In the just published first installment of a series of Sponsored Entertainment & Advertising Technology features, SHOOT delves into digital workflow solutions, placing the spotlight on five pioneering companies, including Arc 9. In this feature, SHOOT connects with leaders who tell their stories of how their tools are helping to define today’s constantly evolving digital workflow.
The feature titled "Workflow in the Digital Age" was published on October 17, 2014 across SHOOT's digital and print platforms including SHOOT Magazine, SHOOTonline and The SHOOT>e.dition. Arc 9's Melissa Davies was interviewed for the article.
Here is an excerpt from the SHOOT feature about Arc9…
The founders of Arc 9–Melissa Davies and Sukhi Singh–envisioned a virtual world where artists and contributors from all over the world could easily and seamlessly collaborate. For Davies, that vision came out of her digital effects experience, as owner of Sight Effects, a VFX boutique, and The Digital Lab, a software company. The Digital Lab created plug-ins (including the video interface for what became Discreet Flame) and she learned first hand the power of using software to enhance and optimize the creative process. “In the early days of digital, we used to have to write the tools ourselves or find someone to do so,” Davies says.
What gave her the impetus to pursue virtual collaboration was an experience working on a campaign for Prada. “We had 13 companies, from graphic design and film to fabric design, working on the campaign,” she recalls. “Everybody was working in different applications. We couldn’t email the files because they’re too big. If you had a Photoshop file, you have to make a JPEG of each layer. It quickly became a conversion nightmare and very labor-intensive.” Davies began developing conversion programs that would allow the various file types to convert automatically. “We didn’t have this central machine room where someone took it all in, converted it and got it to the edit bay,” she says. “That was the biggest piece that was missing.”
Arc9 was born in 2012 out of its founders’ desire to end that conversion nightmare, making it easy for far-flung artists to collaborate and thus putting the focus on the creative process. It currently supports over 300 file types and video codecs.
Davies notes that Arc 9 is possible because the technologies behind it have come of age. “It’s really about being in the cloud,” she says. “What we want to do is add some standardization to the creative industry. In the current day scenario, people cobble together multiple applications or develop their own applications in order to file-share, review and manage creative content.” One of Arc9’s differentiating features is Video Reviews. “With that, you can collaborate and make presentations with mixed media,” she says. “We believe that is one of the kingpins in today’s process. So many companies need to collaborate on media that adding in Video Reviews takes away some of that pain.”
“Arc 9 is about taking nine different feature categories – from file-sharing and annotation, proofing, IT development and versioning-–and bring them all into one simple program,” she says. Now one of the challenges is educating people in the industry how to use the tools and incorporate them into their workflows. Here, Arc 9 offers another important feature. “Arc 9’s toolset is fully brand-able,” says Davies. “You can add your company logo on every screen and completely white label it. But the biggest advantage is making it simple for your clients. Our whole passion is to make a really simple, pain-free process.”
To read the full "Workflow in the Digital Age" sponsored feature, please visit one of the following links:
Click Here to read the online version of the article.Here's link to online version of article.
Click Here to view article in the PDF version of the October 17, 2014 PDF version of SHOOT Magazine. (click on first issue at top of the page)
Click Here to view/download PDF version of just the article.
Click Here to request information on future SHOOT Entertainment and Advertising Technology sponsored features. Sponsorship includes participation in feature article plus digital and print advertising & promotion.
