Production 2.0

Last week the Producers Guild hosted a private event in New York City, all about the emerging world of cloud-based production.  If you weren’t invited, don’t fret – Production 2.0 has all the details, plus exclusive video of the three featured speakers.

The event was hosted by Sony at their amazing Wonder Technology Lab, where members of the guild were invited to learn about the latest cloud-based production technologies, and to see them live in action.  First on stage was Jeff Wurtz, the 5-time EMMY winning producer and director of Inside the Actors Studio.  He recently transformed the way he produces his show, moving to an entirely tapeless HD workflow.  The most important change that the show made though, according to Wurtz, was moving its production management into the cloud using Scenios.  He then introduced Scenios CEO Mark Davis, who gave a 30 minute live demo of the technology, which you can see in the video below.  Davis actually made some pretty big announcements during his speech, including an array of new features on the Scenios platform: live video conferencing, instant messaging, text messaging, and even a way to read Final Draft Scripts right in your web browser.

Next up was Jim Fitzgerald, CEO of another cloud-based production platform called Lightspeed.  This company is a relatively recent market entrant, but their technology offers a unique take on pulling all the elements of production together into one place.  Fitzgerald demo’d how the platform worked, and showed how it can be used to handle things like scheduling and call sheets.

Crews Control sponsored a cocktail hour afterwards, where there seemed to be a real buzz in the air about producing in the cloud.  Watch the video below and let us know your thoughts…are you using any tools in the cloud?  How’s it working for you?