HITS Connections

Box, MESA to Host ‘Producing a Hit in the Cloud’ Webinar Sept. 2

By Chris Tribbey

Last year the popular rock band Foo Fighters did something pretty unique.

Visiting eight American cities (Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Seattle and Washington, D.C.), the band’s front man Dave Grohl used interviews with local musicians, music engineers, and music producers to produce songs based on each city’s musical history. The end result was “Sonic Highways,” the eighth album from the 20-year-old band.

Concurrent with the band’s work on “Sonic Highways” was production of an eight-episode HBO documentary series, “Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways,” an Emmy-nominated docu-series chronicling the work put into the tracks.

And according to Jim Rota, executive producer for the HBO series, there was at least one specific company that helped make production of “Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways” successful: Box.

“Box helped us immensely on the show,” Rota said. “As we moved from city to city developing this series, Box provided us with a one stop shop for reviewing and collaborating on photos, videos, music and production logistics. We couldn’t have produced this series without Box. We used it for everything.”

The success Rota found using Box to produce “Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways” will be front and center Sept. 2 when he and Jade McQueen, managing director of media and entertainment for Box, take part in a unique Webinar: “Producing a Hit in the Cloud: Fireside Chat with the Producers of HBO Docu-series, ‘Sonic Highways.’” The Webinar is being produced by Box and the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA), and will focus on how a platform like Box can help content companies take advantage of the cloud, and change how creative teams produce and distribute content.

Using Box, Rota’s post-production team for “Sonic” could preview and manage clips and collaborate with licensers on archival material instantaneously, McQueen said.

According to McQueen, the “Sonic Highways” example is especially poignant for the media and entertainment industry, showing that Box can be utilized as a cloud-based, virtual office allowing creative teams to collaborate on all their materials, and serve as a central repository for every production aspect.

“To me, this use case stands out, because of the multiple [shoot] locations and all of the archival footage. The collaboration between the production and the people licensing out this archival material made it unique,” McQueen said. “We’re seeing more of this in the media and entertainment industry, this idea of having a central, collaborative space. It’s a larger industry trend.”

The “Producing a Hit in the Cloud” Webinar will be held Sept. 2 at 11 a.m. Pacific. To register, click here.