MovieLabs Urgent Memo to the C-Suite

We published our 2030 Vision white paper “The Evolution of Media Creation” with its goal being, “to empower storytellers to tell more amazing stories while delivering at a speed and efficiency not possible today.” In that paper, we described 10 principles as key elements of the 2030 world we envisioned. Our call to action to the industry was “to collaborate by appropriate means to achieve shared goals and continue to empower future storytellers and the creative community.” When writing the “2030 Vision”, we debated over the target audience, but ultimately concluded that it should be aimed at production technologists (CTOs, CIOs, Cloud Companies, SaaS providers, Technology Companies, Software Architects) i.e. those who would not only recognize the challenges that we were highlighting, the merits of the principles we articulated, and also help in designing the technical solutions. However, we also highlighted that enabling the vision would take more than just technologists. The realization of the Vision also requires alignment and support from senior leadership across finance, marketing, operations, producers and even board members who provide organizations guidance on strategy, governance and long-term risk.

Since releasing that original white paper, production technology leaders from across the industry have embraced the 2030 Vision making it the industry’s reference for the future of media creation. And while having this alignment is absolutely critical for our shared vision’s success, today we’re releasing a new white paper [Urgent Memo to the C-Suite LINK] aimed at leadership across the content creation ecosystem – Chief Executives, Chief Financial Officers, Chief People Officers as well as board members, production executives and production companies. And we have a simple message – companies that want to not just survive but thrive in the modern content ecosystem need to invest in production technology now.

Much like investments in Distribution Technology 10 years ago enabled the rapid rise in consumer demand for streaming media services, we now need to make a corresponding investment in production technology to more efficiently create the content that our growing, global audiences are demanding. Let’s define what we mean by production technology – it’s often assumed to be just be on-set technologies like virtual production, cameras and LED walls but it’s broader than just that and also includes all technology and systems used to create final movies and shows including asset management, creative software tools, onboarding and talent scheduling, managing jobs, networks and infrastructure and so much more.

In an effort to place this technology vision in a business context, against the backdrop of what our industry is now facing, we have identified 5 trends that are shaping content creation and 3 strategic imperatives that organizations should follow now to ensure they can stay ahead of those trends. Technology is certainly a key part, but this is not a technical paper nor a call for technology investment just for the sake of it. There are clearly rationalized reasons why and how we must invest now to ensure competition and choice in the future and to not recreate the mistakes of the past, where we’ve had multiple opportunities to reinvent our content creation ecosystem but shied away from making the difficult, fundamental changes which could have unlocked significant efficiencies and value. Our new “Memo to the C-Suite” paper is marked “Urgent” because these changes are transformational and will take time – so we all need to act now to realize our shared vision as soon as possible.

Our industry is at a critical inflection point as emerging technologies (cloud, automation, AI, real-time engines) approach mass adoption and we reemerge from the pandemic which has both once crippled our industry and enlivened it. We cannot waste this opportunity to reinvent our 100-year-old production processes and create a more dynamic content creation ecosystem that is optimized for the sorts of content consumers are demanding now and will do in the future.

And while this paper is clearly not literally a “memo to the c-suite”, it does goes down easy. So, download your copy of the MovieLabs Urgent Memo to the C-Suite here and encourage your colleagues and friends to do the same.

The time for action is now. For more information, please follow MovieLabs on LinkedIN #2030Vision.