IBC
How MovieLabs is building on two decades of development in
film and television to help guide the future of media creation.
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At a time when the media and entertainment industry faces
changes from everywhere all at once, studio joint venture technology research
lab MovieLabs offers a clearer vision and path for the future. For two decades,
it has built practical solutions to real world problems by working closely
together with industry stakeholders.
It’s an approach that has produced tangible results. Whether
lifting media out of proprietary silos, mapping a path toward collaboration in
the cloud or guiding the secure, interoperable use of artificial intelligence,
the primary focus is never about technology for technology’s sake. It is to
empower creative teams to be able to achieve more.
If workflows can adapt to new situations and technologies,
then creativity can be more flexible. If production processes are automated and
sped up without losing creative control, there’s simply more of the most
precious resource – time.
Despite its foundation by Hollywood Studios with the name
'Movie' in the title, these ideas have resonated far beyond film and TV. In
January 2025, the independent research lab launched the MovieLabs Industry
Forum to embrace new members with companies spanning technology to talent, from
global industry leader to start-up. The collective aim is to enable creativity
with greater efficiency and flexibility, in the knowledge that no one company
can do so alone.
“The MovieLabs 2030 Vision is now the industry's vision for
the future of media creation,” says Richard Berger, MovieLabs CEO.
The MovieLabs origin story
At the time of founding in 2006, the film and TV industry
was beginning a generational transition away from physical media to digital
delivery. This required the entire infrastructure for distribution and
protection to be standardised and upgraded with more efficient, more secure
workflows using the latest technologies and software systems.
For 15 years, the organisation’s efforts were central to a
number of standards, common specifications and best practices that streamlined
and automated distribution chains and secured creative assets. The goal was
always to deliver new experiences to viewing audiences worldwide.
Its achievements include a suite of specifications for
online distribution (MovieLabs Digital Distribution Framework (MDDF)) and the
Entertainment ID Registry (EIDR), a universal unique identifier for content
that automated digital distribution of film and TV titles just as UPC codes had
revolutionised traditional retail. Both technologies won technical Emmys for
their contribution to the industry.
Further work devising the Enhanced Content Protection (ECP)
scheme helped secure digital content for consumer distribution of new formats,
including UltraHD and HDR. Widely implemented since 2013, the latest updates to
ECP were published in August 2024 in response to evolving threats.
Launching the 2030 Vision
In 2019, while continuing to innovate in distribution,
MovieLabs opened a parallel track in media creation. Building on its heritage
as a forum for cross-company cooperation, MovieLabs engaged its studio members
and, crucially, the wider production, post-production and technology community.
It quickly found alignment around a bold vision that extended production, post
and VFX into the cloud, commonly referred to as the MovieLabs 2030 Vision.
It helped that MovieLabs is an independent non-profit. Since
it doesn’t make products or services, it is not in competition with any of the
companies it works with, clearing the way to focus on a common agenda.
“We could bring in market competitors to sit side by side in
our meetings and on our panels,” says Berger. “We have competing cloud
companies and creative application companies talking together. This is
essential to achieve interoperability. Our formula is to be very transparent
about where we're going and what we're doing.”
The outcome was a blueprint for the evolution of media
creation. This 10-year plan for a more efficient media pipeline established
principles for moving all assets to the cloud, for a security and access
methodology based on Zero Trust and for standardised deployment of
software-defined workflows. Additionally, MovieLabs has released the Ontology
for Media Creation (OMC) and continues to extend its functionality. The OMC is
a set of defined terms and a common data model enabling interoperability
between people, organisations, and software.
“Creative enablement is at the heart of what we're doing,”
explains Berger. “We want to facilitate more secure, efficient, and
interoperable media creation workflows where creators can choose whichever
tools and services they want and just know they’ll work seamlessly together.
We're enabling friction-free collaboration from wherever you are and whatever
tools you're on.”
Fortunately, MovieLabs developed the concept before COVID
hit, when the entire world had to pivot to remote distributed connections
overnight. In a post-pandemic world, everyone understands there are many good
reasons to keep doing it this way.
Eddie Drake, SVP/CTO of Disney Studio Technology, says: “The
economic landscape has changed, but the Vision is still extremely relevant.
While we have to be more efficient, we also have to enable the best experiences
we can for the creative community.”
Practical action, tangible benefits
The 2030 Vision was never a prediction or a proscription;
instead, it is the ‘North Star’ and blueprint to guide the industry. “The
reason why the 2030 mission is still relevant is because it is a set of
principles for making the future what we want it to be,” says Drake.
Since every cog in the machine is moving at a different pace
it was always likely that the transition in some parts of the industry will
happen into the next decade. At the same time, dozens of companies have already
implemented parts of the Vision. MovieLabs has been collecting some of these
case studies as public reference points under the 2030 Showcase Program.
This series of case studies recognises an array of
organisations, including Lionsgate, Riot Games, Marvel Studios, the Royal Opera
House and Accenture, that are applying emerging cloud and production
technologies in accordance with 2030 Vision principles.
MovieLabs is now working on the next phase of
implementation. The 2030 Greenlight programme matches technology companies with
service providers and creatives to build and deploy solutions to everyday
challenges and inefficiencies using the 2030 Vision as a template. According to
Berger: “This process highlights gaps in the 2030 Vision, providing an honest
assessment of what went well, where the industry needs to improve, and how the
vendor community can help in solving issues.”
“While we’ve made meaningful progress, there’s still
important work ahead for the industry,” says Drake. “I’m excited to see the
solutions we'll build together.”
Dealing with the security challenge
Perhaps the biggest hurdle in the 2030 roadmap is production
security. Swapping out decades of ingrained thinking in terms of locking down a
physical facility, to one based on a Zero Trust approach to data on a network,
is a monumental piece of change management.
Berger explains: “Productions are naturally very
risk-averse, so changes to any aspect are very challenging. Most security today
isn't security by design. It is security as an add-on after the workflow has
been designed. There’s a perception that better security will get in the way of
the creative process but doesn’t need to be the case.”
MovieLabs has prioritised a Zero Trust education program and
has also partnered with the Trusted Partner Network (TPN) which writes and
maintains Motion Picture Association content security best practices. One of
MovieLabs’ key messages is the principle of ‘least privilege’. This fundamental
concept in information security states that a user, process, or program should
have access to only the specific data, resources, and applications necessary to
perform its intended function. Least privilege aims to minimise the risk of
unauthorised access and misuse of sensitive information.
“Security requires a lot of planning,” says Drake. “Applying
Zero Trust to legacy infrastructure is tough. It's easier when we can look at
greenfield opportunities and design Zero Trust from scratch without legacy
facilities.”
Industry Forum for dialogue
Work on developing and implementing the 2030 Vision is
grounded in the MovieLabs Industry Forum. This provides a safe space for
vendors and their clients to come together in frank discussions about
interoperability, cloud workflows and metadata exchange.
“Forum members can be there to tell us of a solution or
advise on what we need to do to make the Vision a reality,” says Drake. “For
us, the Forum is invaluable because we can provide insights that inform vendor
roadmaps. We can talk about the technology challenges that we're seeing with
vendors who can then bring that information back to their dev teams and react
to it.” He adds: “We also hear a lot from vendors that it's much easier to
enhance their products to reach the goals of the Vision when studios are all
aligned. At the end of the day, we need to be working together to move the
industry forward.”
Yoshikazu Takashima, SVP Advanced Technology at Sony
Pictures Entertainment, agrees: “MovieLabs has access to a wide community of
creatives, technologists and academics who can collectively test ideas far
quicker than we could alone. We appreciate the honest, direct feedback we get
at the Forum.”
Future media creation through 2030
As technology has converged and video as a communications
tool has become ubiquitous, a far wider community of technology companies and
creative businesses has coalesced around the 2030
Vision. The MovieLabs Industry Forum has expanded to
facilitate common ground for any company that is actively re-inventing and
re-tooling its supply chains in alignment with the 2030 Vision.
Nearly 50 organizations as diverse as Final Draft, United
Talent Agency, Prime Focus Technologies, and Bria.ai have joined forces with
the Forum’s Leadership Council (Adobe, AWS, Avid, Dolby, DreamWorks Animation,
Microsoft, Paramount Global, Skywalker Sound, Slalom, Sony Pictures
Entertainment, The Walt Disney Studios, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros.
Discovery) to shape the future. The door is open to technology and creative
service providers, application developers, production companies, and infrastructure
providers.
“Only by embracing expertise across the entire digital media
value chain will the industry be able to align on, collaborate and solve issues
common to all,” affirms Leon Silverman, Chair of the MovieLabs Industry Forum.
Where some see only uncertainty and fragmentation, the
MovieLabs Industry Forum points toward the future of media production.
Artificial intelligence and 2030 Vision
No issue is more urgent than assessing the impact of
artificial intelligence. There are many dimensions to the technology so it’s
worth stressing that MovieLabs’ focus is on how AI can be applied in the
context of helping achieve the 2030 vision.
“We coined the term IA (intelligent automation) as a
powerful combination with AI,” says Berger. “That pairing can be very effective
in taking some of the mundane tasks out of the workflow. Using AI for more
creative tasks is a choice for creative teams like any other creative
technology.”
Pertinent questions for MovieLabs Industry Forum include
‘Can AI enhance interoperability?’ ‘Is there a common approach to improving
GenAI outputs?’ ‘Would a standard vocabulary for training AI models be
beneficial?’ And ‘How do you track the provenance of creations from both genAI
and humans within a workflow’? Since AI introduces new threats and security
considerations – as well as potential solutions for defence – the risk and
merits for content protection are another key consideration.
At a crucial point in the industry’s evolution, MovieLabs
stands as a beacon for collaboration for a future that honours the past while
embracing innovation.
“It is essential to continue to embrace emerging
technologies in ways that empower storytellers and the entire creative
community,” Silverman says. “While much work lies ahead, we are gathering the
right companies and voices to realise the 2030 Vision future that has inspired
so many.”
James Crossland, EVP, Head of Global Content Operations at
Warner Bros. Discovery, concludes: “We've got a huge change management
challenge in front of us, but if there is a through line, we will find it in
the MovieLabs Industry Forum. We will do our part to continue the mission to
apply the 2030 Vision and as we find more and more use cases you will see an
accelerating groundswell of adoption.”
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