Q&A with Adam Ford, Head of Post production at Fullscreen Media
Q: Tell us about Fullscreen Media
AF: We are a global network of content creators and brands focused on creating engaging entertainment across social media channels and our subscription service. We create and support content over a wide range of platforms and clientele and we have offices in Los Angeles, New York City, Atlanta, and Chicago. We also create a significant amount of content in-house for our B2B branded teams and our own online consumer-based platforms, and so we operate as a full-service facility offering shooting, production, editing, and management. We also manage third party productions that are creating content out-of-house as well.
Q: Why did you install a Facilis shared storage system?
AF: As our post-production department grew from two editors to more than thirty editors in 2014, we decided to purchase a 96TB Facilis TerraBlock 24D from Cutting Edge Audio and Video Group to implement our first shared, collaborative editing workflow. After we installed the Facilis system, we weren’t shuttling hard drives back and forth anymore and we eliminated duplication for the most part. Editors were able to work together and share volumes in way they hadn’t before.
Two years later, we added an additional 128TB TerraBlock 24EX server to our Studio location over a mile away. It’s connected to the main office with 10gig point-to-point fiber, and it’s administered by Sohonet. We’ve also since added 384TB of expansion storage to the environment, and the high-bandwidth of this connectivity enables the editorial teams at either location access and edit directly to and from either system.
Q: What was your experience like with Cutting Edge?
AF: I have to say that Cutting Edge has made it very easy for us to build out our infrastructure. Typically, I‘ll propose an idea as something ‘nice to have,’ and Zeke Margolis, our sales contact at Cutting Edge, comes back with a well-thought-out solution. We’ve had essentially zero technical issues with our original TerraBlock, so purchasing a second Facilis system from Cutting Edge was an easy decision for us.
Q: What are the main benefits of your TerraBlock?
AF: One benefit of our set up is that it enables non-editors from many different teams ‘self-serve access’ to the TerraBlock. Our marketing or social media team can access media to screen content and cut clips up for Instagram and other social media videos. The content ID team will make sure finished assets are logged with Facebook and YouTube. We’ll have 25 seats connected typically and flex up to 40 when it gets really busy.
Our additional system enables the studio team to work collaboratively on material they shoot and edit while eliminating the need to move large files between facilities, even though it’s not a problem over the 10gig backbone.
One of the other things we like is that the TerraBlock is so easy to use that we can administer the system ourselves without having to bother the IT team.
We don’t want to be forced to complete a project in a certain way, so it is important to have total flexibility. Our Facilis systems let us present a blank canvas to post supervisors allowing them to organize projects any way they want while giving us peace of mind.
Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
AF: One of our other goals with our installation is to use our second system for disaster recovery (DR) in the event of an earthquake or similar event. Cutting Edge is currently helping us set up a mirrored data configuration between the facilities that automatically backs up mission critical media and metadata.
