StratusCore, Joshua Jackson’s Liquid Media Push Cloud-Based Production Service

EXCLUSIVE: StratusCore has entered into a strategic partnership with Liquid Media Group, with the latter driving the operations and distribution efforts for both purpose-built production facilities and easily accessible artist-ready co-work facilities that will allow content creators to access StratusCore’s Virtual Studio cloud-based secure services for film, television, gaming, animation and advertising content production and post production from virtually anyplace in the world that will allow them to plug in a computer and go online.

Liquid Media’s chairman is Joshua Jackson, who recently wrapped the fourth season of the Showtime series The Affair and whose company is concentrated in his home base of Vancouver which happens to be one of the busiest production hubs, a $4 billion a year industry.

“Friends of mine in the digital and post effects trade have struggled to keep the lights on and the barrier to entry is access to content creation services that require massive overhead,” Jackson told Deadline. “StratusCore allows access to those sophisticated systems where groups can work on projects, and pay as they go. That eliminates the crazy overhead that productions had to incur, and  dramatically brings down the costs and democratizes the production and post production editing processes.

“My feeling is that this technology can become as significant as the shift from film stock to digital,” Jackson told Deadline. “You have access to the same quality tools as everyone else only instead of taking on a lease for a year, you buy only for the amount of time it takes to do the work. So much of this business is done from virtual work stations, and this platform provides all the tools and reduces the barrier of entry significantly. You can be in London or Prague and have the opportunity to be in contact with each other, with a clear chain of ownership so that you see who is touching it, in a secure environment.”

Under the agreement, Liquid Media will be taking a leadership role in managing the existing network of facilities currently carrying the Powered by StratusCore certification – which has hosted and hosts such companies such as Netflix, Sony and Amazon Productions including their network of related production companies. Additionally, Liquid Media will drive further expansion of these certified facilities into North America, Europe, Asia, and other selected media markets.

“We are genuinely excited about our relationship with StratusCore to directly address the $20 billion content-creation services business. Together, StratusCore and Liquid can facilitate efficiencies in content creation and continue to push the art of the possible,” said Joshua Jackson and Liquid Media CEO Charles Brezer.

StratusCore CEO Denise Muyco explained the partnership this way: “StratusCore has spent eight years listening to the world’s most talented content developers to build and deliver the best-in-class virtual workplace for creative professionals. The digital content creation industry is unquestionably going virtual and the cloud is here to stay. Brick and mortar facilities are still required, but of a much different kind. Micro-renting of a physical location optimized for these project-based work scenarios is a killer combination for content creators and remote teams. Liquid Media is well positioned to scale out our physical distribution to shared spaces like co-work facilities as well as purpose-built facilities, including sounds stages.

“Knowing that Liquid Media will be operating our facilities-based network going forward gives us great confidence that the industry will rapidly receive the benefits of our Virtual Studio environment and platform,” said Muyco. “These benefits will impact our industry in a great way—that includes faster project turnaround times and more importantly, a solution for the critical shortage of artistic talent. More and more productions and projects realize that artists and teams can materially contribute remotely with a mature and reliable virtualized collaboration platform.”