FotoKem Remote Editing Solution

A powerhouse facility for post-production in the film industry, FotoKem provides services including digital intermediates, dailies, color, audio, visual effects, and film restoration. What distinguishes the company from its competitors isn’t just its nearly 60-year history. FotoKem has established a reputation for approaching every challenge “through the lens, mind, and heart of the filmmaker.” When the pandemic threw the industry into turmoil, the company  moved quickly to maintain business continuity, in part by partnering with Alpha to enable remote production and signal delivery, and – more recently – upgrade and extend its capabilities in remote editing; no small feat when working with massive datasets. Adding complexity to the challenge, FotoKem needed a solution that combined brute force with finesse, promised moment-to-moment reliability, and would perform to the standards of the industry’s most skilled auteurs, cinematographers, craftsmen and experimentalists.

“Many clients come to Alpha with a specific challenge they need to solve, and we excel at meeting their unique needs, but our value as a solutions partner doesn’t end there,” says Alpha integration sales lead Bryan Nelson. “Technology evolves. Clients’ needs evolve –and so does their vision for where they want to take their business.” FotoKem’s immediate needs involved instituting a solution to allow third-monitor and over-the-shoulder editing remotely for up to 150 professionals. The Gallery Sienna processing engine’s continuing evolution into an ever-more robust cloud-based tool extended the real-time editing experience from the studio to laptops, iPads and home displays, helping FotoKem maintain the full range of its services amid profound workplace transformation.

The remote editing solution provided by Alpha not only added to FotoKem’s arsenal of capabilities,  it deepened the two companies’ four-year client relationship. Expressing satisfaction with both the technology and the smoothness with which it was integrated into the existing infrastructure, FotoKem immediately moved to renew its support agreement with Alpha, which covers Tier-1 frontline technical support to ensure uninterrupted service. “We’re the first call they make whenever there’s an issue, question, or ‘What if?’ request,” says Nelson. For a company at the  center of a multi-billion-dollar industry, that expression of confidence is not something Alpha takes lightly. Adds Nelson, “We’re here for FotoKem 24/7 to enable them to meet their own client responsibilities. That makes us more partner than vendor, and our particular strength is to ensure FotoKem’s continuing ability to navigate a world where collaboration counts more than ever before.”