CASE STUDY
Facilis TerraBlock Opens New Doors for Knock Knock
In 2010, veteran editor Daniel Chaput De Saintonge launched Knock Knock – a creative production studio serving marketing, advertising, and PR agencies. Supported by a 12-person team and robust technological workflow, the East London-based company specializes in video, film and animation production and has worked on several projects for clients like Burberry, De Beers, and the British Government.
Prior to 2013, Knock Knock relied on individual hard drives to store all incoming and outgoing projects. Growing weary of unpaid time spent organizing the hard drives and copying data, the studio invested in a 36-TB Facilis TerraBlock 24EX Shared Storage System last August. Chaput De Saintonge explained, “I’m a believer in investing in infrastructure, and as an experienced editor, I knew the benefits that a cost-effective solution like TerraBlock could bring to the table.”
Knock Knock brought TerraBlock into its facility with assistance from UK Reseller Tyrell. It is now connected to eight Mac edit suites running Adobe® Creative Cloud™ (one of which also runs Apple® Final Cut Pro® X) via 1Gbit Ethernet, in addition to one online Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve suite for color grading via 4Gbit Fibre Channel. Completing the pipeline, a turnkey media asset management solution from axle Video manages elements held on the TerraBlock.
Since installing the system, Chaput De Saintonge has seen a noticeable difference in Knock Knock’s workflow and is saving an hour a day on average. “Our experience has been such that I shudder to think of life before TerraBlock. We no longer find ourselves in those moments of panic trying to find files, because everything is accessible and easy to archive with TerraBlock,” he expressed. “I can create standalone or shared volumes for projects and I’m able to manage user permissions to ensure that each editor’s storage is under control. There’s no wasted time, and that’s invaluable.”
With TerraBlock at the center of the facility, the Knock Knock team can also easily access and share media across workstations simultaneously without lag time. “I love that our editors can collaborate on the same project at the same time without delay,” Chaput De Saintonge said. “It saves us time and money and is one of the main reasons we bought the system.”
The compatibility of TerraBlock with axle Video’s media asset management system has also proven essential in the studio’s creation of mood films for ad clients, which require the culling and compilation of different footage to evoke targeted emotions. “We need a huge archival of imagery and video for these films that we can readily search, and TerraBlock and axle work so well together – giving us exactly that. We’re able to dip nicely into our tagged archive and send files out to any machine,” shared Chaput De Saintonge.
Knock Knock’s team has also discovered a newfound comfort in the security that the TerraBlock provides. Chaput De Saintonge concluded, “TerraBlock gives us a huge peace of mind. We don’t worry about losing data nor do we have to double everything up. Even if a drive fails, we’re covered.”
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