Frame.io, a video review and collaboration platform used by over 1 million filmmakers and media professionals, has brought Michael Cioni on board as Global SVP of Innovation. Cioni, a prominent production and post workflow expert, joins Frame.io from international camera company Panavision where, in a similar role, he spearheaded numerous breakthrough products and workflows, including the Millennium DXL 8K large-format camera system.
At Frame.io, Cioni will lead a new L.A.-based division focused on the continued investment into cloud-enabled workflows for motion pictures and television–specifically, automated camera-to-cutting room technology. “Frame.io is not only looking to strengthen today’s use of the cloud, we’re also driving increased creative control by reducing the time it takes for media to reach editors in offsite cutting rooms,“ said Cioni.
“The professional filmmaking process is going through the largest functional change since the shift from analog to digital,” said Frame.io CEO Emery Wells. “While cloud-based technologies are already transforming every industry, we understand moving more of the filmmaking process to the cloud presents several unique challenges: security, file sizes, and scale. Since day one, we have built Frame.io to solve the issues that we lived working in postproduction.”
When it comes to security, Frame.io has responded to Hollywood’s unique needs by making it a cornerstone of the platform. “Frame.io has invested deeply in security so that customers experience safe, documented, and trustworthy cloud accessibility of their highest-value media,” said Cioni.
Additionally, “Hollywood’s attention to image quality, archiving, and future-proofing are all core aspects of the Frame.io platform,” Cioni stated. “Emery and I both know what it means to work with large creative teams, so at Frame.io we are developing a totally new direct camera-to-cutting room collaboration experience.”
Frame.io has been 100-percent cloud based since day one. “We started seeding new workflows around dailies, collaborative review, and real-time integration with NLEs for parallel work and approvals. Now, with Michael, we’re building Frame.io for the new frontier of cloud-enabled professional workflows,” Emery said.“Frame.io will leverage machine learning and a combination of software and hardware in a way that will truly revolutionize collaboration.“
With Cioni, Frame.io’s vision for the next generation of professional cinema workflows will be completely anchored in cloud-based technologies. “A robust camera-to-cloud approach means filmmakers will have greater access to their work, greater control of their content, and greater speed with which to make key decisions,” said Cioni. “Our new roadmap will dramatically reduce the time it takes to get original camera negative into the hands of editors. Directors, cinematographers, post houses, DITs, and editors will all be able to work with recorded images in real time, regardless of location.”
As the lines between production and postproduction continue to blur, this move uniquely positions Frame.io to respond to the pervasive need for global studios and creatives to collaborate without geographic boundaries or borders.
From Restoring To Hopefully Preserving Multi-Camera Categories At The Emmys
When Gary Baum, ASC won his fourth career Emmy Award earlier this month, it was especially gratifying in that the honor came in a category--Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Half-Hour Series--that had been restored thanks in part to a grass-roots initiative among cinematographers to drum up entries. Last year the category fell by the wayside when not enough multi-camera entries materialized.
In his acceptance speech, Baum appealed to the Television Academy to keep multi-camera categories alive. He later noted to SHOOT that editors also got their multi-camera recognition back in the Emmy competition this year. Baum hopes that after resurrecting multi-camera categories in 2024, such recognition will be preserved for 2025 and beyond.
A major factor in the decline of multi-camera submissions in 2023 was the move of certain children’s and family programming from the primetime Emmy competition to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ (NATAS) Emmy ceremony. For DPs this meant that multi-camera programs last year were reduced to vying for just one primetime nomination slot in the more general Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (Half-Hour) category. It turned out that this single slot was filled in ‘23 by a Baum-lensed episode of How I Met Your Father (Hulu).
Fast forward to this year’s competition and Baum won for another installment of How I Met Your Father--”Okay Fine, It’s A Hurricane,” which turned out to be the series finale. Two of Baum’s Emmy wins over the years have been for How I Met Your Father, and there’s a certain symmetry to them. His initial win for How I Met Your Father was for the pilot in 2022. So he won Emmys for the very first and last... Read More