Local Hero Post on closing the digital gap in end-to-end feature film production

First, a big “thank you” to Andrew Wahlquist, Technologist at Local Hero Post, for taking the time to tell me about their work. We published a full case study on Local Hero,* but I wanted to share a few highlights on the blog.

Local Hero Post was established during the dawn of professional digital filmmaking nearly a decade ago, during what Wahlquist called “the RED camera revolution.” The RED was the first all-digital camera appropriate for Hollywood sets, and was responsible for ushering in a new generation of filmmakers. They were smaller, tighter teams with all the skills and technology needed to craft cinema ready feature films, without all the heavy infrastructure of their predecessors.

As Local Hero’s popularity expanded among directors and producers, they needed to take another step forward in their process, and close the last digital gaps at various points along the production process, basically anywhere they needed to transfer large files, internally or between editing partners. “Data transfer was one of the big missing pieces,” said Wahlquist. “There was just no good way to work remotely and cover different coasts.” After a successful trial, they chose Media Shuttle to close those final gaps.

“When you’re stepping into the next level, where people are hiring based on ability rather than location,” said Wahlquist, “something like Media Shuttle becomes vital for your business.”

*For a detailed account of Local Hero’s journey, check out their full case study. Or if you’re a bullet points kind of person, here are four that summarize the results Local Hero saw with Media Shuttle:

• A cost effective way to handle periodic big sends

Media Shuttle scales to the highs and lows of Local Hero’s business, so they are only paying for what they need.

“Shuttle is surprisingly cost effective because of the pay-as-you-go model,” said Wahlquist. “We looked at your competitor’s services, and they were way out of our price range in terms of what we can pay upfront.”

• A clean user experience that anyone can manage without training

The pay-as-you-go pricing model of Media Shuttle is one of the benefits of it being provided as a service (SaaS). But, of all the other perks of SaaS, Local Hero appreciates the easy user interface the most.

“What I like about Media Shuttle, unlike [other solutions], is that the user experience is so clean,” said Walquist. “It’s not a black box that only a couple of people understand.”

• Security Local Hero trusts with their highest value assets

With the heightened awareness of software security in the media industry after last year’s security breaches, Local Hero is glad for Media Shuttle’s high security measures.

“Anytime we have a sensitive movie,” said Wahlquist, “we definitely only use Media Shuttle because of its password protected user base and because of Signiant’s reputation for high security.”

• Reliable, high-speed file transfers for tight deadlines

In the end, it really comes down to meeting deadlines. Media Shuttle transfers files up to 200x faster than FTP, which we agree isn’t really a fair comparison.

“It’s not really fair to compare it to our old FTP system because Media Shuttle utilizes our full bandwidth,” said Wahlquist, “but the speed difference is night and day.”

Local Hero was able to fill the final digital gap in end-to-end feature film production with Media Shuttle, and their business is thriving for it. Check them out at their website.