Crafty Apes Transitions to Remote Work with Support from RFX and Teradici

Crafty Apes, a visual effects and production studio with a list of impressive credits that includes Jumanji: The Next Level, Watchmen, Hustlers, and Dolemite is My Name, shifted all of its artists to working from home with the support of RFX Inc., a leading hardware and software solution provider for the visual effects industry, and Teradici , the creator of industry-leading PCoIP technology and Cloud Access Software.

The transition of approximately 150 artists took about a week. Crafty Apes was able to keep its artists online and maintain production schedules at a time when many enterprises struggled to support a mass migration of employees from the office to the home.

We had to go from an office full of people to everyone working from home, and we had to do it very quickly, said Tim LeDoux, founder and VFX supervisor for Crafty Apes. Thankfully, we had help from RFX and Teradici and their technology solutions to help us get it done. Our artists are all now working from home, editing shots, doing their jobs, and all with a high degree of security, since we're just streaming the data and not sending any files home.

Crafty Apes expanded an existing installation of Teradici PCoIP technology it had used to support artists in branch offices and other remote locations from centralized data centers. The studio wasn't alone in its quick transition. Similar stories have emerged from Atomic Cartoons, Mainframe, and Scanline, among others.

Crafty Apes artists have full access to their office workstations from their home offices using 10ZiG zero clients and can work within their regular software applications, including Nuke, Houdini, Autodesk Maya, and Adobe Photoshop. PCoIP technology encrypts and sends only pixels to the remote endpoint with high-fidelity color and graphics performance and virtually no latency, while keeping files securely stored in the office location and compliant with Trusted Partner Network (TPN) security requirements.

There are a number of reasons VFX studios implement PCoIP technology, including long term security, efficiency, and cost savings in centralizing workstations either in the cloud, in private data centers, or a combination of both, said Ian Main, technical marketing principal for Teradici. Crafty Apes and RFX have demonstrated the agility and resiliency PCoIP solutions can bring to studio workflows.

RFX specializes in software and professional services for visual effects studios and has seen demand increase for remote work solutions as production centers like California, New York, Vancouver, and India closed offices to comply with public health mandates.

Each company has different permutations and combinations of hardware, software, projects, and locations to support, said Cliff Edson, general manager for RFX. Teradici PCoIP technology is tried and tested across the industry and delivers in terms of fidelity, performance, and security requirements, but the specific implementation of it can vary according to each company's needs. Working closely with Teradici, we were able to run proofs-of-concept exceptionally quickly and help minimize downtime during a studio's transition.

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