Customer Success Story — How Blue Spirit Studio moved to Reemo.io 💜
Frantz Delbecque, Deputy General Manager @ BLUE SPIRIT, reveals everything to us.
Blue Spirit has been open to remote work using Reemo.io since March 2021. After 12 months of use, let’s take stock with its Deputy General Manager.
“In January 2022, when it was necessary to put a large part of the teams into teleworking, we did it very easily overnight, thanks to the Reemo solution in particular.”
Frantz, can you tell us about your Studio Blue Spirit Production?
Blue Spirit is a French 2D and 3D animation studio made up of 350 people with branches in Paris, Angoulême and Montreal.
Since 2004, Blue Spirit has been producing and manufacturing animated series and feature films and acts as an executive producer and/or service provider on behalf of French and foreign producers but also for American majors and platforms with very ambitious projects for a technical and artistic point of view.
Blue Spirit covers the entire value chain from development to compositing.
How did remote work work at Blue Spirit before Reemo?
At Blue Spirit, apart from a few people based in Paris who could from time to time work remotely, we were not at all ready to do remote work on a large scale because we were not organized for this mode of work.
During the first confinement, we had no choice but to make machines available to team members with a file synchronization system.
It should be noted that a large part of the people in Angoulême and Montreal do not have the fiber, which has complicated this new work organization all the more.
Before Reemo, let’s say that we didn’t have a remote work solution that allowed you to work in a very flexible way.
What was your problem at the start of 2021 that led you to try the Reemo solution?
At first, our objective was to be able to telecommute jobs that could not be easily exercised with studio equipment at the artist’s home.
I am thinking in particular of compositing, which requires a huge flow of images, which necessarily requires the machine to be on the studio network. By using Reemo we were able to put these first people in telework.
Reemo allows us to be more flexible in the way we work.
How was the deployment of Reemo more widely at Blue Spirit?
We started with the Parisian teams. Beyond the obvious need for our remote working teams, Reemo has provided us with an agility solution to provide accessible and easily configurable machines to people coming to Blue Spirit for short assignments.
Another aspect covered by Reemo is security. In the context of tests on confidential projects, the machines just like the images cannot leave the studio. By using Reemo, we were able to offer an alternative to people who, for geographical reasons or linked to health constraints, could not physically go to the studio.
As the solution worked well, we deployed it in our other studios and in other areas (pre-prod, rig, animation, compositing).
What were the criteria for success?
- Respecting schedules and delivery deadlines was our main criterion. The productivity of the teams had to remain the same, whether people were in the studio or remotely. Otherwise, there was an obvious economic stake.
- The technical aspect with the ease of setting up the solution.
- Finally, the responsiveness of your support service
Have you observed any changes in the work habits of your teams?
In general, Reemo allows us to be more flexible in the way we work. We are now open to telework and see a hybrid work model emerging.
It is above all from an organizational point of view that I note a change because our department heads can now work remotely, in peace, to do their research and reflect on current projects, for example. Although remote, they are equally effective if they need access to their studio production machine. Which was not the case before the confinement.
What is the feedback from your teams after using Reemo?
The solution works well. We’ve had some feedback about latency from network configs or where the person is physically located. The teams are satisfied because they can make a mix between working at home and working in the studio. Wherever they are, employees work with their machine and it is this flexibility, which in terms of use, is very much appreciated.
Besides, in terms of use, do you have some figures?
As we speak, we have 54 people connected among the 110 equipped with a Reemo account knowing that Canada is not yet connected and that they also use this remote work solution.
There is a time saving on the IT side. The speed of implementation of Reemo saves them from configuring machines and sending them one by one to the homes of remote people. In addition, all our machines remain on site, which simplifies the maintenance part.
We have just announced at CES the release of our new Reemo Secure Browsing offer, an internet browser hosted in the Cloud. What do you think ? What interest does this product have for actors in the Creative Industries such as Blue Spirit?
Our IT team has indeed started testing this new service. This is interesting for our business because to work with US studios, we are subject to TPN (Trusted Partner Network) certification in order to secure our content.
This imposes restrictions and in particular prohibits access to the Internet on workstations. Thus, our employees who need to use the internet, or use communication tools such as Teams or even send e-mails, must be equipped with a double workstation.
Your high-performance Secure Browsing solution would make it possible to easily deploy the Internet on a workstation while respecting these security measures and to offer working comfort to the artist for whom the Internet is necessary. It is therefore a very interesting solution on the production side and just as much on the IT side thanks to the very easy implementation and much simpler than a double workstation.
What if you were to introduce Reemo.io to other studios?
In two words, I would say simple and effective. It is implemented in 2 clicks.
Thank you Frantz for answering our questions!
Dear IT Director, IT Support, Production Manager, you now know how to offer a remote technological experience similar to the one your teams have in the studio.
