We’ve been using this space to talk about how companies are discounting products, raising money and introducing technology to help with remote workflows, as well as highlighting how pros are personally pitching in.
Here are the latest updates, followed by what we’ve gathered to date:
Adobe
Adobe has made a $4.5 million commitment to trusted organizations that are providing vital assistance to those most in need.
• Adobe is joining forces with other tech leaders in the Bay Area to support the COVID-19 Coronavirus Regional Response Fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a trusted foundation that serves a network of local nonprofits. Adobe’s $1 million donation will help provide low-income people in Santa Clara County through The Santa Clara County Homelessness Prevention System Financial Assistance Program with immediate financial assistance to help pay rent or meet other basic needs. Additionally, Adobe is donating $250,000 to the Valley Medical Center Foundation to purchase life-saving ventilators for Bay Area hospitals.
• Adobe has donated $1 million to the COVID-19 Fund of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the recognized global leader in providing rapid disaster relief and basic human and medical services. Adobe’s support will help aid vulnerable communities impacted by COVID-19 around the world. This is in addition to the $250,000 the company is donating to Direct Relief as a part of Adobe’s #HonorHeroes campaign.
• To support the community in India, Adobe is donating $1 million towards the American India Foundation (AIF) and the Akshaya Patra Foundation. The donation will help AIF source much-needed ventilators for hospitals, while the grant for Akshaya Patra will provide approximately 5 million meals to impacted families.
Harbor
Harbor is releasing Inspiration in Isolation, a new talk series that features filmmakers in candid conversation about their creative process during this unprecedented time and beyond. The web series aims to reveal the ideas and rituals that contribute to their creative process. The premiere episode features celebrated cinematographer Bradford Young and senior colorist Joe Gawler. The two, who are collaborators and friends, talk community, family, adapting to change and much more.
The full-length episodes will be released on Harbor’s new platform, HarborPresents, with additional content on Harbor’s social media (@HarborPictureCo).
HPA
The HPA has formed the HPA Industry Recovery Task Force, which will focus on sustainably resuming production and post services, with the aim of understanding how to enable content creation in an evolving world impacted by the pandemic.
The task force’s key objectives are:
• To serve as a forum for collaboration, communication and thought leadership regarding how to resume global production and post production in a sustainable fashion.
• To understand and influence evolving technical requirements, such as the impact of remote collaboration, work from home and other workflows that have been highlighted by the current crisis.
• To provide up-to-date information and access to emerging health and safety guidelines that will be issued by various governments, municipalities, unions, guilds, industry organizations and content creators.
• To provide collaborative support and guidance to those impacted by the crisis.
Genelec
Genelec is donating a percentage of every sale of its new Raw loudspeaker range to the Audio Engineering Society (AES) for the remainder of this year. Additionally, Genelec will fund 10 one-year AES memberships for those whose lives have been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. A longtime sustaining member of AES, Genelec is making the donation to help sustain the society’s cash flow, which has been significantly affected by the coronavirus situation.
OWC
OWC has expanded its safety protocols, as they continue to operate as an essential business in Illinois. They have expanded their already strong standard operating practice in terms of cleanliness with additional surface disinfection actions, as well as both gloves and masks being used by their warehouse and build teams. Even before recent events, manufacturing teams used gloves to prevent fingerprinting units during build, but those gloves have new importance now. In addition, OWC has both MERV air filters in place and a UV air purifier, which combined are considered to be 99.999% effective in killing/capturing all airborne bacteria and viruses.
For a limited time, existing DSMC2 and Red Ranger Helium and Gemini customers can purchase a Red Extended Warranty at a discounted price. Existing customers who are into their second year of warranty can pay the standard pricing they would receive within their first year instead of the markup price. For example, instead of paying $1,740 (the 20% markup), a DSMC2 Gemini owner who is in within the second year of warranty can purchase an Extended Warranty for $1,450.
This promotion has been extended to June 30. Adding the Red Extended Warranty not only increases the warranty coverage period but also provides benefits such as priority repair, expedited shipping, and premium technical support directly from Red. Customers also have access to the Red Rapid Replacement Program. Extended Warranty is also transferable to new owners if completing a Transfer of Ownership with Red.
DejaSoft
DejaSoft has extended its offering of giving editors 50% off all their DejaEdit licenses — it now goes through the end of June. In addition, the company will help users implement DejaEdit in the best way possible to suit their workflow. DejaEdit allows editors to share media files and timelines automatically and securely with remote co-workers around the world, without having to be online continuously. It helps editors working on Avid Nexis, Media Composer and EditShare workflows across studios, production companies and post facilities ensure that media files, bins and timelines are kept up to date across multiple remote edit stations.
Assimilate
Assimilate is offering all of its products — including Scratch 9.2, Scratch VR 9.2, PlayPro 9.2, Scratch Web and the recently released Live Looks and Live Assist — for free through October 31. Users can register for free licenses. Online tutorials are here and free access to Lowepost online Scratch training is here.
B&H
B&H is partnering with suppliers to donate gear to the teams at Mount Sinai and other NYC hospitals to help health care professionals and first responders stay in touch with their loved ones. Some much-needed items are chargers, power sources, battery packs and mobile accessories. B&H is supporting the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City and Direct Relief.
FXhome
FXhome last month turned the attention of its “Pay What You Want” initiative to direct proceeds to help fight Covid-19. This month, in an effort to teach the community new skills, and inspire them with new ideas to help them reinvent themselves, FXhome has today launched a new, entirely free Master Class series designed to teach everything from basic editing, to creating flashy title sequences, to editing audio and of course, learning basic VFX and compositing.
Nugen Audio
Nugen Audio has a new “Staying Home, Staying Creative” initiative aimed at promoting collaboration and creativity in a time of social distancing. Included are a variety of videos, interviews and articles that will inspire new artistic approaches for post production workflows. The company is also providing temporary replacement licenses for any users who do not have access to their in-office workstations.
Already available on the Staying Creative web page is a special interview with audio post production specialist Keith Alexander. Building from his specialty in remote recording and sound design for broadcast, film and gaming, Alexander shares some helpful tips on how to work efficiently in a home-based setting and how to manage audio cleanup and broadcast-audio editing projects from home. There’s also an article focused on three ways to improve lo-fi drum recording in a less-than-ideal space.
Nugen is also offering temporary two-month licenses for current iLok customers, along with one additional Challenge Response license code authorization. The company has also reduced the prices of all products in its web store.
Tovusound
Tovusound has extended its 20% discount until the end of the month and has added some new special offers.
The Spot Edward Ultimate Suite expansion, regularly $149, is now $79 with coupon. It adds the Spot creature footstep and movement instrument to the Edward footstep, cloth and props designer. Customers also get free WAV files with the purchase of all Edward instruments and expansions and with all Tovusound bundles. Anyone who purchased one of the applicable products after April 1 also has free access to the WAV files.
Tovusound will continue to donate an additional 10% of the sales price to the CleanOceanProject.org. Customers may claim their discounts by entering STAYHOME in the “apply coupon” field at checkout. All offers end on April 30.
Previous Updates
Object Matrix and Cinesys-Oceana
Object Matrix and Cinesys-Oceana are hosting a series of informal online Beer Roundtable events in the coming months. The series will discuss the various challenges with implementing hybrid technology for continuity, remote working and self-serve access to archive content.You can register for the next Beer Roundtable here. The sessions will be open, fun and relaxed. Participants are asked to grab themselves a drink and simply raise their glass when they wish to ask a question.
During the first session, Cinesys-Oceana CTO Brent Angle and Object Matrix CEO Jonathan Morgan will introduce what they believe to be the mandatory elements of the ultimate hybrid technology stack. This will be followed by a roundtable discussion hosted by Harry Skopas, director M&E solutions architecture and technical sales at Cinesys-Oceana, with guest appearances from the media and sports technology communities.
MZed
MZed, an online platform for master classes in filmmaking, photography and visual storytelling, is donating 20% of all sales to the Los Angeles Food Bank throughout April. For every new MZed Pro membership, $60 is donated, equating to 240 meals to feed hungry children, seniors and families. MZed serves the creative community, a large portion of which lives in the LA area and is being hit hard by the lockdown due to the coronavirus. MZed hopes to help play a role in keeping high-risk members of the community fed during a time of extreme uncertainty.
MZed has also launched a “Get One, Gift One” initiative. When someone purchases an MZed Pro membership, that person will not only be supporting the LA Food Bank but will instantly receive a Pro membership to give to someone else. MZed will email details upon purchase.
MZed offers hundreds of hours of training courses covering everything from photography and filmmaking to audio and lighting in courses like “The Art of Storytelling” with Alex Buono and Philip Bloom’s Cinematic Masterclass.
NAB Show
NAB Show’s new digital experience, NAB Show Express, will take place May 13-14. The platform is free and offers 24-hour access to three educational channels, on-demand content and a Solutions Marketplace featuring exhibitor product information, announcements and demos. Registration for the event will open on April 20 at NABShowExpress.com. Each channel will feature eight hours of content streamed daily and available on-demand to accommodate the global NAB Show audience. NAB Show Express will also offer NAB Show’s signature podcast, exploring relevant themes and featuring prominent speakers.
Additionally, NAB Show Express will feature three stand-alone training and executive leadership events for which separate registrations will be available soon. These include:
• Executive Leadership Summit (May 11), produced in partnership with Variety
• Cybersecurity & Content Protection Summit (May 12), produced in partnership with Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA) and Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) – registration fees apply
• Post | Production World Online (May 17-19), produced in partnership with Future Media Conferences (FMC) – registration fees apply.
Atto
Atto Technology is supporting content producers who face new workflow and performance challenges by making Atto Disk Benchmark for macOS more widely available and by updating Atto 360 tuning, monitoring and analytics software. Atto 360 for macOS and Linux have been updated for enhanced stability and include an additional tuning profile. The current Windows release already includes these updates. The software is free and can be downloaded directly from Atto.
Sigma
Sigma has launched a charitable giving initiative in partnership with authorized Sigma lens dealers nationwide. From now until June 30, 2020, 5% of all Sigma lens sales made through participating dealers will be donated to a charitable organization of the dealers’ choice. Donations will be made to organizations working on COVID-19 relief efforts to help ease the devastation many communities are feeling as a result of the global crisis. A full list of participating Sigma dealers and benefiting charities can be found here.
FXhome
To support those who are putting their lives on the line to provide care and healing to those impacted by the global pandemic, FXhome is adding Partners In Health, Doctors Without Borders and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy as new beneficiaries of the FXhome “Pay What You Want” initiative.
Pay What You Want is a goodwill program inspired by the HitFilm Express community’s desire to contribute to the future development of HitFilm Express, the company’s free video editing and VFX software. Through the initiative, users can contribute financially, and those funds will be allocated for future development and improvements to HitFilm. Additionally, FXhome is contributing a percentage of the proceeds to organizations dedicated to global causes important to the company and its community. The larger the contribution from customers, the more FXhome will donate.
Besides adding the three new health-related beneficiaries, FXhome has extended its campaign to support each new cause from one month to three months, beginning in April and running through the end of June. A percentage of all proceeds of revenues generated during this time period will be donated to each cause.
Covid-19 Film and TV Emergency Relief Fund
Created by The Film and TV Charity in close partnership with the BFI, the new COVID-19 Film and TV Emergency Relief Fund provides support to the many thousands of active workers and freelancers who have been hit hardest by the closure of productions across the UK. The fund has received initial donations totaling £2.5 million from Netflix, the BFI, BBC Studios, BBC Content, WarnerMedia and several generous individuals.
It is being administered by The Film and TV Charity, with support from BFI staff. The Film and TV Charity and the BFI is covering all overheads, enabling donations to go directly to eligible workers and freelancers across film, TV and cinema. One-off grants of between £500 and £2,500 will be awarded based on need. Applications for the one-off grants can be made via The Film and TV Charity’s website. The application process will remain open for two weeks.
The Film and TV Charity also has a new COVID-19 Film and TV Repayable Grants Scheme offering support for industry freelancers waiting for payments under the Government’s Self-employment Income Support Scheme. Interest-free grants of up to £2,000 will be offered to those eligible for Self-employment Income Support but who are struggling with the wait for payments in June. The Covid-19 Film and TV Repayable Grants Scheme opens April 15. Applicants will have one week to make a claim via The Film and TV Charity’s website.
Lenovo
Lenovo is offering a free 120-day license of Mechdyne’s TGX Remote Desktop software, which uses Nvidia Quadro GPUs and a built-in video encoder to compress and send information from the host workstation to the end-point device to decode. This eliminates lag on complex and detailed application files.
Teams can share powerful, high-end workstation resources across the business, easily dialing up performance and powerful GPUs from their standard workstation to collaborate remotely with coworkers around the world.
Users keep data and company IP secure on-site while reducing the risk of data breaches and remotely administering computer hardware assets from anywhere, anytime.
Users install the trial on their host workstations and install the receiver software on their local devices to access their applications and projects as if they were in the office.
Ambidio
To help sound editors, mixers and other post pro who suddenly find themselves working from home, Ambidio is making its immersive sound technology, Ambidio Looking Glass, available for free. Sound professionals can apply for a free license through Ambidio’s website. Ambidio is also waiving its per-title releasing fee for home entertainment titles during the current cinema shutdown. It applies to new titles that haven’t previously been released through Blu-ray, DVD, digital download or streaming. The free offer is available through May 31.
Ambidio Looking Glass can be used as a monitoring tool for theatrical and television projects requiring immersive sound. Ambidio Looking Glass produces immersive sound that approximates what can be achieved on a studio mix stage, except it is playable through standard stereo speaker systems. Editors and mixers working from home studios can use it to check their work and share it with clients, who can also hear the results without immersive sound playback systems.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing sound editors and mixers to work remotely,” says Ambidio founder Iris Wu. “Many need to finish projects that require immersive sound from home studios that lack complex speaker arrays. Ambidio Looking Glass provides a way for them to continue working with dimensional sound and meet deadlines, even if they can’t get to a mix stage.”
Qumulo
Through July 2020, Qumulo is offering its cloud-native file software for free to public and private-sector medical and health care research organizations that are working to minimize the spread and impact of the COVID-19 virus.
“Research and health care organizations across the world are working tirelessly to find answers and collaborate faster in their COVID-19 vaccine mission,” said Matt McIlwain, chairman of the board of trustees of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and managing partner at Madrona Venture Group. “It will be through the work of these professionals, globally sharing and analyzing all available data in the cloud, that a cure for COVID-19 will be discovered.”
Qumulo’s cloud-native file and data services allows organizations to use the cloud to capture, process, analyze and share data with researchers distributed across geographies. Qumulo’s software works seamlessly with the applications medical and health care researchers have been using for decades, as well as with artificial intelligence and analytics services more recently developed in the cloud.
Medical organizations can register to use Qumulo’s file software in the cloud, which will be deployable through the Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud marketplaces.
Goldcrest Post
Goldcrest Post has established the capability to conduct most picture and sound post production work remotely. Colorists, conform editors and other staff are now able to work from home or a remote site and connect to the facility’s central storage and technical resources via remote collaboration software. Clients can monitor work through similar secure, fast and reliable desktop connections.
The service allows Goldcrest to ensure theatrical and television projects remain on track while allowing clients to oversee work in as normal a manner as possible under current circumstances.
Goldcrest has set up a temporary color grading facility at a remote site convenient for its staff colorists. The site includes a color grading control panel, two color-calibrated monitors and a high-speed connection to the main Goldcrest facility. The company has also installed desktop workstations and monitors in the homes of editors and other staff involved in picture conforming and deliverables. Sound mixing is still being conducted on-site, but sound editorial and ancillary sound work is being done from home.In taking these measures, the facility has reduced its on-site staff to a bare minimum while keeping workflow disruption to a minimum.
Ziva Dynamics
Ziva Dynamics is making Ziva VFX character simulation software free for students and educators. The same tools used on Game of Thrones, Hellboy and John Wick: Chapter 3 are now available for noncommercial projects, offering students the chance to learn physics-based character creation before they graduate. Ziva VFX Academic licenses are fully featured and receive the same access and support as other Ziva products.
In addition to the software, Ziva Academic users will now receive free access to Ziva Dynamics’ simulation-ready assets Zeke the Lion (previously $10,000) and Lila the Cheetah. Thanks to Ziva VFX’s Anatomy Transfer feature, the Zeke rig has helped make squirrels, cougars, dogs and more for films like John Wick 3, A Dog’s Way Home and Primal.
Ziva Dynamics will also be providing a free Ziva Academic floating lab license to universities so students can access the software in labs across campuses whenever they want. Ziva VFX Academic licenses are free and open to any fully accredited institution, student, professor or researcher (an $1,800 value). New licenses can be found in the Ziva store and are provided following a few eligibility questions. Academic users on the original paid plan can now increase their license count for free.
OpenDrives
OpenDrives’ OpenDrives Anywhere is an in-place private cloud model that enables customers with OpenDrives to work on the same project from multiple locations without compromising performance. With existing office infrastructure, teams already have an in-place private cloud and can extend its power to each of their remote professionals. No reinvestment in storage is needed.
Nothing changes from a workflow perspective except physical proximity. With simple adjustments, remote control of existing enterprise workstations can be extended via a secure connection. HP’s ZCentral Remote Boost (formerly RGS) software will facilitate remote access over secure connection to your workstations, or Teradici can provide both dedicated external hardware and software solutions for this purpose, giving teams the ability to support collaborative workflows at low cost. OpenDrives can also get teams quickly set up in under two hours on a corporate VPN and in under 24 hours without.
Prime Focus Technologies
Prime Focus Technologies (PFT), the technology arm of Prime Focus, has added new features and advanced security enhancements to Clear to help customers embrace the virtual work environment. In terms of security, Clear now has a new-generation HTML 5 player enabled with Hollywood-grade DRM encryption. There’s also support for just-in-time visual watermarking embedded within the stream for streaming through Clear as a secure alternative to generating watermarking on the client side.
Clear also has new features that make it easier to use, including direct and faster download from S3 and Azure storage, easier partner onboarding and an admin module enhancement with condensed permissions to easily handle custom user roles. Content acquisition is made easier with a host of new functionalities to simplify content acquisition processes and reduce dependencies as much as possible. Likewise, for easier content servicing, there is now automation in content localization, to make it easier to perform and review tasks on Clear. For content distribution, PFT has enabled on-demand cloud distribution on Clear through the most commonly used cloud technologies.
Brady and Stephenie Betzel
Many of you know postPerspective contributor and online video editor Brady Betzel from his great reviews and tips pieces. During this crisis, he is helping his wife, Stephenie, make masks for her sister (a nurse) and colleagues working at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, California, in addition to anyone else who works on the “front lines.” She’s sewn over 300 masks so far and is not stopping. Creativity and sewing is not new to her. Her day job is also creating. You can check out her work on Facebook and Instagram.
Object Matrix
Object Matrix co-founder Nick Pearce has another LinkedIn dispatch, this time launching Good News Friday, where folks from around the globe check in with good news! You can also watch it on YouTube. Pearce and crew are also offering video tips for surviving working from home. The videos, hosted by Pearce, and are updated weekly. Check them out here.
Conductor
Conductor is waiving charges for orchestrating renders in the cloud. Updated pricing is reflected in the cost calculator on Conductor’s Pricing page. These changes will last at least through May 2020. To help expedite any transition needs, the Conductor team will be on call for virtual render wrangling of cloud submissions, from debugging scenes and scripts to optimizing settings for cost, turnaround time, etc. If you need this option, then email support@conductortech.com.
Conductor is working with partners to set up online training sessions to help studios quickly adopt cloud strategies and workflows. The company will send out further notifications as the sessions are formalized. Conductor staff is also available for one-on-one studio sessions as needed for those with specific pipeline considerations.
Conductor’s president and CEO Mac Moore said this: “The sudden onset of this pandemic has put a tremendous strain on our industry, completely changing the way studios need to operate virtually overnight. Given Conductor was built on the ‘work from anywhere’ premise, I felt it our responsibility to help studios to the greatest extent possible during this critical time.”
Symply
Symply is providing as many remote workers in the industry as possible with a free 90-day license to SymplyConveyor, its secure, high-speed transfer and sync software. Symply techs will be available to install SymplyConveyor remotely on any PC, Mac or Linux workstation pair or server and workstation.
The no-obligation offer is available at gosymply.com. Users sign up, and as long as they are in the industry and have a need, Symply techs will install the software. The number of free 90-day licenses is limited only by Symply’s ability to install them given its limited resources.
Foundry
Foundry has reset its trial database so that users can access a new 30-day trial for all products regardless of the date of their last trial. The company continues to offer unlimited non-commercial use of Nuke and Mari. On the educational side, students who are unable to access school facilities can get a year of free access to Nuke, Modo, Mari and Katana.
They have also announced virtual events, including:
• Foundry LiveStream – a series of talks around projects, pipelines and tools.
• Foundry Webinars – A 30 to 40-minute technical deep dive into Foundry products, workflows and third-party tools.
• Foundry Skill-Ups – A 30-minute guide to improving your skills as a compositor/lighter/texture artist to get to that next level in your career.
• Foundry Sessions – Special conversations with our customers sharing insights, tips and tricks.
• Foundry Workflow Wednesdays –10-minute weekly videos posted on social media showing tips and tricks with Nuke from our experts.
Alibi Music Library
Alibi Music Library is offering free whitelisted licensing of its Alibi Music and Sound FX catalogs to freelancers, agencies and production companies needing to create or update their demo reels during this challenging time.
Those who would like to take advantage of this opportunity can choose Demo Reel 2020 Gratis from the shopping cart feature on Alibi’s website next to any desired track(s). For more info, click here.
2C Creative
Caleb & Calder Sloan’s Awesome Foundation, the charity of 2C Creative founders Chris Sloan and Carla Kaufman Sloan, is running a campaign that will match individual donations (up to $250 each) to charities supporting first responders, organizations and those affected by COVID-19. 2C is a creative agency & production company serving the TV/streaming business with promos, brand integrations, trailers, upfront presentations and other campaigns. So far, the organization’s “COVID-19 Has Met Its Match” campaign has raised more than $50,000. While the initial deadline date for people to participate was April 6, this has now been extended to April 13. To participate, please visit ccawesomefoundation.org for a list of charities already vetted by the foundation or choose your own. Then, simply email a copy of your donation receipt to: cncawesomefoundation@gmail.com and they will match it!
Red Giant
For the filmmaking education community, Red Giant is offering Red Giant Complete — the full set of tools including Trapcode Suite, Magic Bullet Suite, Universe, VFX Suite and Shooter Suite — free for students or faculty members of a university, college or high school. Instead of buying separate suites or choosing which tools best suits one’s educational needs or budget, students and teachers can get every tool Red Giant makes completely free of charge. All that’s required is a simple verification.
How to get a free Red Giant Complete license if you are a student, teacher or faculty member:
1. Use school or organization ID or any proof of current employment or enrollment for verification. More information on academic verification is available here.
2. Send your academic verification to academic@redgiant.com.
3. Wait for approval via email before purchasing.
4. Once you get approval, go to the Red Giant Complete Product Page and “buy” your free version. You will only be able to buy the free version if you have been pre-approved.
The free education subscription will last 180 days. When that time period ends, users will need to reverify their academic status to renew their free subscription.
Flanders Scientific
Remote collaboration and review benefits greatly from having the same type of display calibrated the same way in both locations. To help facilitate such workflow consistency, FSI is launching a limited time buy one, get one for $1,000 off special on its most popular monitor, the DM240.
Nvidia
For those pros needing to power graphics workloads without local hardware, cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, offer Nvidia Quadro Virtual Workstation instances to support remote, graphics-intensive work quickly without the need for any on-prem infrastructure. End-users only need a connected laptop or thin client, as the virtual workstations support the same Nvidia Quadro drivers and features as the physical Quadro GPUs used by pro artists and designers in local workstations.
Additionally, last week, Nvidia has expanded its free virtual GPU software evaluation to 500 licenses for 90 days to help companies support their remote workers with their existing GPU infrastructure. Nvidia vGPU software licenses — including Quadro Virtual Workstation — enable GPU-accelerated virtualization so that content creators, designers, engineers and others can continue their work. More details are available here. Nvidia has also posted a separate blog on virtual GPUs to help admins who are working to support remote employees
Harman
Harman is offering a free e-learning program called Learning Sessions in conjunction with Harman Pro University.
The Learning Sessions and the Live Workshop Series provide a range of free on-demand and instructor-led webinars hosted by experts from around the world. The Industry Expert workshops feature tips and tricks from front of house engineers, lighting designers, technicians and other industry experts, while the Harman Expert workshops feature in-depth product and solution webinars by Harman product specialists.
• April 7—Lighting for Churches: Live and Video with Lucas Jameson and Chris Pyron
• April 9—Audio Challenges in Esports with Cameron O’Neill
• April 15—Special Martin Lighting Product Launch with Markus Klüesener
• April 16—Lighting Programming Workshop with Susan Rose
• April 23—Performance Manager: Beginner to Expert with Nowell Helms
Apple
Apple is offering free 90-day trials of Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X apps for all in order to help those working from home and looking for something new to master, as well as for students who are already using the tools in school but don’t have the apps on their home computers.
Avid
For its part, Avid is offering free temp licenses for remote users of the company’s creative tools. Commercial customers can get a free 90-day license for each registered user of Media Composer | Ultimate, Pro Tools, Pro Tools | Ultimate and Sibelius | Ultimate. For students whose school campuses are closed, any student of an Avid-based learning institution that uses Media Composer, Pro Tools or Sibelius can receive a free 90-day license for the same products.
Aris
Aris, a full-service production and post house based in Los Angeles, is partnering with ThinkLA to offer free online editing classes for those who want to sharpen their skills while staying close to home during this worldwide crisis. The series will be taught by Aris EP/founder Greg Bassenian, who is also an award-winning writer and director. He has also edited numerous projects for clients including Coca-Cola, Chevy and Zappos.
mLogic
mLogic is offering a 15% discount on its mTape Thunderbolt 3 LTO-7 and LTO-8 solutions The discount applies to orders placed on the mTape website through April 20th. Use discount code mLogicpostPerspective15%.
Xytech
Xytech has launched “Xytech After Dark,” a podcast focusing on trends in the media and broadcasting industries. The first two episodes are now available on iTunes, Spotify and all podcasting platforms.
Xytech’s Greg Dolan says the podcast “is not a forum to sell, but instead to talk about why create the functionality in MediaPulse and the types of things happening in our industry.”
Hosted by Xytech’s Gregg Sandheinrich, the podcast will feature Xytech staff, along with special guests. The first two episodes cover topics including the recent HPA Tech Retreat (featuring HPA president Seth Hallen), as well as the cancellation of the NAB Show, the value of trade shows and the effects of COVID-19 on the industry.
Adobe
Adobe shared a guide to best practices for working from home. It’s meant to support creators and filmmakers who might be shifting to remote work and need to stay connected with their teams and continue to complete projects. You can find the guide here.
Adobe’s principal Creative Cloud evangelist, Jason Levine, hosted a live stream — Video Workflows With Team Projects that focus on remote workflows.
Additionally, Karl Soule, Senior Technical Business Development Manager, hosed a stream focusing on Remote video workflows and collaboration in the enterprise. If you sign up on this page, you can see his presentation.
Streambox
Streambox has introduced a pay-as-you-go software plan for video professionals who use its Chroma 4K, Chroma UHD, Chroma HD and Chroma X streaming encoder/decoder hardware. Since the software has been “decoupled” from the hardware platform, those who own the hardware can rent the software on a monthly basis, pause the subscription between projects and reinstate it as needed. By renting software for a fixed period, creatives can take on jobs without having to pay outright for technology that might have been impractical
Frame.io
Through the end of March, Frame.io is offering 2TB of free extra storage .capacity for 90 days. Those who could use that additional storage to accommodate work from home workflows should email rapid-response@frame.io to get it set up.
Frame.io is also offering free Frame.io Enterprise plans for the next 90 days to support educational institutions, nonprofits and health care organizations that have been impacted. Please email rapid-response@frame.io to set up this account.
To help guide companies through this new reality of remote working, Frame.io is launching a new “Workflow From Home” series on YouTube, hosted by Michael Cioni, with the first episode launching Monday, March 23rd. Cioni will walk through everything artists need to keep post production humming as smoothly as possible. Subscribe to the Frame.io YouTube channel to get notified when it’s released.
EditShare
EditShare has made its web-based, remote production and collaboration tool, Flow Media Management, free through July 1st. Flow enables individuals as well as large creative workgroups to collaborate on story development with capabilities to perform extensive review approval from anywhere in the world. Those interested can complete this form and one of EditShare’s Flow experts will follow up.
Veritone
Veritone will extend free access to its core applications — Veritone Essentials, Attribute and Digital Media Hub — for 60 days. Targeted to media and entertainment clients in radio, TV, film, sports and podcasting, Veritone Essentials, Attribute, and Digital Media Hub are designed to make data and content sharing easy, efficient and universal. The solutions give any workforce (whether in the office or remote) tools that accelerate workflows and facilitate collaboration. The solutions are fully cloud-based, which means that staff can access them from any home office in the world as long as there is internet access.
More information about the free access is here. Certain limitations apply. Offer is subject to change without notice.
SNS
In an effort to quickly help EVO users who are suddenly required to work on editing projects from home, SNS has released Nomad for on-the-go, work-from-anywhere, remote workflows. It is a simple utility that runs on any Mac or Windows system that’s connected to EVO.
Nomad helps users repurpose their existing ShareBrowser preview files into proxy files for offline editing. These proxy files are much smaller versions of the source media files, and therefore easier to use for remote work. They take up less space on the computer, take less time to copy and are easier to manage. Users can edit with these proxy files, and after they’re finished putting the final touches on the production, their NLE can export a master file using the full-quality, high-resolution source files.
Nomad is available immediately and free to all EVO customers.
Ftrack
Remote creative collaboration tool ftrack Review is free for all until May 31. This date might extend as the global situation continues to unfold. ftrack Review is an out-of-the-box remote review and approval tool that enables creative teams to collaborate on, review and approve media via their desktop or mobile browser. Contextual comments and annotations eliminate confusion and reduce reliance on email threads. ftrack Review accepts many media formats as well as PDFs. Every ftrack Review workspace receives 250 GB of storage.
Cinedeck
Cinedeck’s cineXtools allows editing and correcting your file deliveries from home.
From now until April 3rd, pros can get a one month license of cineXtools free of charge.
