Strike Ends – What’s Next?

‍Strike Ends– What’s Next?

With the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes settled, the industry is anxious and ready to get back to work. Chuck Parker, CEO Of Sohonet, explores the best remote collaboration tools to help the industry resume operations securely, with full flexibility, and without breaking the bank.

After months of being dormant, the industry is about to shift gears into overdrive and get back to work.

“This feels a little like the post-Covid rush but instead of lockdowns ending in a staggered fashion around the world, everyone is now organizing schedules all at once,” notes Sohonet CEO Chuck Parker. “ While the return to work post strikes shares some similarity to the pandemic, it is fundamentally different from the last time our industry had to take a pause. The pandemic put work from home front and center, and developed new production protocols. The strike, however, has brought work to a standstill for most of the year, affecting productions as well as significant portions of post-production and VFX. No one is going to be afraid of going to work when this ends, everyone will be racing back to sets, editing rooms, and facilities and producers and post production managers need to be ready and  the participants along the chain are striving for a smooth and rapid re-engagement to get back up to speed, including everyone here at Sohonet.

“While not a solution to all problems, clearly, tools can help ease the transition and the recent downtime has given many industry professionals time to think about upgrading their tools as they return to work. At Sohonet, we’ve been developing our existing tools and innovating new ones, so everything is primed for the industry to get back to work as quickly as possible and save precious budgets in the process,” he adds. 

The team at Sohonet have been thinking in advance to this situation and have re-engineered our five main software products to enable more flexible work whether on-prem, in cloud or hybrid environments. We’ve introduced a number of production-oriented and post-oriented pricing bundles so smaller companies and single productions can take advantage of the technologies that can ease the transition back.  

Sohonet is offering a range of packages tuned for various needs, including on-set productions, post-production, editorial work, and the review of dailies and rushes. Each tool and combination of tools enables remote and collaborative workflows connected by a unified identity offering allowing single sign on and single login across the Sohonet offering of products.

Sohonet’s product range has been re-envisioned with new features which will help our customers ramp up operations quickly, including:

ClearView Rush

‍A powerful new dailies tool enables filmmakers to review content from set, on a schedule that works for them. We’re offering our customers an asynchronous review option to view shots offline, comment on them and know that those comments flow back to the right person to make changes. ClearView Rush compliments ClearView Flex, our realtime review tool for instant decision making.

ClearView Flex

‍Upgrades to Sohonet’s flagship software product include more profiles for use in higher end workflows. Annotations will be enabled for iPad. Plus, we have deployed the ability to use Flex virtually in the cloud on VMware and on Microsoft Azure. All in all, we think that’s a powerful line up.

ClearView Pivot Pro

Sohonet has enhanced its ClearView Pivot platform with groundbreaking streaming capabilities, offering speeds of 500 Mbps, 750 Mbps and 1 Gbps for high-quality reviews and now supporting up to 10 remote viewing locations on the Sohonet Media Network. They are also introducing an "off-net" package in Pivot Starter, allowing secure transmission of up to 150 Mbps and accommodating up to five viewing locations via business grade internet, giving media teams the freedom to collaborate from any location without the requirement of utilizing the Sohonet Media Network.

FileRunner

Sohonet’s popular file transfer tool receives an acceleration boost and new smarter workflow capabilities. When something happens in a workflow that knocks the process off track, people want the ability to easily check progress so that they can busy themselves elsewhere. It’s a really common request and that’s what we’re going to deliver. This is not just about simple restart but the ability to resume and pick up from exactly where the break happened. It’s all about making life better for productions.

“Security is also a big theme for the industry as workflows continue to decentralize and virtualize,” notes Parker. “Across the range of our software product, facilities managers will be able to better organize multiple productions by switching on discrete security permissions for certified artists and across different projects.” 

Don’t let your production falter in the rush to get back to work. With Sohonet’s secure real time and remote collaborative tools you can be assured of speed, efficiency and professionalism every step of the way.