Phase 3 Productions Has Chosen Archion Editstor

Archion Technologies, Inc., in shared storage solutions for content creation, announced that Phase 3 Productions has chosen its EditStor to handle its ever-increasing media needs in the production of infomercials promoting vintage television projects released on DVD, as well as for documentaries featured within those DVDs.

Phase 3 Productions depends on EditStor for its Avid project sharing, which the company calls ‘simple, intuitive and fool-proof,’ ensuring company-wide ease of access to shared files for a diverse range of clients.

Says Phase 3 Productions founder/president Alex Trocker: “Phase 3 Productions started out basically doing broadcast advertising and promotion, but the scope of our work has broadened over the years to include EPKs and even live performances of  stage plays. We also do a lot of infomercials, so our scope has expanded to include a great deal of live action production along with our post. We’ve done quite a few infomercials, documentaries, and feature content packages for DVD’s recently. These have been for such classic TV series as The Carol Burnett Show, Get Smart, the original Batman series, and Laugh-In, along with specials like the Motown 25 Anniversary, and many variety shows, such as those starring Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, and Andy Williams – even The Dean Martin Roasts, and many others. Some of these projects could include up to 15-20 hours of original documentary material that we produced for them.”

He adds: “We have been longtime Archion customers, starting years back when we had their Synergy to expand our Avid Unity system. It integrated into our workflow beautifully, so when it came time to replace the Unity, we went to learn about Archion’s EditStor. As far as the price comparison goes, it can’t be beat. We simply had to have a large, high performance, big media storage system with Avid project sharing (bin locking) in which we would keep all that content online all the time. The Archion EditStor system makes our lives easy. All of us here at Phase 3 are writers, producers or directors, so we are all well rounded generalists. We are all comfortable editing with the Avid and accessing the EditStor for storage. The EditStor shares all of our Avid projects across all editorial needs, including graphics, sound mixing, and final cut.“

Chris Hansen, chief engineer, Phase 3 Productions, said: “Archion’s EditStor fits into our company’s workflow beautifully. It can handle any format of video file we may use for a project. Our workflow is pretty simple: for editing we use Avid Media Composer 8 and Apple’s Final Cut 7, and Adobe’s After Effects or Premiere for graphics and effects. The EditStor can store all of our graphics files – anything we can come up with – a lot of the other solutions can’t do that. Archion handles all three equally well – it’s a beautiful choice. The fact that Archion can support all three workflows equally well saves us so many problems. It’s so very straightforward – you put it in, go with it, and get the output you desire. Right now, we have five edit bays, and with the EditStor, the project sharing is simple, intuitive and fool proof. We’ve often had three bays working on the same project at the same time. The system has always performed flawlessly.“

“Basically, we have high capacity demands here because of our increased business and expanding client base,” Hansen adds. “There are a lot of projects we work on that are different than those handled by the typical post house. Sometimes we will revisit a project 6 or 9 months later to reversion it for different clients. We do a tremendous amount of work for broadcast clients who always have tight deadlines, so there is a lot of pressure for us to deliver. The reliability of Archion has really helped us out over the years, it’s a great system. Since we put our first EditStor online here three years ago it’s been in use 24/7/365. The other plus in dealing with Archion is that they probably have the industry’s best tech support. I put a very high value on that – when I pick up the phone with a question, I can get an answer immediately. That’s a huge help. Their tech support is far above and beyond what I’ve come to expect from anyone else in our industry.“

Dan Stern, Archion’s VP, business development, said: “It’s been a pleasure working with Alex and Chris, industry pros with years of expertise across every conceivable kind of production and post production project. They have come to recognize Archion’s elite Avid workflow knowledge, and they’ve experienced the simplicity and reliability of Archion’s storage. I was not surprised when they originally called us to learn about EditStor as a Unity replacement. I am delighted that Archion can play a role in their ongoing growth and success.“