I Edited a Film from 1,500 Miles Away with NO Cloud!

I just edited a short film off of a hard drive that's 1,500 mi away while on Wi-Fi and without using any cloud services at all. If that sounds insane, I agree, but it worked and it's something that has never been done before. This is brand new and honestly mind-blowing technology. So, we're going to get into that. Plus, Fuji's new IMAX certified GFX Etern 55, which is bringing 65 mm style cinematography to the indie world. — Strata just put out their launch video for Strata Connect, which I was able to take part in and be the remote editor for the short film that we used to test this new tech. But, I want to talk about what it was actually like to use this thing because the promise of this tech is nuts and it delivered. So, here's the basic idea. Strata Connect is a virtual

file system, meaning someone can plug a hard drive into their computer in Los Angeles and I can mount that drive on my desktop in Dallas as if it was connected directly to my machine. No cloud upload, no file transfer, no syncing, it just appears there. And I can browse, import, and edit directly off of it like I would any drive, which is exactly what I did. I didn't need to download the footage first. I'm literally editing directly from a drive 1,500 mi away, all while I'm on Wi-Fi, not even wired in. One of the craziest parts to me happened when we were testing for the launch video. Michael had a hotspot for Wi-Fi at the location, shot a quick test, then plugged the card into his laptop, and invited me to that card. So, I was looking at footage from Texas right off the card before he ever imported any of it. The way Strata Connect is able to do this is by using the processing power of the host computer that has the drives physically connected to transcode and serve the media on the fly. So, it's looking at whatever internet connection is available on both ends and converting your files in real time to be compatible with that bandwidth. So, it's literally streaming, essentially doing what Zoom does to serve real-time video chats. Now, I am gushing all over this, but this is brand new and they know that. There's wrinkles to iron out there, but I had zero issues while editing and I was working off an early build. It's got even better since then. And the craziest part here is that it's only $8 a month. Right now for Film Riot, we're all remote, so I'm using Dropbox and paying 10 times that. And Strata is not a sponsor. I was a part of their launch video, but I have no obligation to make any video on it and they're not even going to see this before I put it out. This is just nuts and I'm sure you already agree. And speaking of storage and workflow, today does have a sponsor and that's Accusys and Western Digital.

First up, the Accusys Carry 2. This is part of their Carry series. It's professional RAID storage with a built-in handle, so you can, you know, carry it. So, if you're someone who moves between locations or workstations, you can just grab it and go. And Accusys has built their reputation on rock-solid reliability and data protection, which when your livelihood is on those drives, you know, it matters. But, what I also appreciate is that it's designed for creators, not IT departments. You plug it in and you're working. I've been working off of it for a few months now and it's solid. So, if you're interested, shoot them an email right here and put Film Riot in the subject line and you'll get 5% off. Links to that in the description as well. But, inside Carry 2, I have my WD Gold drives. These are enterprise class drives built for the kind of sustained workload we put our storage through. So, we're talking up to 550 TB a year of sustained read and write and up to 26 TB per drive. So, if you're working on long-form projects, multi-cam shoots, or heavy VFX pipelines in Resolve, Premiere, whatever, these are built for that abuse. WD Gold has been tested and validated across RAID configurations and enterprise storage solutions, so it's nice to have the peace of mind that your footage is safe. And WD drives have been my go-to for over a decade. WD Gold is available on Amazon and Micro Center. Links below for all of that as well. But now, let's talk about that new Fuji

camera for a minute. — I haven't gotten my hands on it yet. I will soon, but the Etern 55 is really interesting for a lot of reasons. This is an IMAX certified cinema camera with a 55 mm diagonal sensor. To put it in perspective, that's close to 65 mm film. Think Lawrence of Arabia, Oppenheimer, Citizen Kane, that sort of territory. Michael does a really great breakdown in his video on what that sensor actually does to the image and it's not just resolution. Because of the crop factor difference between this and something like an Alexa 35, the same lens on the Etern gives you a wider field of view, which means you can get closer to your subject on a longer focal length and still get the frame you want. And that changes the depth of field, the background separation, the way the face is rendered, just the entire character of your shot. So, in order to match the

exact framing we set up with the Etern 55, we had to pull the dolly back about 2 ft. So, from this perspective, we can use our overhead camera to help us match our original field of view. The camera focal plane is moving back from 11 ft 8 in to 13 ft 7 in. And here's the Alexa 35 with the Ultra Panatar 2 40 mm and it looks great. And a side-by-side comparison allows us to verify these images are almost identical. The subjects line up and the eye lines match. But, if we go full screen and we switch between them, even though the subjects are the same size, the backgrounds begin to change dramatically. And remember, the Etern 55 is closer to the subjects on a longer focal length, whereas the Alexa 35 is further from the subjects on a wider focal length. This shows how significant the crop factor is. They also paired it with Panavision's Ultra Panatar 2 anamorphic lenses, which have a 1. 3 squeeze. And when you combine a 1. 3 squeeze with a 1. 33 sensor, you land almost perfectly at 16 by 9. So, you're using the entire sensor, landing on 16 by 9, but getting anamorphic characteristics. And it's a really beautiful and unique look. I especially like how it handled faces in close-ups. Again, I haven't gotten my hands on the camera myself, but all the footage I was working with has me itching to take it out for a test drive, which I should be doing soon. But, the main thing here really is the workflow issue that Strata is about to solve for a whole lot of people. It's the kind of tech that might not be flashy, but will change how we work for the better. And the Strata team

also just released two videos. One is the launch video that goes way more in-depth on Strata Connect than I did here and you can see us do the whole workflow in one take with no cuts. And they have a full episode on the Etern that's an excellent deep dive on the sensor and why this is so cool. Links to both of those below as well. But, I'm curious on what you think. Does this sound like the game-changer I think it is or am I over-hyping it? Let us know in the comments and as always, if you dug the episode, like, subscribe, and hit the bell to be notified when we put out more content. And until next time, don't forget to write, shoot, edit, repeat. — See you later. — Ta-ta.