Orca Studios boosts creativity in its film projects with AWS

Opportunity Orca Studios boosts creativity in its film productions with AWS

Orca Studios, whose client base includes Netflix, started with small visual effects projects with on-premises hardware. The growing demand for virtual production led them to evolve their studio to offer virtual production using LED panels sets to create scenes where real actors coexist with virtual backgrounds, as well as environments with computer-generated visual effects. Later, Orca Studios expanded its capabilities beyond virtual production, improving its VFX (Visual Effects) division to handle more complex projects. This strategic expansion was already under way when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and in response to the challenges posed by this situation, the decision to migrate all VFX operations to the cloud was made. Thanks to this, they have captivated audiences with major audiovisual productions such as The Witcher or Bird Box Barcelona.

“Our studios work as face-to-face or hybrid meeting centers for work teams. Since most of our infrastructure is cloud-based, we are able to ensure a smooth cutover to remote and collaborative work between artists whenever necessary,” says Yukio Satoh, CTO at Orca Studios. “In addition to flexibility and scalability, using the cutting-edge Amazon Web Services allows us to hire top talent for our cinematographic work, since we can work with experienced artists based anywhere in the world.”

The infrastructure that underpins Orca Studios: scalability and throughput

One of the key factors for choosing AWS was “the availability of virtual workstations designed for VFX and digital content creation; specifically G4 instances with NVIDIA T4 GPUs and Intel Cascade Lake CPUs.” These instances provide graphics throughput up to 1.8 times better than previous generation G3 instances, enable the use of libraries such as CUDA, and offer up to 45% better cost-throughput ratio for graphics-intensive applications.

In addition, Amazon EC2 spot instances allow you to take advantage of EC2's excess capacity on AWS Cloud at significant discounts compared to on-demand prices of equivalent instances. Thanks to the flexibility provided by these instances, Orca Studios is able to adapt to the computing capacity required for each of the movies they work on. Each project has an isolated, automated infrastructure that supports the production software for the movies, AWS Thinkbox Deadline-managed render farm, and the corresponding storage. Artists connect remotely to this infrastructure to add visual effects that compel even the most demanding audiences and collaborate on the movies and series that Orca Studios post-produces.

“Once our work on the film is finished, we archive the project on Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive to free up space in our high-throughput storage systems. Glacier Deep Archive allows us to store hundreds of terabytes of data at a very low cost, keeping them accessible for retrieval when needed. We use AWS DataSync to automate file transfers quickly and easily. This way, we optimize our active storage resources without losing access to any relevant project data.”

Operational Excellence: End-to-End Automated Processes

When deploying its architecture, the VFX and VPX studio decided to develop all infrastructure components using infrastructure as a code. “We have automated configuration and maintenance tasks throughout the lifecycle of a project, from inception to archiving. This automation allows us to centrally, reliably and securely manage a large scale infrastructure, and to easily deal with demand peaks. In addition, by having these critical processes standardized and controlled, our technical team can focus on the continuous innovation of our technology.”

“The VFX and VPX industry is highly competitive and requires constant innovation, which represents significant budget challenges. By adopting AWS, we leverage on its scalable infrastructure, but we must balance throughput and costs. To achieve this, we have established resource optimization processes, financial monitoring and monthly reviews, while improving our workflow and production efficiency. With these efforts, we have achieved a 40% reduction in infrastructure costs since we started. This experience highlights the relevance of robust planning to maximize cloud potential, which we consider transformative to drive innovation in the VFX and VPX industry,” concludes Yukio Satoh.

Orca Studios is an independent visual effects and virtual production studio based in Spain. Specialized in VFX and VPX techniques, the combination of their experience in visual effects with new technologies allows them to offer an one-stop solution for all filmmaking stages, from pre-production to post-production. With physical offices and production studios in Madrid, Barcelona and Las Palmas, Orca Studios’ creative team is distributed all over the world.

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