Business

U.K.-based post-production company The Finish Line has tapped Boston-based workflow solutions company EditShare and its Flow media management solution to scale post-production business work via remotely enabled workflows.

The cloud-based media control layer solution is helping The Finish Line deliver high-dynamic range (HDR) and editorial productions, covering ingest of rushes, storyboarding, and review and approval.

“Our core business has been based around installing and staffing internal finishing services for production companies. I am always looking at solutions to help us manage our team of creative talent while also ensuring that our clients have a consistent experience that is as good or better than that of a traditional facility,” said Zeb Chadfield, founder and finishing artist for The Finish Line. “Until recently, remote workflows were not commonplace and we spent a lot of time helping production companies migrate over to these services with the intention of helping their budgets to be better utilized.”

The current pandemic has changed how production facilities work, he added, and solutions like those from EditShare are allowing work to continue unimpeded.

“At The Finish Line we have been working as a distributed business for a long time and are in a position to help companies quickly pivot their operations,” he said. “We can build all of the technology our clients are used to having access to in traditional facilities but within a virtual environment. We can then automate their ingest processes and provide them with easy and secure access to view their media. They can collaborate with their editors even while they are continuing to shoot or need to stay home because of a global pandemic.”

Flow connects to industry storage platforms which adds a control layer to manage millions of assets, and also supports a large range of codecs and resolutions, up to 8K. Embedded production tools allow users to search, browse, retrieve and distribute content with automation capabilities.

“The Finish Line’s business model takes the best of all worlds and delivers on the highest standards. Physical walls, geographical and time zone boundaries have no effect on the efficiency and delivery of high quality productions,” said Rob Adams, VP of worldwide sales for EditShare. “Rapidly changing global events have forced a rethink about workflow collaboration. The traditional office, or in this case, the cutting room, is no longer the norm. Zeb is thinking — and working — light years ahead in terms of remote production. We are honored that he is driving this new approach and putting Flow right at the core of what is likely to be the industry’s next big shift.”