Case Study

TL;DR

When Warm & Fuzzy was tasked with creating more than 30 visual effects (VFX) animations on top of live video footage of 750,000 fans at Coachella music festival, they turned a shipping container in the desert into their post-production headquarters. With just four creators onsite, and 10 more supporting remotely, Warm & Fuzzy used Parsec to build a remote workflow that enabled artists to pitch in on the project from anywhere in the world, accessing GPU-intensive compute resources that dramatically reduced rendering time from nearly 8 hours to 30 minutes.

By the Numbers

4
Warm & Fuzzy creators on location
10
Team members working remotely
10x
Faster remote renderings with Parsec for Teams
30
VFX animations created

The Challenge

Warm & Fuzzy was selected to handle the extensive VFX and computer graphics (CG) work for the recap video that would be shared for the popular 2022 Coachella festival livestream, website, and on social media channels. It was an enormous assignment: the team would need to create intensive VFX and CG shots, quickly weaving in real-time footage of festival attendees. 

Unfortunately, there was no practical way to pack up the studio’s dedicated render farm, ship all workstations to Indio, CA, and set up a full studio onsite. With nearly 750,000 music fans descending on Coachella, Warm & Fuzzy needed dependable access to all their top-of-the-line studio equipment, so they could create the recap video under an almost impossibly tight deadline. 

The Solution

Warm & Fuzzy became fans of Parsec’s super low-latency and responsiveness as soon as they tried it out. Flawless remote access meant uninterrupted use of demanding graphic tools such as Maya, Redshift, Cinema 4D, Houdini, After Effects, Red Giant, Syntheyes, Photoshop, and Deadline. They were impressed how Parsec empowered each artist with the ability to access their machines as if they were sitting in the studio.

Parsec enabled Warm & Fuzzy to tap their global full-time and freelance talent, and made their Los Angeles-based render farm accessible to the remote team, so a single render took 30 minutes instead of eight hours, which would not have been possible with just their onsite workstations. While the music festival rolled on against the backdrop of art installations and sculptures, the Warm & Fuzzy team successfully completed the recap video, drawing from the talent of colleagues near and far.

Why Parsec for Teams?

Real-time collaboration with same-day turnaround
The Warm & Fuzzy team worked on VFX shots and CG for the video while an onsite camera crew roamed the festival, capturing crowd shots and art installations. The camera crew handed off their work to the Warm & Fuzzy team for effects and post-production, closing the loop on a near real-time effort to capture the magic of Coachella.

Zero disruption to team workflow
The Warm & Fuzzy team was able to jump into their work with near-zero latency, accurate color, and perfect control. The distributed team felt as if they were working alongside each other in the same studio – no distractions or workflow disruptions here.

“Parsec is super fast and responsive, with zero lag and beautiful colors, so it felt like we were there, which is important to artists. The low latency is insane. With other products, we experienced lots of lag time that made it so hard to work, we’d want to give up.” —John Bashyam, Warm & Fuzzy Co-Founder

Frictionless adoption
The Warm & Fuzzy artists spent over twelve hours per day using Parsec to produce the Coachella video. Bashyam notes there was frictionless internal adoption of the app. Even freelancers who were introduced to Parsec for Teams were won over by the ease of low-latency remote collaboration.

Access to a global talent pool
Warm & Fuzzy has worked with popular brands and companies such as Converse, Instagram, Kraft, and Honda, so it attracts great talent. And with Parsec, their remote workflow enables Warm & Fuzzy to access top artists from anywhere.

Creativity Without Limits

“Parsec has really opened the doors for Warm & Fuzzy to work with people anywhere, whether they are freelance or new hires,” Bashyam says. “It's much easier to onboard when you don't have to worry about someone’s location. I don't think there's any end in sight in terms of finding talent anywhere in the world.”