MovieLabs (Motion Pictures Laboratories), a nonprofit technology research lab that works jointly with member studios Sony, Warner Bros., Disney, Universal and Paramount, has published a new white paper presenting an industry vision for the future of media creation technology by 2030.
The paper, co-authored by MovieLabs and technologists from Hollywood studios, paints a bold picture of future technology and discusses the need for the industry to work together now on innovative new software, hardware and production workflows to support and enable new ways to create content over the next 10 years. The white paper is available today for free download on the MovieLabs website.
The 2030 Vision paper lays out key principles that will form the foundation of this technological future, with examples and a discussion of the broader implications of each. The key principles envision a future in which:
1. All assets are created or ingested straight to the cloud and do not need to move.
2. Applications come to the media.
3. Propagation and distribution of assets is a “publish” function.
4. Archives are deep libraries with access policies matching speed, availability and security to the economics of the cloud.
5. Preservation of digital assets includes the future means to access and edit them.
6. Every individual on a project is identified and verified and their access permissions are efficiently and consistently managed.
7. All media creation happens in a highly secure environment that adapts rapidly to changing threats.
8. Individual media elements are referenced, tracked, interrelated and accessed using a universal linking system.
9. Media workflows are non-destructive and dynamically created using common interfaces, underlying data formats and metadata.
10. Workflows are designed around realtime iteration and feedback.
Rich Berger
“The next 10 years will bring significant opportunities, but there are still major challenges and inherent inefficiencies in our production and distribution workflows that threaten to limit our future ability to innovate,” says Richard Berger, CEO of MovieLabs. “We have been working closely with studio technology leaders and strategizing how to integrate new technologies that empower filmmakers to create ever more compelling content with more speed and efficiency. By laying out these principles publicly, we hope to catalyze an industry dialog and fuel innovation, encouraging companies and organizations to help us deliver on these ideas.”
The publication of the paper will be supported with a panel discussion at the IBC Conference in Amsterdam. The panel, “Hollywood’s Vision for the Future of Production in 2030,” will include senior technology leaders from the five major Hollywood motion picture studios. It will take place on Sunday, September 15 at 2:15pm in the IBC Conference in the Forum room of the RAI. postPerspective’s Randi Altman will moderate the panel made up of Sony’s Bill Baggelaar, Disney’s Shadi Almassizadeh, Universal’s Michael Wise and Paramount’s Anthony Guarino. More details can be found here.
“Sony Pictures Entertainment has a deep appreciation for the role that current and future technologies play in content creation,” says CTO of Sony Pictures Don Eklund. “As a subsidiary of a technology-focused company, we benefit from the power of Sony R&D and Sony’s product groups. The MovieLabs 2030 document represents the contribution of multiple studios to forecast and embrace the impact that cloud, machine learning and a range of hardware and software will have on our industry. We consider this a living document that will evolve over time and provide appreciated insight.”
According to Wise, SVP/CTO at Universal Pictures, “With film production experiencing unprecedented growth, and new innovative forms of storytelling capturing our audiences’ attention, we’re proud to be collaborating across the industry to envision new technological paradigms for our filmmakers so we can efficiently deliver worldwide audiences compelling entertainment.”
For those not familiar with MovieLabs, their stated goal is “to enable member studios to work together to evaluate new technologies and improve quality and security, helping the industry deliver next-generation experiences for consumers, reduce costs and improve efficiency through industry automation, and derive and share the appropriate data necessary to protect and market the creative assets that are the core capital of our industry.”
