Why the Gigabit Is So Important for the Film Industry in Kansas City

Guest Post By STEVEN FULLER

Often I hear people question the economic effect or other benefit of having Google Fiber in Kansas City. Yeah they can surf the internet faster, yes their YouTube videos and streaming work automagically…but what is the true benefit?  I don’t know the answer for every business, but I can relate the benefits for two industries in town, and what it has done for our business at Fuller Creative.

Giga-business

Fuller Creative is a brand development and marketing company located in downtown Kansas City. We manage all of the graphic design in-house, as well as video, post production, animation and some special effects work for films, commercials, music videos, and web. Our office at Innovation Café co-working space, and my home in the Crossroads, are both wired for Google Fiber.  A few weeks ago our visual effects and animation division, IgnitionFX, got an interesting job request from Digital Thunderdome Studios in Virginia Beach that helps me perfectly quantify what a gigabit means to Kansas City.

Digital Thunderdome had shot a music video for the Australian metal band In Hearts Wake in 5K digital.  It was gorgeous. It was also an enormous file. The scene was an old west desert town in Utah.  Could we set it on fire for them?

Yes, we could do that. Our Animation Director Jim McCullough fancies himself a bit of a digital arsonist.

Can we get it back to them in 1 week, including revisions, due to a time sensitive release schedule coinciding with the album release. Absolutely. Of course we can.

Of course we can, for multiple reasons.

1. I believe in our team.
2. We live in Kansas City and have Google Fiber at our office.
3. This was an opportunity to showcase a newer service offering.
4. Kansas City + Google Fiber = Awesome

In Kansas City huge files don’t take hours or days to download or upload, they take minutes or seconds. It really only came down to whether we could make the edits in time. Which we could (awesome team and all).

By that Friday we had set a town on fire (digitally), including billowing smoke, and made some other minor adjustments for their video, including revisions. Everyone was extremely happy with the result; we did some back patting and headed off to grab some drinks in the Crossroads.

Watch the before and after video:

During a final review that weekend the client noticed there were two specs travelling across some of the shots. Those two specs turned out to be two people walking through an entire scene in the distance! The level of detail of a modern camera is phenomenal.  When we arrived Monday morning the file had been sent back to us with an emergency request to edit those people out of the shots, and return ASAP. By Monday afternoon we had made the revisions, and sent the file back.

By Friday the single was the #1 most downloaded album on iTunes Australia. To date the video has over 160,000 views.  We could not have accomplished that turn-around time as efficiently anywhere else.

If you want to check out Australian metal you can watch the full video.

And it wasn’t just the one job. Fuller Creative, LLC moves a lot of data. We design and develop entire marketing campaigns, sometimes with hundreds of graphic deliverables.  Yesterday we uploaded the designs for a tradeshow, including wall art, in minutes. Our clients come from Spain, Australia, the U.K., and all across the United States. Google Fiber has had a direct impact on the way we do business by allowing us to take on quick turnaround projects of massive file size, and move data more efficiently.

That has direct economic impact.

The Impact on Our Film and Television Community

When I’m not talking about Fuller Creative I’m talking about the local Kansas City Film community as the Vice President of the Kansas City Film Society, Board member for the television show CinemaKC, and member of the Independent Filmmakers Coalition. We have an amazing community full of award winning actors, directors, producers, and a plethora of high end production facilities.

In 2015, if a filmmaker in Kansas City needs to transfer their film, files, or edits online they can get it done faster than in 90% of the United States. Put another way – if two films reach completion at the exact same moment in LA and KC, the KC film gets online first. This has the ability for dynamic impact. A KC filmmaker can edit a little longer, upload much faster, do revisions with a team across the globe, and even stream in real time better than most places in the U.S. Using Google Fiber, I can livestream a show from KC with resolution as high as, or higher than, cable. What is the potential impact on film and even television in an increasingly web driven and global marketplace?

It’s … huge.

And that’s the difference a gigabit makes to my business, and our film community in Kansas City.

Engage with our film community at these upcoming events:

• June 24 is the annual #KCFilmConnect Summer BBQ to benefit the Robert Altman Emerging Filmmakers Fund. Get tickets here. Funds are used to provide filmmaking grants and facilitate entry into Artists Inc., a program connecting Kansas City artists of all disciplines to the tools, resources, and opportunities necessary to develop their entrepreneurial skills and strengthen their artistic practice.
• This fall the Kansas City Film Society, KC Digital Drive, Kansas City Film + Media Office, and Visit KC are working with our Gigabit sister city in Chattanooga, TN, to bring a new type of film contest and showcase to the community as part of Techweek. Details will be posted soon at capturechatt.org.