Project Management Improves for Optic Nerve

As studio manager for Optic Nerve, Chris Besecker’s days used to be like a game of hide and seek, only not nearly as much fun. With five Mac G5 workstations running Final Cut and Adobe After Effects and no centralized storage at the Brooklyn facility, Besecker had to keep track of where each project’s files were and make sure those files were available to the editors on the individual workstations. Before Optic Nerve installed Small Tree Communications, LLC‘s cost-effective, Ethernet-based shared storage technology, there was a lot of looking around for certain files and then a lot of copying files from one hard drive to another.   

Located on New York Harbor with an amazing front-side view of The Statue of Liberty, Optic Nerve is one part film production company, one part post house and one part sound studio. Known for providing top shelf production services, seasoned editing resources and refined music and sound design artistry, Optic Nerve contacted respected independent video engineer Bob Zelin when it became obvious that it was in desperate need of a solution that would provide better project management and workflow support.

Having worked with a number of other facilities that have experienced similar issues, Zelin quickly determined that the simplest and most cost-efficient solution for Optic Nerve would be Small Tree’s GraniteSTOR shared storage technology, with its unique OS X networking capabilities supporting multiple Ethernet ports tightly integrated with Apple?s built in file sharing system. The GraniteSTOR solution incorporates Small Tree’s PEG6, a 6-port Ethernet card with the Edge-corE ES4528V, a 28-port Gigabit Ethernet switch certified to work with Small Tree’s technology.

"We shoot a lot in digital, so the amount of media we were working with was growing and growing," said Besecker. "Before the Small Tree install, I was running from station to station trying to make sure the editors had the files they needed for the projects they were working on. Now, project traffic management is a snap. All of the files are located in one place and all five editors can access the files they need."

According to Besecker, ease of installation, affordability and scalability were the crucial factors in making the decision to move forward with Small Tree’s Ethernet-based solution.

"We originally looked at Fibre Channel to improve workflow and project management, but the cost and impact on our infrastructure was prohibitive – we would have needed someone on staff dedicated exclusively to overseeing the technology and that was not an option," Besecker continued. "Small Tree’s technology was extremely affordable and easy to install. We simply shipped the hard drive we were going to use as the server to Bob and he shipped it back ready to go. He even showed us how to add workstations to the server as we continue to grow."