Belfast-based Ka-boom - one of Northern Ireland’s fastest growing Production and Post Production facilities for TV and Film – has announced that the successful integration of a 48TB Facilis TerraBlock 24D shared storage system has revolutionized working practices at the facility. Ka-boom’s managing director, Zach Willis, believes that the adoption of Facilis’ shared storage technology has been a key technology enabler in the business’ stellar growth over the last two years.
“For sure, TerraBlock has helped us create an environment where growth is enabled and supported,” states Willis. “On an engineering level, TerraBlock empowers us to connect all our suites in a single ecosystem. And it enables our most important resource - our fantastic creative staff – to work totally collaboratively, as one unified team."
“I’m certain that TerraBlock has contributed to our success and continues to support our expanding operations. It’s one business building block investment that has rewarded us and will be a long-term feature in our dynamic business model,” Willis continues. As a part of its expansion, Ka-boom has recently taken on a second building and expanded to offer four edit suites. Still, Willis has plans to install a further two suites within the new building.
Started five years ago, today Ka-boom boasts full Avid DS, Avid MC 8, Symphony, Final Cut and Pro Tools 5.1 Dubbing Theatre all centrally connected via 10Gb to its Facilis TerraBlock system alongside Northern Ireland's largest ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) stage. The facility works on a mixture of local and international productions. Alongside its Post Production services, Ka-boom provides full production services with an experienced team of production staff.
Shared storage opens up a new world of collaborative working
In the early days of Ka-boom, storage was provided using standard local drives with no network storage. As the need arose to support multiple edit suites, the requirement for some kind of shared storage architecture became evident.
“At the time we performed a paper-based comparison of the various shared storage systems that were available,” explains Willis. “It boiled down to a choice between Avid’s ISIS and Facilis Technology’s TerraBlock. We chose TerraBlock since it ticked more boxes and offered a lot more at a competitive price level."
“We were attracted by the flexibility that TerraBlock provides – it is equally happy using fiber or 10GB Ethernet connectivity. It doesn’t restrict us to one sort of technology nor one type of software. It works well with our Avid suites and it integrates seamlessly alongside graphics packages such as Adobe Premier and Photoshop,” Zach continued.
“Most importantly, TerraBlock empowers our creative teams to work collaboratively, which is a revolution for us and our growing client list,” he explains. “With TerraBlock, we have broken down all the silos that existed within traditional facility architecture. Sound, editing – all of our team work together on the same projects, at the same time. It’s so much more efficient as a way of working.”
The system was supplied by Facilis’ local representative – Dublin-based Tyrell CCT. Ka-boom was equally impressed with the technical and operational support, which is provided locally by Tyrell. The relationship with Tyrell is long-standing and has added value to the process of selecting and installing TerraBlock.
“Tyrell has been trading with Ka-boom for over five years in both their audio and video departments,” explains Bryan Malone, managing director of Tyrell CCT. “We have definitely aided their growth since 2010, but it’s our technical collaboration that stands out for me. In order to continue to grow at the rate they wanted, we had some challenging discussions over what storage system was required. Suffice to say, 18 months on, we can all reflect on Facilis and Tyrell support being the most suitable collective choice.”
