Lancit Digital Media Masters Visual Storytelling with EVO

Lancit Digital Media Masters Visual Storytelling with EVO

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Brie Clayton February 22, 2021

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There's a golden rule in content creation: always tell a good story. Nobody practices that rule quite like Larry Lancit, President and Owner of Lancit Digital Media. In his Emmy-winning career in video production, Lancit has prioritized storytelling above all else. This is clear in his long-running educational program Reading Rainbow, which inspired countless children with books, music, and other media for over 20 years.

data-src=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/21183244/Lancit1.jpg alt= class=lazyload wp-image-2404380/>Reading Rainbow was the first of many children's programs produced by Larry and Cecily Lancit, and is widely regarded as one of the best shows of the genre.

Lancit's award-winning team has long brought commercial content, narrative films, and promotional work for non-profit organizations to audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

For over 25 years, Lancit and his wife Cecily evolved their production company to serve different markets, work with new clients, and tell stories with the newest production technologies. From their visitor programming channel, Paradise Coast TV, to charitable projects like Vids for Kids, Lancit Digital Media never stops improving their visual storytelling abilities.

Storytelling is key-and EVO lets us focus on that. said Lancit of his EVO shared storage solution from SNS. EVO expedites the production of programming. It's really changed our business.

Lancit's long-form creative projects weren't always so manageable, though. In fact, Lancit Digital Media's journey to post-production efficiency would make a pretty good book. Take a look!

data-src=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/21183426/Lancit2.jpg alt= class=lazyload wp-image-2404381/>Reading Rainbow helped an entire generation of children learn more about books, arts, culture, hobbies, and vocations.

Call to AdventureLarry and Cecily Lancit created the massively popular children's television series Reading Rainbow, first airing in 1983 with host LeVar Burton. It didn't take long for the show to receive nationwide acclaim, including 16 Emmy Awards, the 1991 Prix Jeunesse Award, and a Peabody Award.

The show's goal was simple: inspire children to read and interact with storytelling in a constructive way. To do this, Lancit used a clever mix of animation, special effects, and live action sequences to bring stories to life. To bring everything together in post-production, Lancit contracted multiple professional video editing studios known for their quality work.

data-src=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/21183547/Lancit3.jpg alt= class=lazyload wp-image-2404382/>Cecily (right) and Larry Lancit (center left) celebrate their 1996 Emmy win for Outstanding Children's Program with LeVar Burton (center right) and Project Director Twila Liggett (left).

By the early 1990s, however, Lancit recognized the need to upgrade their video editing workflow and keep the process in-house. While working on shows like Reading Rainbow and The Puzzle Place, Lancit's editing team shared a workstation inside their Manhattan office, storing media on shelf-sized 18GB drives-a far cry from today's media production hardware.

By the next decade, the industry had much more to offer. The Lancits were editing their productions on personal computers using Apple's Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro for the entire post-production process. While storing their media on disks and external hard drives was a step in the right direction for Lancit, it hampered his team's collaboration and creativity. Soon, he began a quest for his next workflow evolution, leading him to EVO.

Crossing the ThresholdLancit Digital Media produces a lot of content for many different clients, including non-profits and community organizations. We do a lot of storytelling, said Lancit. The non-profits we work with have stories to tell about what they do and who they serve. Bringing stories like these to life is our fort .

Managing so many distinct projects-and storing so much pro video content-with each video editor working on their own in Premiere Pro or FCPX was becoming a major issue.

Keeping our media organized was getting cumbersome, added Lancit. Every project had to have its own drive, and we had all these disks piling up all over the office. It was really a problem for us. We began looking for a better option, eventually discovering EVO.

data-src=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/21183712/Lancit4.jpg alt= class=lazyload wp-image-2404383/>Lancit and his team use technology to stay mobile and flexible on shoots, using drones and wireless monitors to their advantage.

Looking to organize their workflow, Lancit Digital Media purchased their 8 Bay EVO shared storage server in 2014. It was an evolution to an entirely different way of finishing media. In one building, Lancit's lead editor worked from EVO to edit content in Premiere Pro and other video editing software. In an adjacent building, Lancit hard-wired into the same media server to review finished edits, give feedback, and retrieve media from their archive.

Every aspect of their post-production workflow goes through EVO. Lancit makes extensive use of ShareBrowser, EVO's included media asset management software. Using ShareBrowser, Lancit's team can search, tag, comment, and review their entire media library, finding the footage they need exactly when they need it.

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