What was it that first attracted Nathan Love to AWS?
Until early 2020, work produced by the Nathan Love studio was completed from its New York City headquarters, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it prompted change. It was up to Joe Burrascano, Founder and Executive Creative Director of Nathan Love, to evaluate various solutions and facilitate an effective remote workflow for his studio. He decided to go all-in on Amazon Web Services (AWS) choosing virtual workstations with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) G4dn instances, powered by NVIDIA T4 Tensor Core GPUs with RTX technology; rendering with Spot Instances using AWS Thinkbox Deadline; and storage using Amazon FSx. “My dream was to have hosted machines and not manage software, and AWS appeared with exactly the tools we needed. It was the only solution that checked all the boxes,” Burrascano explained.
“AWS appeared with exactly the tools we needed. It was the only solution that checked all the boxes.”
– Joe Burrascano, Founder and Executive Creative Director of Nathan Love
How has Nathan Love benefitted from virtual workstations on AWS?
After a few months of testing the new setup, the team put it into production at the end of Summer 2020. With a virtual pipeline built on AWS, Nathan Love’s artists can now create from anywhere. “Having moved our entire studio to the cloud, we’re no longer tethered to the office. I can just as easily work from a cabin in the woods, even on high-intensity projects,” shared Burrascano. “Using AWS is a game changer. It has freed me from a lot of the headaches that come with being a business owner, and instead, I can focus on the creative,” he added.
“It has freed me from a lot of the headaches that come with being a business owner, and instead, I can focus on the creative.”
– Joe Burrascano, Founder and Executive Creative Director of Nathan Love
How does AWS support Nathan Love’s workflows?
Shifting to the cloud has made it easier for Nathan Love to scale in terms of both compute resources and talent. Depending on the project, teams can really vary in size – from just one artist to an army of more than 30. By using AWS, the studio can equip each artist with the tools of their preference. It also allows the studio to expand its talent pool globally. Burrascano explained, “We’re an artist-driven studio, but investing in multiple unique setups can get pricey. Being able to access virtual workstations and software licenses on-demand is amazing. We can scale to the size we need and shut them back down.”
Nathan Love primarily uses Autodesk Maya for animation, with rendering done in Arnold. Modeling is completed in Pixologic’s ZBrush and Foundry’s Mari, and compositing is handled by Foundry’s Nuke. The studio’s partners also occasionally work in Autodesk 3ds Max or Maxon’s Cinema 4D, in which case files are exported as Alembic caches into Maya for rendering through Arnold.
Many of these applications are accelerated with NVIDIA RTX technology, enabling artists and creators to interact with complex scenes, using real-time ray-traced lighting. It also means they get faster batch rendering and access to amazing AI creative tools.
“As we were learning how to use our new pipeline, AWS was simultaneously making it easier to start a production-ready environment, and the fact that our support team at AWS comes from a media and entertainment background was reassuring. They were proactive in helping us get to where we needed to be, and now we’re using our AWS-based pipeline quite effortlessly,” shared Burrascano.
“Being able to access virtual workstations and software licenses on-demand is amazing. We can scale to the size we need and shut them back down.”
– Joe Burrascano, Founder and Executive Creative Director of Nathan Love
Going forward, how does Nathan Love anticipate best utilizing AWS services?
Discussing the potential of their virtual pipeline, Burrascano said, “We can keep better pace with technology and access more powerful equipment. It gives us a lot more capabilities within our budget, and we can work with great talent regardless of location.”
When demand for 3D projects dipped and 2D work took the limelight, Nathan Love adapted their service offering. Now they’re able to seamlessly create across both formats. For each project, the studio typically creates a piece of hero content that’s also sliced into smaller chunks for different channels, including broadcast, digital and print. With AWS, multiple deliverables can be rendered on even shorter timelines, allowing the studio to turnaround comprehensive campaigns in less than a month. While the studio maintains a downsized location in New York City, it’s abandoned the requirement that artists be in the same physical space to collaborate.
“Cloud-based pipelines are the future and I’m excited to test and develop new workflows on AWS that we’ll use for a long time. As we move into longer-form projects, it’s nice to have a system that will allow us to grow,” concluded Burrascano.
“Cloud-based pipelines are the future and I’m excited to test and develop new workflows on AWS.”
– Joe Burrascano, Founder and Executive Creative Director of Nathan Love
How does Hive VFX see cloud computing impacting the industry long-term?
With streaming services such as Netflix firmly established, there’s already been a significant shift in the Media & Entertainment industry. Bernie noted, “I find that people really want a different work environment, especially more experienced people.” Looking to the long-term he predicts, “the cloud will just be the norm”, but even in the near future, he anticipates big changes – with previous entry hurdles of funds and technology being resolved for start-ups through cloud innovation. Bernie commented, “You used to have a few fairly large studios and they did all the work. I think now it almost gets democratized, where everybody can quite easily open up a shop.”
What advice would Hive VFX give to a studio considering the move?
Operating in the cloud works for Hive VFX – Bernie explained why he’d encourage others to embrace the change too: “Don't be afraid. I think so many people for one reason or another, dismiss it. It's essentially a free playground. Why don't you just play around with it a little bit and see what happens? Because you have no commitment whatsoever.”
“If you can come up with a good plan and a good team, you can do it now.”
– Bernie Kimbacher, Founder of Hive VFX
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