Dejero has made it possible for business to business integrated connectivity expert First Mile Technologies to address the urgent connectivity, security and team synchronization challenges that emerged on-set and in post-production during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, when teams couldn’t meet to collaborate due to social distancing and travel limitations.
Engaging Dejero EnGo mobile transmitters, GateWay network aggregation devices, CuePoint return video servers and CellSat blended cellular and satellite solutions, First Mile started re-inventing the traditional production and post-production workflows even before the pandemic began to help ease creative collaboration processes by moving video and data from sets to multiple locations more efficiently. During the COVID-19 outbreak, thanks to its Dejero equipment, First Mile enabled the successful production of financial services group Desjardins’ widely acclaimed online “Send a Virtual Solo” campaign, that helped raise Canadian morale during this difficult time through the power of music.
“It struck me that in the post-production world, we still move data like we used to move film negative, in a very physical manner,” said Brandon Cooper, president, film & new media at First Mile Technologies. “I was seeking ways to streamline the process using the power of the internet, cellular networks and satellite. Dejero’s products are doing that so well in the broadcast world that I wanted to translate that to the film and post-production world. It so happened that we needed to urgently address the topics of reliable, robust connectivity, security and team collaboration during the recent COVID-19 pandemic and Dejero’s products helped us make campaigns like Desjardins’ “Send a Virtual Solo” a roaring success.”
Collaborative remote post-production
The high-profile “Send a Virtual Solo” initiative encouraged Canadians to stay connected during the pandemic by nominating people to receive the gift of a song recorded by one of 40 musicians from across the country. Everything was produced and post-produced remotely by the artists themselves, who each received drop-off kits delivered by the production company Radke Films. These kits contained a Dejero EnGo mobile transmitter and a small connectivity kit including three 4K-enabled iPhones.
Each artist filmed themselves performing and maintained phone contact with the director and with video assistant Manny Rego at KAOS Video. Rego worked with First Mile to cleverly stream this video back to KAOS using Dejero’s Smart Blending Technology, which aggregates diverse connectivity paths including cellular, satellite and broadband into a virtual ’network of networks’. The video was then inserted into a video conference call attended by the director, client agencies and the production company who were all located in different places across Canada. This process was smoothly repeated twice per day for over a week, creating a smarter ‘post-production workflow of the future’ during a time when efficient post-production was set to become a near impossible task.
Earlier this year, First Mile also worked with VideoNerve Studio, a division of Publicis Canada, to help them create a campaign for Mercedes with live driving shots from a race track located on a frozen lake in Gimli, Manitoba in -56 degrees celsius wind chill. Dejero made it possible to stream the video live from the vehicles to a resort 5 miles away, where the client and agency teams could watch the footage in real time despite limited cellular connectivity, greatly increasing the efficiency of the shooting and editing process.
“I aspire to work with Dejero to create a solution where we go ‘from camera to editors’ bin’, or ‘from sensor to post-production’,” concluded Cooper. “Before now, limited connectivity and bandwidth on set, especially in remote locations, has been the barrier to getting files and data out quickly to all of the creative teams that need to work together in post-production, so we are very excited by the possibilities that Dejero has opened up for this industry”.
“We are thrilled that our solid background in live production has crossed over into post-production and has become key to helping this sector to streamline workflows,” said Bogdan Frusina, founder of Dejero. “This is a great example of how our solutions can be used outside the traditional broadcast space and we’re here to support the film industry as it opens up following the COVID-19 pandemic by transforming the way it works, as well as bringing huge cost and time savings.”
