Throughout its century-plus existence, the motion picture industry has had to fight battles on multiple fronts to protect its content from piracy. From protecting film reels from duplication by unscrupulous parties (often theater owners themselves), to the age of VCRs, DVDs, IP-based peer-to-peer networks and today’s streaming services, Hollywood has a long history of working to keep ahead of what has often been termed as a “whack-a-mole” strategy.

And as content has moved from the theater to broadcast and now to streaming, the threats are myriad and growing, with the estimated annual lost revenue to the U.S. economy due to global online content piracy at nearly $30 billion, according to Bryan Willett, vice president, content protection (Americas), Motion Picture Association (MPA).

One of the biggest misconceptions is that piracy is a victimless crime and that it’s harmless, Willett said.

“In reality, digital piracy harms the entire entertainment ecosystem, including
all the people who work hard to bring a movie or TV series to fruition,” he said. “We’re talking about set builders, makeup and wardrobe artists, caterers, cinematographers, sound mixers, production assistants—the list goes on.”

In today’s connected world, that’s not the only risk, he adds.

“Streaming or downloading pirated content puts consumers’ sensitive information at risk,” Willett added. “Recent studies have shown that accessing pirated movies or TV shows could compromise credit cards, banking information and even infect your computer with malware.

“Many consumers aren’t aware that digital piracy operations are often linked to global organized crime rings that engage in drug and human trafficking, fraud and other crimes,” he added. “We like to say that if a streaming deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Strength in Numbers
The importance of intra-industry cooperation to battle the threats posed by piracy prompted MPA to create the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) in 2017.

“MPA/ACE have nearly 50-plus members, comprising studios, broadcasters and sports organizations, and we work with them regularly, particularly with respect to our anti-piracy efforts,” Willett said. “We also have developed relationships with many intermediaries and work with these and many other partners to ensure we continue to detect, deter and dismantle piracy operations.

“Working with these partners is critical, given piracy operators are reliant on them to provide infrastructure, bandwidth and payment processing,” he added. “Additionally, a great part of our success is due to the partnerships we’ve formed with law-enforcement agencies such as the FBI, HSI, Interpol and Europol, as well as other foreign agencies.”

The studios have used a variety of methods to combat piracy over the years, through physical enforcement, litigation and legislation, but perhaps the most significant step to address the problem in the digital age was the creation of MovieLabs in 2006.

Motion Picture Laboratories Inc. (aka MovieLabs) is a nonprofit technology research laboratory that was founded by the then-major studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox Film Corp., Universal City Studios, Walt Disney Pictures and Television and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

In essence, MovieLabs serves as a tech hub designed to research and fund the development of technologies that advance media distribution and creation, according to President and CEO Rich Berger, who noted the confluence of factors that has led to the challenges studios currently face.

“Throughout our history, our industry has faced a range of challenges, including changing consumer habits, rapidly evolving and disruptive technologies, more competition for time spent on media consumption and economic challenges,” he said. “Currently, we are seeing a combination of all these factors. The good news is that our industry continues to evolve and overcome these challenges.”

A key component of the organization’s current focus has been outlined in the “MovieLabs 2030 Vision,” which outlines its strategy in adapting to the rapidly evolving media distribution landscape.

“The MovieLabs 2030 Vision is a growing industry movement inspired by the MovieLabs Evolution of Media Creation white paper, which lays out a bold vision and roadmap for a more secure, efficient and interoperable media creation pipeline using cloud infrastructure, zero-trust security and software-defined workflows,” Berger said. “The ultimate goal is to empower storytellers to create the best stories imaginable without limits.”

Although battling piracy is among the core goals of MovieLabs, the organization is not an enforcer. Instead, it chooses to attack the problem by identifying and developing new technologies for content creation and distribution, which in turn, can result in the enhancement of copyright protection. Among its biggest current technical challenges is the inefficiency of moviemaking, according to Berger.

“One of the biggest challenges that MovieLabs and the 2030 Vision seeks to address is the current inefficiency and complexity of media creation,” Berger said. “While the industry has a number of challenges, including the general disruption that technology itself has created, the 2030 Vision can help meet today’s mandate for efficiency while maintaining the quality that audiences have come to expect from our studio members.”

Talking Together
Interoperability underpins just about every aspect of the 2030 Vision, according to Berger.

“One of the most important benefits of interoperability is the wider choice of vendors, tools, infrastructure and services it gives to creative teams,” he said. “And it has many others, including streamlining workflows to save time for higher-value creative tasks, enabling faster adoption of new, innovative technologies without breaking things, simplifying collaboration, and creating more secure and frictionless authentication and authorization experiences.

“For these reasons, it’s essential that our industry come together, as we are in the Industry forum, and make the new generation of workflows more interoperable,” he added.

To achieve this goal, MovieLabs has created a new group to promote such collaborations.

“We think the exchange of metadata that connects people, work and assets is ripe for improved interoperability, which led us to create the Ontology for Media Creation (OMC),” Berger said. “And we have an active program called “2030 Greenlight,” where we work with tool vendors to improve the interoperability of their products and to demonstrate their new capabilities, like the use of OMC, in real workflows.

“Ultimately, the 2030 Vision is about creative enablement,” Berger added. “2030 Greenlight is all about demonstrating the value for our creative partners.”

Trusted Partner Network
Another organization created in recent years to take on piracy is the Trusted Partner Network, a joint venture between MPA and the Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA) formed in 2018. Among its first goals was to use MPA content security best practices to assess security risks in the industry, TPN President Terri Davies said.

“At the end of the first year [2019], they had something like 300 assessments completed,” she said. “All of the studios were signed up, many of the service providers in the industry were signed up, and it was going really well.”

Then the pandemic exposed a weak point.

“The best practices and TPN were heavily focused on physical site security; they hadn’t yet moved to app and cloud—and of course, we know what happened,” Davies said. “COVID closed all of the buildings and the security assessments meant nothing.

“Everybody was very, very entrepreneurial at that time, and those who could move to the cloud did move to the cloud, and TPN didn’t keep up,” Davies added. “And the studios had no choice then but to go back to this very fragmented approach of doing their own security assessments of each of the service providers, because the real goal of TPN is to improve security preparedness in the industry but also to provide efficiency.”

In 2023, the organization was relaunched with a new membership model, application and cloud content security assessments, and the introduction of the “TPN+” platform.

The organization—which is now wholly owned by the MPA—used the updated MPA Content Security Best Practices v5.0 to expand its scope to include software application and cloud security in addition to site and work-from-home security assessments.

“With the launch of its enhanced program, TPN is taking a crucial step toward ensuring the security of all content produced by our members,” Karyn Temple, senior executive vice president and global general counsel of the MPA, said. “Content security is a top priority of the MPA, TPN and all of our member studios, whose ability to produce the films and TV shows audiences love depends on our ability to protect and secure that content.”

Davies explained the three main roles the TPN provides to the industry.

“We have three roles in TPN—one is what we call a content owner, which might be a Hollywood studio, Sky or BBC studios,” she said. “Those are the content owners who consume the security assessments from the vendors, who we call service providers, who do the security assessment in TPN. The service providers are everything from visual effects, localization, even pre-script.”

Davies estimates that 90% of TPN’s members work on pre-release content, “so we have a lot of application providers, like Adobe, frame.io, for example, as well as the traditional service providers—editing, localization, audio and post, all the way through to distribution.”

TPN’s third role is the aforementioned risk assessment, Davies added.

“We have our own accredited assessors who do the assessments, because we can’t just have anybody do our assessments,” she said. “We consider all three of those roles and anybody—whether they paid us or not—that’s in the platform, they are our stakeholders. We send out security alerts to them, for example, when we hear something going on through ACE, or through the studios or through the industry.”

Membership in TPN is voluntary but rapidly growing, Davies said. It includes all seven MPA studios, along with new members Apple Studios, BBC Studios, Sky and Canal Plus Group.

“We’ve got over 1,500 companies signed up in the TPN+ platform right now representing 60-plus countries,” Davies said, adding that “78% of our members have less than $5 million annual gross revenue.”

All of those members have a vested interest in industry-wide content protection and with the three organizations collaborating, they are making a difference, according to Willett.

“ACE takes down numerous piracy operations each year, he said. “In fact, a few months ago we shut down the world’s largest live sports-piracy network, Streameast. The site received over 1.5 billion visits in the past 12 months, representing major financial losses for our live-tier members.

“Each time a court sentences a piracy network operator for their illicit activities, we consider that a victory,” Willett added. “It sends a powerful deterrent message that piracy is a crime and the consequences are serious. We’ve seen judges issue fines and even prison sentences for piracy operations of all sizes.”

SAN FRANCISCO—MovieLabs, the technology joint venture of the major Hollywood studios today announced the formation of a Leadership Council and the inaugural member companies joining its MovieLabs Industry Forum.

First announced in August 2024, the MovieLabs Industry Forum was created to convene the growing global community of media and technology companies who are actively supporting and implementing the MovieLabs 2030 Vision and the many other MovieLabs initiatives that the group is planning to drive next generation media production and creativity.

MovieLabs and its studio members (Paramount Pictures Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Universal City Studios, LLC., The Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.) will be joined by Adobe, Amazon Web Services, Avid, Dolby, DreamWorks Animation, and Skywalker Sound in the Forum’s Leadership Council.

The group said that the Leadership Council will guide the prioritization of the key focus areas that will drive the MovieLabs Industry Forum agenda and the collaborative industry work that will help enable a more secure, interoperable, and effective media creation ecosystem.

Richard Berger, CEO at Movielabs has also announced that Leon Silverman, a respected creative technology executive with senior roles at Walt Disney Studios, Netflix, LaserPacific, Eastman Kodak Company, and an advisor to MovieLabs since 2020, has been appointed as the chair of the MovieLabs Industry Forum. In addition, Silverman was the founder and serves as an advisor to the board of the Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) and is actively involved in executive committee roles at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy.

In addition to the Leadership Council, the inaugural members of the MovieLabs Industry Forum include the following industry-leading organizations:

• CREE8
• EMAM
• Evercast
• Final Draft
• Gunpowder
• Holli
• MASV
• LucidLink
• NexSpec
• Palo Alto Networks
• Perfect Memory
• Perception Grid
• Perpetual Intelligence
• Postudio
• Prime Focus Technologies
• REDSpace
• The Rebel Fleet
• Saturation.io
• Scripto
• Scriptation
• Signiant
• Sohonet
• Sony Group Corporation
• Tedial
• TrackIt
• United Talent Agency
• Yamdu
• Zixi

MovieLabs said it created the Industry Forum as a common ground for those industry companies that are actively re-inventing and re-tooling their supply chains in alignment with the 2030 Vision. In addition, the Forum will address how AI tools and approaches can be beneficially created in the context of the secure, interoperable, and creator empowering tools and workflows that the 2030 Vision enables.

With membership now open, the MovieLabs Industry Forum is now inviting companies from a variety of sectors worldwide, including technology service providers, creative service providers, application development organizations, production companies, and cloud organizations/infrastructure providers to join, the group said.

The Forum, which officially launched in January 2025, will provide its members with a unique platform to engage deeply with MovieLabs and its member studios, collaborate on common industry solutions to improve interoperability, enable the principled application of AI in workflows and tools, and realize the benefits of the 2030 Vision. Interested companies can apply for membership at www.movielabs.com/IndustryForum.

In a statement, Richard Berger, CEO of MovieLabs added that: "It is essential for our industry to continue to embrace emerging technologies in ways that empower storytellers and the entire creative community. While much work lies ahead, we are gathering the right companies and voices to realize the 2030 Vision future that has inspired so many. Together with our member studios, the Leadership Council, and new members of the Forum, and with Leon Silverman as Chair, we are well positioned for success.”

"We’re at a crucial point in our industry’s evolution, where collaboration is essential to building a future that honors our past while embracing innovation," Leon Silverman, chair of the MovieLabs Industry Forum said. "I’m encouraged by the enthusiasm of our Leadership Council and growing global community of Forum members who are committed to working together to realize our shared vision for our creative industry’s future."

LEXINGTON, Mass.—Signiant has announced that it has joined the MovieLabs Industry Forum, a collaborative initiative established by MovieLabs to tackle industry challenges and accelerate innovation in media production and distribution.

MovieLabs was founded by major Hollywood studios to advance cutting-edge technologies and promote next-generation solutions that improve the speed, security, and reliability of content creation. Through the MovieLabs Industry Forum, members collaborate on defining common industry goals and developing new standards to drive greater efficiency and agility in media workflows, the group said.

A central focus of the forum is the MovieLabs 2030 Vision, which outlines key principles for transforming the media production landscape, including secure cloud-based workflows, automation, and flexible software-defined architectures.

“Signiant is pleased to join the MovieLabs Industry Forum. While it might seem counterintuitive that a leader in intelligent file transfer would support a vision where assets are ingested straight into the cloud and do not need to be moved, as a SaaS pioneer in the media industry, Signiant has been implementing many of the core principles of this vision for years,” said Ian Hamilton, Signiant’s CTO. “Securely Internet-connecting customer storage, facilitating collaboration and data exchange, is fundamental to our SaaS platform. Newer platform innovations enable seamless ‘like local’ interaction with globally distributed media assets, without duplicating files. While we support the 2030 Vision, we also have our own point of view and commentary informed by our production and post-production supply chain experience, which we’ve shared in a newly published paper.”

The paper on the MovieLabs 2030 Vision can be found here.

“We are pleased that Signiant is joining the MovieLabs Industry Forum to help drive the future of media creation,” said Richard Berger, CEO MovieLabs. “We look forward to collaborating with Signiant as we continue to establish common, interoperable solutions that enable the industry to meet the challenges of tomorrow."

The Television Academy has announced the recipients of the 76th Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards honoring an individual, company or organization for developments in broadcast technology. 

The awards ceremony, hosted by Criminal Minds star Kirsten Vangsness, will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024, at the Television Academy's Saban Media Center in North Hollywood, California.

"The Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards are a testament to the incredible ingenuity and creativity that power our industry," said Cris Abrego, chair of the Television Academy. "We are thrilled to honor these innovators who have pushed the boundaries of what's possible, shaping the future of television for generations to come."

"This year we honor a diverse group of technologies that enable and advance the storytelling process for television production," said committee co-chairs Barry Zegel and Wendy Aylsworth. "Electro/Mechanical Camera Stabilization systems, software programs that aid the editing and creation process, support for LED Volumes production, the MDDF (MovieLabs Digital Distribution Framework) Standard, and the use of generative artificial intelligence tools are all included in this year's awards. This wide range of technologies demonstrates the amazing achievements throughout our industry."

This year, the Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award, which honors a living individual whose ongoing contributions have significantly affected the state of television technology and engineering, is being given to Jensen Huang. Jensen Huang founded NVIDIA in 1993 and has served since its inception as president, chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors.

Since its founding, NVIDIA has pioneered accelerated computing. The company's invention of the GPU (graphics processing unit) in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined computer graphics and ignited the era of modern AI. NVIDIA is now driving the platform shift of accelerated computing and generative AI, transforming the world's largest industries and profoundly impacting society.

Huang has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering and is a recipient of the Semiconductor Industry Association's highest honor, the Robert N. Noyce Award; the IEEE Founder's Medal; the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award; and honorary doctorate degrees from Taiwan's National Chiao Tung University, National Taiwan University and Oregon State University. He has been named the world's best CEO by Fortune, the Economist and Brand Finance and one of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people.

Prior to founding NVIDIA, Huang worked at LSI Logic and Advanced Micro Devices. He holds a BSEE degree from Oregon State University and an MSEE degree from Stanford University.

The Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award, which honors an agency, company or institution whose contributions over time have significantly impacted television technology and engineering, is being given to Adobe Inc.

For over 40 years, Adobe has been a leader in delivering groundbreaking technology that empowers everyone, everywhere to express themselves and bring their stories to life, the Academy said. From students to creative professionals, and from small businesses to the world's largest enterprises, Adobe's customers use Adobe tools to unleash their creativity, accelerate document productivity and power digital businesses — including Adobe Acrobat; Creative Cloud tools such as Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects and Adobe Express; Substance 3D collection; collaboration tools like Frame.io; and Experience Cloud enterprise solutions, such as Adobe GenStudio.

Adobe's tools have powered a record number of award-winning television shows and movies including 2024 Emmy-nominated projects, such as Saturday Night Live, FX's The Bear and HBO's Ramy Youssef: More Feelings and The Jinx — Part Two as well as noteworthy films and docuseries including Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, Dìdi (弟弟) and Penelope.

The Academy said that the Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards are presented to an individual, company or organization for developments in engineering, science and technology that are either so extensive an improvement on existing methods or so innovative in nature that they materially affect the production, recording, transmission or reception of television and thereby have elevated the storytelling process. 

The Academy described this year's recipients as follows:  

Recipient: Adobe Inc. for the development of the Adobe Substance Painter. Substance Painter is a non-destructive 3D texture painting application. Initially built for game developers, Substance Painter has seen very quick adoption in visual effects and animation within the television industry despite its relatively young age. Substance Painter's unique approach of procedural-driven materials differs from previous metaphors for texture generation: It leverages algorithmic methods vs. manual painting and cloning. This has enabled fast and creative texture creation by a broader spectrum of artists without requiring traditional art and painting skill sets. This new workflow has helped increase creativity and accelerate asset generation via quicker iterations in visual effects. As a result, Substance 3D Painter is leading the industry in texture painting, allowing the ability to texture a model in real-time. From animation to visual effects studios, the industry uses Painter to bring their creations to life.

Recipients: Tom Ohanian, Ken Goekjian, Joel Swan and Victor Young for the development of the Avid Multicamera System. Introduced in 1994, the Avid Multicamera System has stood the test of time. With its worldwide usage, it continues to be a dominant technology and product offering in the industry. The Multicamera System replaced systems that utilized videotape and laserdisc players. This digital multicamera invention improved upon all the previous limitations: It provided nonlinear, digital, random access to material with multiple tracks of audio. Due to the invention's functionality of auto-synchronization, the time-consuming synchronization of different camera angles was automated. Editing could proceed directly from camera iso (isolated) feeds as well as a line cut (directly from the video switcher), if necessary due to time constraints. These items significantly advanced the art of storytelling, proving why creative people utilize Avid's Multicamera System to make today's most celebrated video and audio content.

Recipients: Paul Pan, Yanchong Zhao, Tie Su, Shimeng Bei for the development of the DJI Ronin Series. The DJI Ronin is a line of professional camera stabilization systems designed for filmmakers and videographers to stabilize cameras, enabling camera operators to capture smooth, steady footage. The Ronin uses a three-axis gimbal system to stabilize pan, tilt and roll, keeping the camera level and steady, often eliminating the need to lay dolly track or set up a Technocrane. The Ronin's modular design allows for easy setup and adjustment and can be adapted for a variety of shooting scenarios and camera setups. Ronin's payload capacity supports a variety of camera and lens combinations from small mirrorless cameras to larger cinema cameras. Ronin gimbals offer a variety of operation modes, such as Pan Follow, Lock Mode and POV (Point of View) Mode; and they are compatible with a range of accessories, such as wireless focus systems, monitors and other filmmaking tools.

Recipients: Stuart Geman, Kevin Manbeck, John Mertus, and Michael Braca for the development of the DRSNova Film and Video Restoration Software. DRSNova film and video restoration software boasts a comprehensive suite of features tailored to meet the diverse needs of modern filmmakers and post-production experts. From its inception, this innovative software has been at the forefront of advancements in digital restoration and film-processing technology, continuously evolving to keep pace with the ever-changing demands of the industry. It seamlessly integrates into the workflows of film labs, post-production houses, and archival facilities, providing robust solutions for a wide array of restoration tasks. Whether it's restoring aging film stock, enhancing visual quality, or preparing content for television broadcast and streaming, or Blu-ray distribution, DRS™Nova excels in delivering exceptional results with unmatched efficiency. By empowering professionals to achieve their creative vision while maintaining the integrity of the original content, DRS™Nova has played a pivotal role in preserving cinematic heritage and elevating the quality of visual storytelling across various platforms.

Recipient: Benjamin Graf for the development of Accentize's dxRevive Pro. dxRevive Pro is a sophisticated speech-restoration plugin engineered to enhance the fidelity of dialogue recordings across a range of scenarios. Unlike other restoration-style software, dxRevive Pro doesn't just filter the signal, it also identifies and reintegrates missing frequency components. As a result, users can produce studio-like recordings (where the audio is not only "cleaned" but the dialogue itself is enhanced) from a diverse array of source materials. Previously, achieving such clarity required painstaking effort and might not have been achievable at all, resulting in the need for ADR sessions and the additional cost and time those incur. By swiftly and effectively improving dialogue quality, dxRevive Pro elevates the overall audio experience for viewers, ensuring that they can be fully immersed in the story without distraction or discomfort. In essence, dxRevive Pro not only mitigates the impact of budget constraints on dialogue quality but also enhances the storytelling process by providing a more comfortable listening experience, ultimately enriching the narrative and its emotional impact.

Recipients: Jeremy Hochman, Chris Byrne, Colin Cook and Justin Nicolaides for the development of Megapixel's HELIOS LED Processing Platform. The HELIOS platform is an advanced video processing system for LED walls. For over 20 years, the platform has revolutionized LED displays, making them reliable and repeatable tools for filmmakers. HELIOS' advancement of LED processing has removed the restrictions of greenscreen production, enabling storytellers to have full creativity — live in camera. HELIOS supports video sources up to 8K resolution and is capable of handling up to four simultaneous SMPTE ST 2110 inputs. This makes it ideal for large-scale displays and complex visual applications that require high-resolution and precise synchronization. HELIOS' innovative GhostFrame technology allows multiple unique video feeds to be displayed on LED panels simultaneously, streamlining virtual production workflows by enabling the recording of multiple backgrounds from a single take. Its advanced color-management system ensures accurate color fidelity, consistently preserving and applying metadata from source to final display. With full HDR support and seamless integration with image-based lighting systems, HELIOS delivers stunning visuals.

Recipients: Craig Seidel for the development of the MovieLabs Digital Distribution Framework. The MovieLabs Digital Distribution Framework (MDDF) was born from the evolution from physical to digital distribution. Starting in mid-2008, MDDF was originally conceived to support online sales of downloadable content, but it rapidly evolved into a comprehensive collection of essential data standards that drove online streaming. Prior practice was for content owners to provide distribution services an assortment of spreadsheets, emails and other unstructured data. When volumes were small these manual methods could work; but as distribution services evolved to handle tens or hundreds of thousands of titles (millions of assets), those practices were no longer feasible. MDDF provides the solution. MDDF is a suite of digital distribution specifications that define avails (licensing); metadata; asset ordering, delivery and status; bonus/extras; workflows; and APIs. MDDF was designed to get movies and television in front of home viewers in the form most suitable for their needs. It allows a breadth of content to be prepared and delivered by digital service providers to viewers with rich metadata that supports discovery allowing viewers to select the most interesting content. MDDF supports full localization, both in metadata and in handling the complexity of localized and accessibility-focused assets and supports everything from the most primitive formats to the most advanced. MDDF allows people to enjoy content in a way that preserves the creative intent and matches the needs of the individual.

Recipient: The Tiffen Company for the development of the Steadicam Volt. The Steadicam Volt system is an accessory to the already ubiquitous Steadicam that utilizes electronic stabilization technology to assist camera operators in achieving and maintaining smooth, consistent and level camera shots. When mounted on a Steadicam or other brand of camera stabilizer, the Volt will help to maintain a level or preset horizon and filter out unwanted camera movements without affecting normal Steadicam operation or control. Steadicam Volt™ consists of two main components: A "brain" that is mounted fixed in relation to the camera, which houses all gyro and accelerometer motion-sensing components and a gimbal-mounted "motor drive" unit to apply corrections to the tilt-and-roll axis of the camera stabilizer. With the camera stabilizer sled neutrally balanced, the Volt requires very little battery power to manipulate even the heaviest of camera payloads. Difficult shots that involve high-acceleration camera movement — such as running or fast lateral movements — are now easier to obtain smoothly. Operators do not need to focus as much on inertial influences or external forces, such as wind and how they affect camera positioning. The Steadicam Volt™ enables a camera operator to better focus, react and interact with dynamically changing or challenging shooting environments to produce better framing of shots. 

The Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards are made possible by Television Academy sponsors FIJI Water, Franciacorta, Johnnie Walker Blue Label, JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery, People, The Ritz-Carlton and United Airlines.

SAN FRANCISCO—MovieLabs, the technology joint venture of the major Hollywood motion picture studios, has announced the formation of a new MovieLabs Industry Forum that will be focused on designing and developing the future of professional media creation.

“We’re excited to announce the MovieLabs Industry Forum and invite organizations of all sizes and across the global media creation landscape to join MovieLabs and other industry leaders in accelerating the work we are all doing to help the industry forge ahead in achieving a more secure, interoperable and efficient media creation ecosystem,” explained Richard Berger, CEO of MovieLabs.

MovieLabs said that applications for membership are now open for technology service providers, creative application and service providers, software development companies, systems integrators, and cloud providers.

Joining the Forum, MovieLabs explained, provides a way for organizations to participate with MovieLabs and its member studios Paramount Pictures Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Universal City Studios, LLC., The Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. more deeply and directly.

More information about how to apply to the MovieLabs Industry Forum is available at www.movielabs.com/IndustryForum.

The initiative builds on the 2019 release of the pivotal MovieLabs whitepaper, “The Evolution of Media Creation: a 10 Year Vision for the Future of Media Production, Post and Creative Technologies”, aka “The MovieLabs 2030 Vision.”

Since then the 2030 Vision’s 10 Foundational Principles have increasingly become implementation touchpoints, engineering/technology areas of focus, and goals for media organizations worldwide, MovieLabs said.

MovieLabs noted that this global implementation momentum comes at a time when the industry is focused on the impact of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and a greater need for appropriate industry collaboration. Bringing the key stakeholders of the industry’s future together with MovieLabs member studios in the new MovieLabs Industry Forum will accelerate implementation and provide greater support, it said.

For companies that share the 2030 Vision as a North Star, the MovieLabs Industry Forum will enable industry implementors and adopters to play a deeper role in engaging with MovieLabs and their industry peers.

In terms of membership benefits, MovieLabs explained that members of the MovieLabs Industry Forum will participate with the major studios in a range of activities including:

• Participating in Implementor Working Groups focused on delivering specific areas of MovieLabs 2030 work – including Security, Ontology for Media Creation and Workflow Interoperability
• Working with industry peers in developing and testing interoperable software and service solutions in the 2030 Greenlight program
• Receiving early access to prerelease MovieLabs documents, specifications, best practices and recommendations
• Attending member-only events
• Using exclusive branding in their marketing and industry messaging to show their membership of the MovieLabs Industry Forum and their alignment with the 2030 Vision’s principles.
  
  

Applications for the MovieLabs Industry Forum are open now at www.movielabs.com/IndustryForum. Membership and activities will start in January 2025. Membership dues are established based on annual gross revenue to enable companies of all sizes from start-ups to multi-nationals to participate in the 2030 Forum.

A variety of tech leaders also applauded the initiative.

“The MovieLabs Industry Forum creates opportunities for specialist companies to get involved in media workflow design, creative tools and infrastructure – all things that will be redefined as we move the 2030 Vision into commonplace practice at industry scale,” said Eddie Drake, head of technology, Marvel Studios

"This Forum is a testament to our progress, underscoring our commitment to not just imagining but also realizing a future in which cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and improvements in security amplify human capabilities within production workflows," added Phil Wiser, executive vice president and CTO Paramount Global

“This is a worldwide initiative to realize the Movie Labs 2030 Vision together, and we see a large benefit for the media creation industry far beyond just Hollywood. This is our opportunity to hear and collaborate with diverse industry voices from the global media and entertainment industry that are creating all types of content for a wide range of audiences,” explained Yoshikazu Takashima, senior vice president of advanced technology at Sony Pictures Entertainment

“Empowering the creative community to tell compelling stories with seamless technologies is a primary goal of the MovieLabs 2030 Vision. We look to the MovieLabs Industry Forum as a place where we can all work together on interoperable solutions to empower storytellers with speed and efficiency not possible today,” said Michael Wise, senior vice president and CTO at Universal Pictures

“We’re looking for innovative companies that are driving change, whether they be small start-ups, or with the global breadth of multinationals that can deploy at enormous scale. Every organization has a role to play in this industry migration and should embrace the opportunities the 2030 Vision and the MovieLabs Industry Forum offers,” added Patty Hirsch, executive vice president consumer digital at Warner Bros. Discovery

MovieLabs has announced the next 10 participating companies in its 2030 Vision Showcase Program.

The organizations selected to participate in this round are Adobe, Ateliere Creative Technologies, Avid, Gunpowder, Hammerspace, Light Iron, Pixel Logic, Sohonet, Universal Pictures and Yamdu.

Among the case studies submitted by the latest cohort are:

• Using camera to cloud for fast turnaround editorial content at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival from Adobe
• Virtualizing apps and data for distributed editorial collaboration by Avid
• Ateliere Creative Technologies’ work on moving Lionsgate’s de-centralized distribution assets to a singular cloud ‘single source of truth’ library to enable more flexible distribution strategies
• An end-to-end Cloud VFX “studio in a box” for Houses of Parliament from Gunpowder
• Light Iron’s full color-in-the-cloud pipeline used on episodic television
• Sohonet’s secure content management system for managing assets and workflow tasks
• How Universal Pictures supports feature production and post utilizing MovieLabs Ontology for Media Creation

Each of the organizations will work with MovieLabs to develop their case study which will be published at MovieLabs.com (date tba).

Richard Berger, CEO of MovieLabs, said: “Since we published the MovieLabs 2030 Vision, it has been broadly adopted by the industry as the roadmap for the future of media creation. The ten principles in the vision establish a framework for more secure and interoperable workflows, which ultimately gives time back to creatives so they can focus on what they do best—creating amazing stories and experiences.

“We are excited to work with the new showcase participants to publish these technical case studies and share with the industry examples of how the 10 Principles of the 2030 Vision are already delivering real and significant efficiencies, which is critical now in this time of industry change.”

SAN FRANCISCO—MovieLabs, the technology joint venture of major Hollywood motion picture studios, has released a new white paper in its 2030 Vision Series, titled "Interoperability in Media Creation."

It explores the future of media production workflows as software and cloud infrastructure play a larger role in supporting creative work. The white paper provides the technical underpinnings for a new way creative teams can work by making it easier to assemble, manage, change and secure their workflows. For creative teams, this offers more choice in their tools and processes, enabling increased efficiency that gives time back for creative work, MovieLabs said.

The white paper focuses on interoperability and how it is a critical enabler for the 2030 Vision, emphasizing its increasingly pivotal role in shaping media production. Implementation of the interoperability principles in the paper can enable production teams to integrate diverse software tools, services and infrastructure in a seamless way. By achieving robust interoperability, studios and production teams can select and integrate the tools, vendors and infrastructure best aligned with each production’s unique requirements, reducing the need for custom engineering and integration efforts, it said. 

“Creative teams are faced with historical levels of production complexity with more deliverables per title, rapidly changing technologies, and under tight schedules with a scarcity of talent and resources. To help meet these challenges, the industry needs to find ways to better support teams in their creative workflows, while also giving them the flexibility to adopt new technologies with less friction and risk,” said MovieLabs CTO Jim Helman.

“MovieLabs believes interoperability is the key to success and our proposed approach promises to reshape the landscape of media creation, ensuring that creative teams have the tools and capabilities they need to excel.” 

The MovieLabs interoperability paper examines choice and collaboration, infrastructure freedom, efficiency and automation and actionable steps. 

At IBC 2023, MovieLabs will host a panel with Hollywood studio leaders talking specifically about this approach to interoperability. MovieLabs CEO Richard Berger will be speaking with Yoshi Takashima, senior vice president of Advanced Technology at Sony Pictures, Anthony Guarino, executive vice president of Global Production and Studio Technology at Paramount, Eddie Drake, head of technology at Marvel Studios, Patty Hirsch, global executive vice president of Consumer Digital & Platforms at Warner Bros. Discovery and Michael Wise, senior vice president and CTO at Universal Pictures Saturday, Sept. 16 during an IBC 2023 session. 

More information about the 2030 Vision and the white paper series is available online.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.—The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Motion Pictures Laboratories Inc. (MovieLabs) have collaborated on the publication of “Media in the Cloud: Ontology and Semantic Web Technology Navigation Guide.”

The guide is available for free online from the SMPTE website. It is a primer on the use of ontologies and other semantic web technologies in a modern media landscape where workflow are moving into the cloud, SMPTE said.

"The shift of media workflows to the cloud — an ever more data-driven ecosystem — yields many benefits, including greater automation, agility and scalability. But to realize these, organizations must successfully address challenges related to workflow interoperability, data portability and the management of complex sets of assets," said Jim Helman, CTO of MovieLabs, which is a technology joint venture of the major Hollywood studios. "Media ontologies provide the essential knowledge framework to address those challenges."

It explains media ontologies in simple terms and offers a discussion of mapping data across different information systems. The guide provides practical examples of how media organizations are using semantic web technologies to bring greater efficiency to real-world workflows, it said.

Richer metadata is required to manage and understand the complex relationships between all of the element in the content lifecycle. An ontology provides a framework to support application and service integration, asset and content management and search and discovery, among other functions, it said.

"Consistent and interoperable metadata and semantics are key for connecting data sets along the value chain, managing distributed workflows and integrating applications. They are also crucial for content management and search and discovery," said Hans Hoffmann, head of media fundamentals and production technology at EBU Technology and Innovation. 

"This navigation guide is the result of a great collaboration between EBU, SMPTE and MovieLabs, three key actors in this field, and it will greatly help the media industry in its transformation into a data-driven ecosystem," he said.

The guide explains media-specific ontologies, the ontologies that already exist, where they are applicable and how to deploy them. The document, therefore, offers a starting point for the move to the cloud and towards microservices-based deployments that integrate semantic technologies, SMPTE said.

"SMPTE has played a significant role in improving metadata interoperability, and we view our participation in this ontology work as an extension of that that work," said SMPTE executive director David Grindle. "The navigation guide is a valuable introduction to the current media ontology landscape, the application of semantic technologies, and specific use cases that benefit from them. For many organizations, this will be critical foundational knowledge as they increasingly leverage data and the cloud to support their media workflows."

More information is available on the SMPTE website.

SAN FRANCISCO—Movielabs, the technology joint venture of the major Hollywood motion picture studios, has launched the “2030 Showcase Program” to recognize organizations in the Media & Entertainment industry that are applying emerging cloud and production technologies to and help realize the MovieLabs 2030 Vision and its goals of enhanced efficiency and interoperability.

Organizations that can demonstrate how they are implementing aspects of the MovieLabs 2030 Vision and moving from “principles to practice” are invited to submit their case studies to the 2030 Showcase Program. Submissions that demonstrate significant alignment with the 2030 Vision will be included in the MovieLabs 2030 case studies hosted on MovieLabs.com and may be referenced by MovieLabs at events, trade shows and speeches. 

Additionally, select 2030 Showcase participants will also be invited to present their case study at a private event with production technology leaders from across the MovieLabs studio members—Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. Discovery.

The MovieLabs 2030 Vision lays out 10 key principles for the evolution of media creation with which Showcase participants should be aligned with one or more:

• All assets are created or ingested straight to the cloud and do not need to move.
• Applications come to the media.
• Propagation and distribution of assets is a ‘publish’ function.
• Archives are deep libraries with access policies matching speed, availability and security to the economics of the cloud.
• Preservation of digital assets includes the future means to access and edit them.
• Every individual on a project is identified, verified and their access permissions efficiently and consistently managed.
• All media creation happens in a highly secure environment that adapts rapidly to changing threats.
• Individual media elements are referenced, tracked, interrelated and accessed using a universal linking system.
• Media workflows are non-destructive and dynamically created using common interfaces, underlying data formats and metadata.
• Workflows are designed around real-time iteration and feedback.

To enter in the 2030 Showcase program, interested organizations are invited to submit a short video (<5 mins) describing their work, and illustrating how it aligns with one or more of the 10 principles of the MovieLabs 2030 Vision listed above. The deadline for submissions is midnight July 29. 

Entrants into this year’s 2030 Showcase program will be evaluated by MovieLabs in time to be highlighted at IBC in Amsterdam this September. Application videos should be uploaded to a cloud service and a link to the submission emailed to ShowcaseProgram@movielabs.com.  More details of the program and submission criteria are available at www.movielabs.com/2030Showcase.

Richard Berger, CEO MovieLabs, said: “Since we launched the MovieLabs 2030 Vision in 2019, we have been working with M&E businesses to share the dramatic changes the media industry is going through and explain the strategic importance of working together and investing in a unified approach to harness these emerging technologies in a way that enhances efficiency and interoperability. Many companies have incorporated the 2030 principles into their product road maps and strategic vision. The 2030 Showcase is our opportunity to highlight and recognize these companies and their progress, and to help the rest of the industry come together to build a more efficient future as we create modern global content at scale to satisfy consumer demand.”

Motion Picture Laboratories, Inc. (MovieLabs) is a non-profit technology research lab jointly run by Paramount Pictures Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures and Television, and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

LOS ANGELES—It might seem like a tall order to chart where content production should be in 10 years, but that’s exactly the task MovieLabs tackled in a recently published white paper laid out by Jim Helman, CTO of the non-profit research lab, during his Oct. 22 keynote during the 2019 Annual SMPTE Technical Conference and Exhibition at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel.

“So, why are we doing this now?” Helman asked, rhetorically. “The move is motivated by several changes… [that are coming] together to really create a transitional point now where we have the opportunity to change the future of production in a way that will benefit the entire community.”

Chief among the changes are the growing availability of bandwidth and the availability of real-time computing engines, which at the moment are most widely deployed in pre-visualization applications but hold the potential to unlock many other workflow benefits in television and motion picture production, he said.

The white paper, “The Evolution of Media Creation,” was authored by contributors from MovieLabs member studios, including Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal Studio, The Walt Disney Studios and Warner Brothers Studios.

It lays out 10 principles underpinning MovieLabs’ vision for 2030 that are categorized into three buckets: a new cloud foundation; security and access; and software-defined workflows.

“Most fundamental… is that assets go up to the cloud, and they stay in the cloud,” said Helman. “And the applications come to the assets rather than transferring files… from one facility to another facility.”

For this goal to be achieved, it will be important for vendors to be able to deploy their applications into multi-cloud environments. Helman acknowledged that this goal “is a little bit aspirational” because it is very likely post houses and VFX facilities will continue to work in their own cloud.

“We need to enable the ability to have multicloud applications…,” he said. “We think… [it is] very important to have abstraction layers that can allow these applications to be easily moved to whatever cloud is needed or to share data across clouds.”

Of course, with the cloud at the foundation of production 10 years hence, security and access become critical. Uploading assets to the cloud will mean media organizations no longer have “a well-defined perimeter” around their facility, and the same is true for hybrid cloud setups, he said.

“So, we really need to think about security and make it more asset-centric and more capable so you can address a wide range of production,” said Helman.

Helman introduced the concept of scalability to securing media assets in the cloud. While one studio might want to employ the most stringent set of security measures for a high-budget blockbuster, another, such as the producer of a cooking show, may not be too concerned about a segment showing up on YouTube because little revenue is at stake, he said.

The white paper also advocates for software-defined workflows in the future. Real-time engines, such as the Epic Games Unreal Engine, will one day enable a new degree of flexibility in building media workflows, he said.

Motion Pictures Laboratories, Inc. (MovieLabs), together with member studios, has published a new white paper presenting an industry vision for the future of media creation in 2030. The paper, jointly authored by MovieLabs and technology leadership teams from Hollywood studios, paints a bold picture of future technology and discusses the need for the industry to work together now on innovative new software, hardware and production workflows to support and enable new ways to create content over the next ten years. The white paper is available today for free download.

The 2030 Vision paper lays out key principles that will form the foundation of this technological future, with examples and a discussion of the broader implications of each. The key principles envision a future in which:

1. All assets are created or ingested straight into the cloud and do not need to be moved.


2. Applications come to the media.


3. Propagation and distribution of assets is a "publish" function.


4. Archives are deep libraries with access policies matching speed, availability and security to the economics of the cloud.


5. Preservation of digital assets includes the future means to access and edit them.


6. Every individual on a project is identified and verified, and their access permissions are efficiently and consistently managed.


7. All media creation happens in a highly secure environment that adapts rapidly to changing threats.


8. Individual media elements are referenced, accessed, tracked and interrelated using a universal linking system.


9. Media workflows are non-destructive and dynamically created using common interfaces, underlying data formats and metadata.


10. Workflows are designed around real-time iteration and feedback.

The publication of the paper will be supported with a panel discussion at the IBC Conference in Amsterdam. The panel, titled "Hollywood's Vision for the Future of Production in 2030", will include senior technology leaders from five major Hollywood motion picture studios and will take place on Sunday, September 15 at 2:15pm at the IBC Conference in the Forum room of the RAI Amsterdam Conference Centre. More details can be found here.

Richard Berger, CEO MovieLabs, said: "While the next ten years will bring significant opportunities, there are still major challenges and inherent inefficiencies in our production workflows that threaten to limit our future ability to innovate. We have been working closely with studio technology leaders and strategizing how to integrate new technologies that empower filmmakers to create ever more compelling content with more speed and efficiency. By laying out these principles publicly, we hope to catalyze an industry dialog and fuel innovation, encouraging companies and organizations to help us deliver on these ideas."