Paramount Global (Nasdaq: PARA, PARAA), one of the world’s largest providers and producers of media and entertainment content, has entered into an agreement that offers Avid’s (Nasdaq: AVID) managed cloud solutions for video content production to creative teams around the globe.
The companies’ new cloud subscription services agreement supports Paramount Tech’s “Cloud First” mindset, transforming production operations with rapidly scalable, centralized resources that relieve creative teams from the burden of infrastructure management. Avid’s managed platform is delivered on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, supporting video editing tools, content management platforms and shared storage that are now available to teams consisting of hundreds of contributors, editors and producers around the world who collaborate daily on shows, promos and “tentpole” global events such as the MTV Europe Music Awards.
“The cloud brings a new paradigm for our industry to reshape operations, innovate creative workflows and drive toward a cloud production ecosystem that can accelerate content availability,” said Phil Wiser, EVP and chief technology officer, Paramount Global. “Avid’s managed cloud gives us the agility, speed and capabilities to collaborate from anywhere by bringing together our end-user tools, production platforms and workflow management into a scalable cloud subscription. We’ve become much nimbler and more efficient at meeting the elastic needs of the geographically distributed teams delivering Paramount content.”
Paramount began its cloud journey with Avid by creating an open environment to ensure collaboration between users of Avid and third-party editing tools, followed by the establishment of remote editing workflows for business continuity at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The companies’ new agreement empowers Paramount production teams in Europe, Asia Pacific and the U.S. to create TV shows and other content on the open Avid MediaCentral® production platform, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere video editing software and Avid NEXIS® media storage–all managed by Avid in the cloud.
“While we began our cloud work with Paramount with a proof of concept, our expanding collaboration showed us the speed at which this industry is learning to apply the cloud toward dramatically enhancing the many ways production teams want to do their best work,” said Jeff Rosica, CEO and president, Avid. “Avid is thrilled to bring the power of our cloud collaboration with Microsoft to help Paramount carry out their vision for content creation far beyond the limitations of on-premises operations into the cloud while driving adoption across the industry.”
Avid’s offerings for large-scale media production in the cloud benefit from its longstanding Strategic Cloud Alliance with Microsoft. These include a rapidly deployable Managed Cloud Platform; On Demand Services such as Avid | Edit On Demand™; Certified Cloud Workflows for the production communities; and consultative Cloud Incubation projects that assist Avid customers in fulfilling their unique vision for cloud operations.
Paramount’s portfolio of consumer brands includes CBS, Showtime Networks, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, Paramount+, Pluto TV and Simon & Schuster.
Full Lineup Set For AFI Fest; Official Selections Span 44 Countries, Include 9 Best International Feature Oscar Submissions
The American Film Institute (AFI) has unveiled the full lineup for this year’s AFI Fest, taking place in Los Angeles from October 23-27. Rounding out the slate of already announced titles are such highlights as September 5 directed by Tim Fehlbaum, All We Imagine As Light directed by Payal Kapadia, The Luckiest Man in America directed by Samir Oliveros (AFI Class of 2019), Zurawski v. Texas from executive producers Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Jennifer Lawrence and directors Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, and Oh, Canada directed by Paul Schrader (AFI Class of 1969). A total of 158 films are set to screen at the 38th edition of AFI Fest.
Of the official selections, 48% are directed by women and non-binary filmmakers and 26% are directed by BIPOC filmmakers.
Additional festival highlights include documentaries Architecton directed by Victor Kossakovsky; Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie directed by David Bushell; Devo directed by Chris Smith about the legendary new wave provocateurs; Gaucho Gaucho directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw; Group Therapy directed by Neil Berkeley with Emmy® winner Neil Patrick Harris and Tig Notaro; No Other Land directed by a Palestinian-Israeli team comprised of Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal; Pavements directed by Alex Ross Perry; and Separated directed by Errol Morris. Notable narrative titles include Black Dog (Gou Zen) directed by Guan Hu; Bonjour Tristesse directed by Durga Chew-Bose with Academy Award® nominee Chloë Sevigny; Caught By The Tides directed by Jia Zhangke; Hard Truths directed by Mike Leigh with... Read More