Earlier this month Microsoft acquired the cloud-migration platform Movere. These days it seems like everything is going to the cloud, and movie-making shouldn’t be left alone. Today, Walt Disney announced a 5-year partnership with Microsoft, aiming to develop new ways to create the content workflow on the Azure cloud platform.
Walt Disney is already innovating with various technology. Walt Disney StudioLAB is one such example. It is a technology hub designed to experiment with the future of storytelling with cutting-edge tools and methods.
With the involvement of Walt Disney StudioLAB, the company aims to deliver a cloud-based solution to help innovation accelerate at The Walt Disney Studios for production and post-production processes, or from “scene to screen.” The movie production software company – Avid, is also involved.
“The cloud has reached a tipping point for the media industry, and it’s not surprising that The Walt Disney Studios, which has its heritage based on a passion for innovation and technology, is at the forefront of this transformation,” said Kate Johnson, president of Microsoft US. “The combination of Azure’s hyper-scale capacity, global distribution, and industry-leading storage and networking capabilities with Disney’s strong history of industry leadership unlocks new opportunities in the media and entertainment space and will power new ways to drive content and creativity at scale. With Azure as the platform cloud for content, we’re excited to work with the team at StudioLAB to continue to drive innovation across Disney’s broad portfolio of studios.”
With a large number of computer resources available to filmmaking, the cloud is the perfect model for it. Cloud allows scaling resources as needed, whether it’s providing scenes or adding special effects. As Disney’s CTO Jamie Voris sees it, this could make specific processes more efficient, which would help lower costs and time for production.
Working closely with leading global media technology provider Avid, Microsoft & Disney are already proving that the cloud-enabled security can be used and driven by a variety of high-performance workflows necessary for the media and entertainment industry.
The adoption of cloud by media can present significant new benefits and efficiencies, enabling production teams to re-think the way they get their work done.