Lucasfilm Ent. Co. Ltd. plans to create a single IT platform for all of its worldwide digital assets, reports TECHWEB TECHNOLOGY NEWS. The system will consolidate everything from California to the Singapore animation studio.
Individual divisions (Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic, LucasArts, Lucas Animation and Skywalker Sound) already have digital asset management, scheduling, budgeting and tracking systems. The plan is to create a collaborative environment to centralize digital media content throughout the company. Lori Gianino, Lucasfilm director of information systems, will oversee the project.
The digital asset management system will house live-action frames, stock footage, motion picture capture data and metadata, as well as provide a production and workflow tracking system, to help artists and schedulers manage projects. There are plans to add another 15 employees in the IS department global operations, which currently has a 20-person team that designs, writes and maintains the proprietary non-graphical software for the companys nearly 2,000 employees.
A 100-TB Oracle Corp. database supports the project to design, manipulate, access and store the companys vast number of complex digital images. Routers are from Foundry Networks and workstations from HP.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
