LONDON — Light Iron, the post production creative services division of the Panavision group, has selected Nara (www.nara.stream) for its New York and Los Angeles facilities, streamlining its workflow across sites from dailies through to finishing. Nara is a FilmLight venture and serves as an integrated media tool, offering a streamlined and sophisticated solution for media access, streaming and indexing. Nara uses the technological foundation and expertise of FilmLight, and the proven technology that powers its Baselight grading platform.
Nara can natively decode and play back a wide selection of media without the need to transcode to proxy files. Its advanced indexing system ensures rapid data retrieval, while its streaming engine minimizes bandwidth usage. It supports on-premise and in-the-cloud storage, provides strong codec support, and guarantees uniform and color-accurate image presentation.
Light Iron's producers require view-only access to its SAN volumes to efficiently create work orders and distribute files. Before implementing Nara, the studio relied on two separate programs — one for navigating file structures and another for securely viewing playable content. With Nara, Light Iron’s producers now have a single solution that combines file navigation, secure content viewing and information sharing through one interface.
“Nara enables us to safely access file paths, distribution information and media content across departments without compromising security,” explains Andy Kaplan, SVP of operations at Light Iron. “This platform has become essential for our teams, providing accurate, up-to-date information that enables seamless collaboration between departments while maintaining the strict security protocols we need.”
For Light Iron, one of Nara’s standout features is its ability to play back files stored on their SANs in realtime. This functionality provides producers with peace of mind, enabling them to review files before client distribution. Nara also ensures accurate color representation, relevant burn-ins and detailed metadata for thorough content verification.
“Another key feature is the ability for users to create custom bookmarks to specific locations in our SANs,” adds Amy Redfern, head of production for Light Iron. “This time-saving function allows each producer to quickly navigate to the most relevant files for their projects, improving efficiency even further.”
Nara has optimized Light Iron’s processes when restoring media for conform or VFX, allowing them to easily locate the correct storage volumes and verify that each clip and its resolution matches the project’s requirements. Nara also provides the team with the ability to view materials remotely without the need to gain direct access to the files or a suite in the facility.
"It's been great working with the Light Iron team,” comments Peter Postma, managing director at FilmLight, Americas. “Nara is a young and evolving product, and we’ve enjoyed incorporating their valuable feedback into new features – allowing producers and coordinators to respond to their customers more efficiently. We look forward to continuing this collaboration and further developing Nara so that it meets our customers’ requirements going forward."