editing process has always been a goal. While many sound departments wait for 'picture-lock" before starting to work on the sound, the team at Storyline is breaking the mold of the traditional serial workflow by closely aligning audio with video editors from the first cut. "I'm a keen user of Soundly, but my workflow is a bit different from those who use it strictly as a sound library and edit tool," says Tveito. "I use it to share audio with picture editors and directors from the very beginning. I make sound libraries specifically designed for the editors and directors using Soundly as a central hub for effects and music." Before Soundly, audio was organized by each contributor, based on what made sense to them. Using file names, folder names, dates etc., each contributor, whether it was the composer, editor or assistant, had their own organizational system, which could quickly get confusing. Using Soundly solved a lot of housekeeping issues with all the audio that gets passed around in a large production. Being cloud-based, there are far fewer copies of any given audio clip, and everyone has access to the latest version in a single, central location. The Storyline team had tried Dropbox, ftp, and other methods for sharing files, but none were as streamlined, intuitive and integrated as Soundly. "Directors that I frequently work with consider me part of the initial editing process. With Soundly, it's a more collaborative way of working for all of us," says Tveito. "To have music and SFX in one database where everyone can access the same things makes com- munication so much easier." Tveito has a multi-user Soundly account with 10 licenses that he can administer as he likes. For the recently finished Norwegian TV series Valkyrien, consisting of eight, 45-minute episodes, the whole production took two years from the start of the shoot until the last mix was done. In this case, the sound department and the composer were on board during the last 13-14 months. "For that series, there were three producers with their own Soundly accounts, four editors with accounts, and the composers and me, as leader of the sound department, with ac- counts," says Tveito. "Everyone was part of the creative team and the producers just loved it because it was a huge timesaver. I remember doing some music editing for the trailers, and I would just drop that into Soundly and send an email saying new versions were available. "Everyone could instantly play back the versions, and compare to the original music. Instead of worrying about how to download it, where they should put it on their computer, or how to keep the versions organized, the latest version was always available in the cloud. I would get some feedback in five to ten minutes." SOUNDLY STREAMLINES SFX WORKFLOWS AT STORYLINE STUDIOS Elements CEO Kamps Storylines' Tveito