• Visual effects studio Spin VFX selects Dell to provide technology infrastructure for new studio
  • Dell helps Spin VFX minimize downtime and maintain tight schedule for graphic intense productions during office relocation
  • Dell PowerEdge servers help significantly reduce render time and improve energy efficiencies for high volume processes


Spin VFX, the visual effects studio responsible for award-winning scenes in Game of Thrones (HBO), Showtime's The Borgias, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 and 2 (Summit/Lionsgate) and the upcoming fantasy series Dominion for Syfy has selected Dell to supply IT infrastructure for its new location in Toronto. Dell's solutions, adopted widely in the film and entertainment industry, contributed to Dell being selected for the prestigious contract with the Toronto-based, Emmy-winning studio whose portfolio includes more than 70 feature films and 13 television series.

Dell worked closely with third-party industry specialist Island Digital to design the updated technology infrastructure at Spin VFX's new studio space and ensure the hardware was tested and ready to go as soon as the move was complete. Fast turnaround was essential to avoid downtime and delays.

Spin VFX has 50 full-time artists, but needs to scale-up to accommodate as many as 125 during peak production periods. This staff comprises animators, designers and artists who use processor-intensive applications such as Pixar's Renderman, Autodesk's Maya, Side Effects' Houdini, and MARI, Katana and NUKE from The Foundry. Spin VFX often has several shows under production simultaneously, with some generating upwards of 20 terabytes of data.

To handle this workload, Spin VFX selected six compact, energy-efficient Dell PowerEdge R420 rack servers with powerful Intel Xeon E5 processors, 48GB of memory and 600GB hard drives. These space-saving servers allow for substantial energy savings, take up less space in the studio's server room and create an efficient hub that allows the artists to share their work and collaborate across the 10GbE network.

On the artists' desks, Spin VFX installed Dell Precision T5600 workstations with Intel Xeon quad-core processors, NVIDIA Quadro 4000 video cards, 32GB of memory and 500GB SATA hard drives. These are paired with Dell UltraSharp U2413 PremierColor monitors - 24-inch diagonal display monitors that feature Widescreen Ultra Extended Graphics Array (WUXGA) technology, and offer both 1920x1200 pixel resolution with a 16:10 screen ratio, and 1920x1080 pixel resolution with 16:9 aspect ratio.

The new workstations have helped reduce rendering time significantly which represents turnaround efficiencies for the studio's artists.

To protect its hardware investment, Spin VFX chose Dell ProSupport for enterprise-class, advance-level support and services.

Quotes:
"When the time came to move our studio we were able to minimize our production disruptions because Dell and Island Digital had everything staged and setup in advance. I've never seen such urgency and attentiveness in all my decades of working with technology suppliers. They were truly partners in our success and we're so thankful to them." - Neishaw Ali, president and executive producer, SPIN VFX .

"Over the years Dell has built up a large portfolio of clients in the film and entertainment sector. We understand this incredibly dynamic and competitive business and take pride in delivering powerful and reliable technology solutions that allow our customers to push the boundaries of creativity and produce award-winning material. Our role is to ensure the hardware works seamlessly and flawlessly enabling the creative talent to work its magic - on time and on budget." - David Miketinac, vice president and general manager, commercial sales, Dell Canada.

About Dell
Dell Inc. listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.ca.

About Spin VFX
Established in 1987, SPIN VFX is a creative and technically dedicated visual effects studio producing captivating imagery for feature film and television . With television credits that include the Emmy award-winning series Game of Thrones (HBO), Neil Jordan's thrice Emmy nominated The Borgias (Showtime), and film credits such as Bill Condon's The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One & Two(Summit/Lionsgate), M. Night Shyamalan's After Earth(Columbia Pictures), Mans Marlind's Underworld: Awakening (Screen Gems), and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter(20th Century Fox) from Timur Bekmambetov, SPIN VFX delivers on vision. SPIN VFX is located in Toronto with sales and support in Los Angeles . www.spinvfx.com

Dell Inc., Dell, Dell Precision, Dell ProSupport, PowerEdge, PremierColor and UltraSharp are trademarks of Dell Inc. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.

distributed by