Listen to Felix Cisneros talk about Digital Asset Management
Transcript:
Henrik de Gyor: [00:00] This is Another DAM Podcast about Digital Asset Management. I’m Henrik de Gyor. Today I’m speaking with Felix Cisneros.
Felix, how are you?
Felix Cisneros: [00:13] Hi, Henrik. Fine, thank you. Nice to be here.
Henrik: [00:16] Felix, how are you involved with Digital Asset Management?
Felix: [00:14] I’ve spent actually my entire career in Digital Asset Management, starting at Paramount Pictures as Director of production information. Even before we called it metadata, it was just production information. I was responsible for tracking the development assets before they agreed with the film. We had over 200 projects in active development.
[00:35] They realized that the dissemination of the information throughout the company was important. So, I created the production information department specifically to track these assets, which existed at that point really in script form, treatment form. These were not obviously film or video assets, but really the basis for which films would be made.
[00:58] I have also spent about 10 years implementing digital library systems for companies around the world, whether it’s to track video, audio, photography, or other digital content and of course, all the associated metadata with it.
[01:12] In my current role, I’m responsible for the distribution of television content, metadata, key art, and all the content identifiers for multiple national cable networks sent to all the various platforms such as online, SVOD, TV Everywhere, electronic cell through, and of course the regular linear services.
[01:30] We utilize multiple Digital Asset Management systems to source this content. In each of these roles, it’s really been a key tool for everything that each company has been trying to accomplish.
Henrik: [01:42] Felix, how does an American entertainment company use Digital Asset Management?
Felix: [01:46] In my experience, it’s on multiple areas. One that gets a lot of attention, of course, is the main program or film and its various iterations, or versions. You’ll usually see some tolerable duplication of those assets in other systems for specific platforms, or distribution partners.
[02:05] Others, are in the key art and photography areas which are becoming more important each day, as the distribution platforms compete with each other for retaining viewers. They want more and more key art to showcase the content, so the challenge is of tracking every iteration, size, the rights associated with it, metadata, and the approvals are extremely important.
[02:27] Lastly, the purely digital content, which may not necessarily be released commercially, but is used as supplemental material for online purposes or PR. Those are some of the primary areas that you’ll see an entertainment company use DAM. In my experience, these areas have traditionally been separate Digital Asset Management systems, with separate taxonomies and metadata schemas. At least in my experience, that’s been the case.
Henrik: [02:53] Felix, what are the biggest challenges and successes you’ve seen with Digital Asset Management?
Felix: [02:58] Referring to the previous answer, I’d say that utilizing common content identifiers across the multiple areas of the content repositories is key. It is really a challenge. I think the success comes with being able to really tie those various areas together.
[03:18] The distribution and the rights management are becoming much more complicated. The ability to use content identifiers across these multiple asset management systems for identifying rights, integrating into programming or scheduling systems, what we consider the holy grail, orchestrating the gathering transformation and distribution of the finished product via an orchestration type of system.
[03:46] I think the biggest challenge would lead to the biggest success, in that the ability to actually tie these disparate systems together in order to gain real efficiencies in the packaging and distribution of that, is really where I think some major effort needs to be put to.
Henrik: [04:04] Felix, what advice would you like to share with DAM professionals and people aspiring to become DAM professionals?
Felix: [04:09] I always say, think about where the business is going. Whatever your business is, if it’s in retail, museums, television, film, how are your customers, your visitors, your users ultimately going to consume your assets? Then apply that thinking to how you design and implement your DAM system and the workflows associated with it.
[04:32] Secondly, I would say get out in the world. Talk to people. Attend the conferences. Talk to your colleagues at other companies. Listen to podcasts such as these, and keep your skills sharp. Make sure you know how other companies including those I would say not in your immediate field, are addressing and solving these issues.
[04:52] That to me is extremely important. It’s talking and understanding what other people are doing, and using that, and using how your end user or customer is going to utilize these assets, it’s all kind of one and the same.
Henrik: [05:08] Thanks, Felix.
Felix: [05:10] Thanks, Henrik. Good to be here.
Henrik: [05:12] For more on this, visit anotherdamblog.com.
For this and 180 other podcast episodes, visit anotherdampodcast.com. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at anotherdamblog@gmail.com. Thanks again.
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