MediaKind Supports Chattanooga Film Festival With New D2C Platform

MediaKind is working with Microsoft, Evergent, Slalom, and VisualOn to develop an interactive, Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) platform which will enable the Chattanooga Film Festival to take place in front of a digital audience, while carefully maintaining the event’s intimacy, culture, and intent.

“Every year, independent filmmakers spend hundreds of thousands of hours shooting and editing video which eventually forms the bedrock of the incredible big-screen works we see today,” says Chris Dortch II, Executive Director and Lead Programmer, Chattanooga Film Festival. “While the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we host this event, thanks to the exciting partnership with MediaKind, Microsoft Azure, Evergent, Slalom and VisualOn, the Chattanooga Film Festival will continue to bear the hallmarks that define festival importance for the creative film community. Now our industry can continue to share its work, champion new names, and deliver exceptional cinematic offerings to audiences.”

The combined technology-solution partnership aims to support the festival’s community of independent content creators and sponsors who have been hard-hit by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Film enthusiasts from across the USA will be eligible to purchase a badge to attend the digital installment of the event from their own homes, with access to 50 independently made short feature films, and a number of feature-length films, streamed live and on-demand. Filmmakers will have the opportunity to engage with digital ticketholders across interactive panel sessions, Q&A’s and live events, and gain insights into audience reactions, based on actionable insights and data.

“While the methods we use to watch film are evolving, content creators and owners need equally diverse options to deliver their art,” says Lisa Aussieker, VP Marketing and Communications, MediaKind. “Working with our innovative partners, we are proud to offer a bespoke solution, enabling filmmakers to experience the critical feedback, insights, and acclaim their work merits – the essential attributes of film festivals that could be easily lost through less tailored streaming solutions. By developing this new interactive platform with a cloud-ready, full-stack offering, we can enable meaningful live event experiences where creators and fans can connect, interact, and celebrate the success of their inspiring art and creative communities.”

The media delivery collaboration will allow the four-day Chattanooga Film Festival to run on a feature-rich platform. This cloud-based solution can scale to accommodate any defined number of attendees; to replicate the intimate attendance figures of the annual event, badge sales for the Chattanooga Film Festival will be limited to 30,000 attendees. The online video streaming platform will restrict access to Safari on macOS and Microsoft Edge browsers. By tailoring the digital event in this way, filmmakers can retain greater creative control over their content, maintain the value of premium rights and preserve the opportunity for future distribution deals.

“We are proud to provide Microsoft Azure as the cloud platform to help partners like MediaKind, and the Chattanooga Film Festival, innovate, connect, and bring the digital version of the festival to life,” says Tad Brockway, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Azure Storage, Media and Edge, Microsoft Corp. “We are focused on listening to our customers, and partners, and working with them to build technology to unlock new capabilities.”

MediaKind’s MediaFirst TV Platform forms the heart of the technology deployment. The media-optimized, cloud-based platform will stream the festival’s feature and short films. The MediaKind offering also includes MediaKind Encoding On-Demand and MediaKind Packaging. The rich turnkey solution will be enabled through contributions from Evergent and Microsoft – who were among the first partners to join the MediaKind Universe Alliance in September 2019 – as well as Slalom and VisualOn:

• Evergent: Powers authentication billing services and user management capabilities.
• Microsoft: MediaFirst TV Platform to be hosted in Azure, offering the necessary elasticity to scale encoding up and down as required. Microsoft Teams to deliver live and interactive events, with distribution via Microsoft Azure CDN.
• Slalom: Offers strategic management consultancy services for the cloud-based deployment
• VisualOn: Provides single software stack for cross-platform multimedia playback across Android set-top-boxes and TV.