M+E Daily

By Lyndsey Schaefer

When animation house ToonBox Entertainment decided to move into feature film production, the Toronto-based company realized it needed to scale out its IT infrastructure to produce content in a short amount of time on a limited budget. After evaluating solutions from multiple vendors, ToonBox found an ideal partner in Dell, who helped put together a high quality, stereoscopic animation studio in record time.

William Seneshen, head of production technology for ToonBox Entertainment, says that it was important to find a vendor who would be responsive to the needs of small companies like itself.

“Dell was looking to get into this industry, and the timing was great,” Seneshen said. “Knowing we are supported is everything. [With Dell’s help] we’ve been able to put a pipeline together very quickly.”

Dell equipped ToonBox with everything the company needed for each department, from visual effects and lighting to graphics. Using Dell’s solutions, ToonBox was able to stick to its strict timelines and also trim its budgets.

Janet Bartleson of Dell Data Center Solutions (DCS) says that with Dell’s focus and strength in scale-out designs and supply chain efficiencies, the solutions provider made for an ideal fit for ToonBox’s needs. The DCS team took what it had previously created for some of the world’s largest cloud computing stations and brought those best practices to the PowerEdge C solutions that ToonBox is using.

Seneshen says that since ToonBox had a very tight timeline for its projects, “We had to define our production pipeline and asset management with crews that were confident in the project. It’s possible to do high-end CGI on a tight schedule, [but] deadline pushes in this business are a horror show.”

Dell’s team helped build a shared infrastructure for animation rendering with powerful workstations for the designers on the front end of the CGI pipeline, all the way to PowerEdge C6100 servers at the back end for animation rendering. Dell provided its highest performing processors and most efficient components throughout the production pipeline. The Dell servers, for example, boast double the density and twice the amount of horsepower as an average server, Bartleson says. The PowerEdge C6100 also shares power and cooling components, driving efficiency to also save on power bills.

“We have an award-winning supply chain and can quickly get resources where ToonBox needs them so they can keep cranking away at high quality animation,” Bartleson says. “This is stereoscopic 3D, not just any animation. They have to produce everything twice from a different view.

“What Toonbox is doing is really exciting,” Bartleson adds. “The quality of the film that’s coming out is amazing. And however we can help with the infrastructure behind it, we’re delighted to help them bring it to market very quickly.”

Dell: www.dell.com/poweredgec

Toonbox Entertainment: www.toonboxent.com