Unlocking the value of your content in Production and beyond

The entry into the world of streaming by tech giants and Hollywood studios has opened a world of opportunity for Production companies.  Production companies of all sizes have a huge opportunity to benefit from the growth of content streaming services and the explosion of demand from the public for fresh stories and new features and series. While the opportunity is bigger than ever, Production companies face a huge challenge in making the most of this revolution. Well-resourced Streamers are engaging with smaller players who often will lack the bandwidth and resources easily to match those clients’ expectations. 

Jade McQueen

Jade McQueen, MD of M&E at Box, the content cloud solution used by the majority of major film studios and TV networks, explains to DTVE how secure content collaboration can help them meet the demand, unlock the full value of their data and thrive in this very competitive environment.

“Everything must come together quickly to bring stories to life.  Production companies must deliver content fast while staying within budget, maintaining a high level of security and making sure no element of the content leaks out before it is ready – all while cast and crew remain freelancers,” says McQueen. “Entertainment is a business where people tend to lean towards using tools that they’re used to working with and will do whatever it takes to get the job done. Reconciling the culture of M&E and the need for secure collaboration can be challenging but to the streaming giants hungry for exclusive content to feed to a global market, it is imperative that their suppliers deliver on time and to budget while respecting stringent requirements around security.”

What is Unstructured data?

According to a survey conducted by IDC for Box, approximately 90% of data in any enterprise is completely unstructured*. For the entertainment industry, where value resides in content, this means that the value of much of what they create is not currently realised. “When we talk about the amount of content that is created, especially for companies with a long history, it is really important to be able to realise the value of that content,” says McQueen.

Producing a TV show or a film means working with vast amounts of data, almost all is ‘unstructured’ – typically qualitative data that lacks a predetermined schema, including scripts, location shots, casting notes, etc.

“Every single asset that is created on a set or during pre-production becomes valuable IP entertainment companies can eventually monetize on post release. Controlling and managing your IP is crucial and starts at the ideation phase of a project.  Additionally, the speed at which series are now created has increased. If you are successful with season 1 of a new show, being able to use assets and data to create season 2 will help you speed up Production and have context being creative decisions, storylines and more so that you are not left starting from scratch” says McQueen.

“If you look at a show like Stranger Things, the special effects created for that first season of the show were reused for the next season. You may also be working with a specific crew. If you are not able to secure that crew for the new season, you at least want to understand how you arrived to framing a scene or the gear used to create a certain lighting.  All of this in considered unstructured data and needs to be secured and governed.  A simple way to think about it is: This is the data that provides the context behind the content.’

Production companies need to invest in a system to make sense of the diverse data at their disposal and break down the silos that often characterise the way they work. Such a system, says McQueen, is built on 3 pillars: Security, collaboration and connectivity.

Above all, she says, companies need “to have an understanding that security touches every asset, and everyone involve in the Production is responsible for it. We have a concept at Box that we call ‘zero trust’ which means creating an environment that protects against any kind of leak or data breach from the inception of a project to the delivery of the final feature/TV show”.

Keeping your content secure

Cyber threats are on the rise, with estimated costs of a data breach totalling nearly $4.5M in 2023 according to IDC*, and The Media & Entertainment industry is often targeted for its coveted content.

Making sure the content and all its constituent elements (initial treatments, scripts, storyboards, cast lists and trailers included) does not leak out – is of prime importance and represents a material monetary value to high-profile M&E studios.

“The reality is that the security threat kicks in as soon as you have an idea for a show,” says McQueen. “It’s not just the content itself but every document associated with that content, such as a document detailing what the budget for a scene is, that’s important.”

In an environment where a Production crew will be incentivised to do whatever it takes to wrap a scene, where people working on the content are from outside the enterprise and rely on their own tools, creating a single platform – a single trusted control – is one of the biggest challenges facing companies in this space.

McQueen cites the case of a trailer of a major Production being lost, forcing a major studio to release the content earlier than planned, involving a costly repositioning of the marketing campaign around the show, as an example of things going badly wrong. Such an occurrence will severely damage the brand equity of the Production company held responsible for the leak.

“At Box we think and offer a native and intuitive way to secure data, while remaining extremely productive, collaborative and connected to every system and application you use. It’s important to have a single source of truth for any Production to enable its creators to really focus on what matters – creating the content” she says.

Artificial intelligence

“We’re just at the beginning of the AI journey. When people talk about AI today, increasingly we’re talking about Large Language Models or LLMs.” AI, she says, can not only help streamline the Production process, but can help marketing teams by getting inspiration for blogs and social media posts. It can also provide insights onto how budget was spent on Production and pull trends for better understanding.  At Box, we recently launched Box AI which when prompted, can summarise a script or provide highlights of a talent agreement helping you be more productive by handling a task that previously took hours in minutes,” says McQueen. “AI can help tremendously. It’s not about replacing creatives or the creative process but about making it more productive.”

“There are some dangers,” says McQueen. “You want to make sure that the LLM you are using is not going to train against your unreleased content – you need to make sure you are protecting your valuable IP as there could be financial implications and more if you use AI in an unsafe way. If you are thinking of using ChatGPT, you need to truly understand what kind of content out there you can prompt your AI engine with.”

To give companies confidence, Box provides data on how the answer to a specific question was arrived at and deletes material that is not required. Files are only accessed by those who have permission to.

She points out that Box is only at the beginning of the journey of creating useful tools for media Production using Large Language Model AI.

“We’d like to be able to add AI into security and governance processes, extending it to automate permissions for example,” she says. “For example, ensuring that marketing material is compliant with data protection rules in different countries, or automating detection of malware and ransomware to enhance security. If someone is known to be in one location and Box Shield, Box’s security solution, detects their laptop being opened in another, it will automatically be able to shut down any potential leak of content.”

Beyond the applications outlined above, AI could also be deployed to unlock the value inherent in the content that Production houses possess that is currently unstructured – and underused.

“We are entering a digital golden age in the Media and Entertainment business and we at Box, are very much leaning into to this industry to help creatives bring their best stories to life without technology getting in the way ” she says.

For more on how Box powers storytelling across Europe through working with media Production companies, click here.

And for more on Box solutions for Media and Entertainment, click here.

* Source: IDC White Paper, sponsored by Box, “Untapped Value: What Every Executive Needs to Know About Unstructured Data,” Doc #US51128223, August 2023

This is sponsored content.