Behind the scenes at Sunnyboy Entertainment, post-production editors are working more fluidly as the creative agency’s workflow has improved substantially since installation of Small Tree’s 32TB GraniteSTOR ST-RAID Mobile system at its Los Angeles location.
Founded in 2007, Sunnyboy provides entertainment marketing services to promote upcoming movie releases, including talent interviews, Internet spots and the popular “making of” features that appear on HBO and other cable channels. As the agency prepared to move its operations to a new facility earlier this year, management decided it was time to implement a shared storage system so that its group of editors could work as a team instead of independently, as they were doing previously.
In preparation for the move, Sunnyboy contacted Small Tree, Ethernet-based shared storage and networking experts. The first step, according to Small Tree, was installing a Cat6 network fabric throughout the new facility for greater performance and cost efficiency. By installing Cat6, Sunnyboy was able to integrate a real time shared storage solution that provided the facility’s five Final Cut Pro editing suites with simultaneous access to hundreds of hours of media, while also improving workflow for the agency’s separate motion graphics division.
“The GraniteSTOR ST-RAID Mobile has helped make our online process much easier,” said Craig Phillips, who along with Harold Hayes, Jr. and Michael White, Jr., opened Sunnyboy to bring new ideas to emerging media platforms. “In the past, everything we did was at 720p, so we’d have to go in and up-res to 1080p afterward. Now, with the GraniteSTOR system, we’re working at 1080p, which saves a lot of time and headaches.”
Sunnyboy had the Small Tree system up and running quickly, thanks to GraniteSTOR’s “plug and play” installation. The ease of install, along with the system’s transfer speeds, impressed Phillips and his team.
“I was impressed most by the transfer rates the ST-RAID system achieved over Ethernet,” Phillips said. “We had been using SATA and FireWire drives previously and transfer rates over the GraniteSTOR solution were much quicker. Additionally, it was great having three or four editors simultaneously pulling 1080p media for the same project without any hiccups.”