Film and Video Production in the Cloud

With cloud applications and services now widely available, film and video professionals have all the tools they need to work together on centralized platforms and effectively collaborate across separate desktop, web, and mobile devices. In Film and Video Production in the Cloud, veteran video production consultant Jack James provides a practical guide to cloud processes, concepts, and workflows as they relate to the most widely used cloud applications in the industry. Topics discussed include the benefits of cloud storage, cloud-based production and postproduction pipelines, project and asset management, distribution and archiving, budget and security considerations, and crowdsourcing.
This book will allow readers to:
- Harness cloud-based tools and processes to enhance your film and video production pipeline and help your creative team collaborate effectively across separate desktop, web, and mobile devices;
- Discover the benefits of cloud-based film and video production, as well as key approaches to budgeting and planning, project and asset management, distribution and archiving, security considerations, and crowdsourcing in the cloud;
- Learn how to apply fundamental cloud methodologies and best practices to the most widely used cloud services and applications in the industry, including Adobe Creative Cloud, Autodesk A360, Avid Media Composer Cloud, Asana, Basecamp, and Shotgun.

Jack James currently works for Autodesk, helping UK film productions work with the cloud-based production tracking software Shotgun, and has worked widely in cloud production for film and video. He has previously published two books with Focal Press, Digital Intermediates for Film & Video (2005) and Fix it in Post (2009).

- Chapter 1 Silver screens and silver linings Introduction - Chapter 2 What Is the "Cloud"? Origin of the term; different types of "clouds" - Chapter 3 Film & Video Production in the Cloud Practical and theoretical benefits of cloud computing in a production context: efficiency, connectedness, access, going mobile - Chapter 4 Cloud Storage Benefits vs local storage: encryption, cost-effective, easy, robust, sync. Drawbacks: transmission speeds, internet connection required, security concerns, lack of immediacy. Dropbox, box, google drive, iCloud, Amazon S3. - Chapter 5 Cloud Computing Rendering; heavy number-crunching. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud - Chapter 6 Collaboration and Communication Software as a service; online project management solutions; cloud-based video-conferencing. Google docs & spreadsheets, Asana, Basecamp, Shotgun, Adobe Creative Cloud, Autodesk A360, Avid Media Composer Cloud - Chapter 7 Production Outlining; scheduling - Chapter 8 Planning Importing data into a single place; logging metadata; synchronisation; logging information as it occurs; best practices for structuring metadata; being prepared for data to transform; versioning - Chapter 9 Finance Sending & receiving digital assets; best practices for organising digital assets - Chapter 10 Tracking Progress reporting; dashboarding (summarising large amounts of data); benchmarking (comparing one production to others) - Chapter 11 Asset Management Streaming playback; review sessions; annotation; getting feedback to the right people - Chapter 12 Review and Approval Sharing metadata with third-parties & vendors; long-term storage benefits; reusable assets for episodic content; Amazon Glacier, Vimeo, YouTube, Pix - Chapter 13 Distribution and Archive Watermarking; access restriction; trusting the cloud providers - Chapter 14 Security Considerations Crowd-voting; crowdfunding; crowdsourcing labour. Ethical considerations. Kickstarter, Amazon Mechanical Turk. - Chapter 15 Automation Access to better tools; more ubiquitous access; faster speeds; reduced costs - Chapter 16 Crowdsourcing -Chapter 17 Potential Index