Amazon Web Services, RodeoFX, and MovieLabs Join Academy Software Foundation

Academy Software Foundation Announces Amazon Web Services as a New Premier Member

Rodeo FX and MovieLabs join as General and Associate members

LOS ANGELES, CA, July 29, 2019 – The Academy Software Foundation (ASWF), a neutral forum for open source software development in the motion picture and media industries, today announced that Amazon Web Services has joined the Foundation as a Premier member, Rodeo FX as a General member, and MovieLabs as an Associate member.

“We are pleased to welcome Amazon Web Services as a new Premier member. Many open source projects and developers rely on cloud services from AWS for content creation and production. We look forward to their contributions as our projects continue to evolve and grow,” said David Morin, Executive Director of Academy Software Foundation. “We are also excited to have Rodeo FX and MovieLabs join our community. Rodeo FX has a deep expertise in visual effects and developing artist-driven tools that will be beneficial as our Foundation continues to grow. MovieLabs has a history of bringing together studios and tech companies to develop common technology goals, which aligns with our goal of driving collaboration and shared development of open source technologies across the motion picture and media industries.”

Launched last August at SIGGRAPH 2018 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Linux Foundation, the Academy Software Foundation provides a neutral forum for open source software developers to share resources and collaborate on technologies for image creation, visual effects, animation and sound.

“Our membership has almost doubled since we launched the Academy Software Foundation a year ago, and we’re grateful that both studios and software vendors are seeing the value in having a neutral home for collaboration and shared development of open source software,” said Rob Bredow, SVP, Executive Creative Director and Head of Industrial Light & Magic, and Governing Board Chair of Academy Software Foundation. “Amazon Web Services, Rodeo FX, and MovieLabs are welcome additions to our community, and we look forward to their contributions as we continue to grow.”

SIGGRAPH 2019 Open Source Day
All SIGGRAPH 2019 attendees are invited to “Open Source Day,” hosted by Academy Software Foundation on July 30 at the JW Marriott in Los Angeles. The event is a full day of Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions focused on open source projects used for visual effects, animation, and image creation – Academy Software Foundation, OpenVDB, OpenCue, OpenEXR, Rez, OpenTimelineIO, ACES, OpenColorIO, Open Shading Language, and MaterialX. Additional details are available here.

 Member Quotes:

“AWS is excited to be joining the Academy Software Foundation (ASWF) to help support open standards in the visual effects and animation industry. With a variety of workloads from Media & Entertainment customers already running on AWS, we look forward to contributing to ASWF projects and initiatives to help studios continue their success using open source technology and open standards effectively on the cloud.”

• Will McDonald, Principal Product Manager, AWS Thinkbox, Amazon.com Services, Inc.

“Rodeo FX is excited to be joining the Academy Software Foundation and further supporting its commitment towards the advancement of open-source software in the visual effects industry. Our work relies heavily on the ability to share between different studios, multiple vendors, and across a variety of software and platforms. Open standards makes this type of collaboration possible and allows our artists to focus less on technical hurdles and more on the creative challenges of bringing the best image to the screen. We look forward to working with the Academy Software Foundation and its members to help shape the future of open-source software in our industry.”

• Jordan Soles, VP Technology and Development, Rodeo FX

“MovieLabs believes that the future of content creation lies in software-defined workflows for image and sound creation and rendering. Open source software, like the VFX Reference Platform, has proven immensely valuable to our industry in establishing common tools and formats. We’re excited by the opportunity to work with the Academy Software Foundation to enable new forms of content production and distribution.”

• Jim Helman, Chief Technology Officer, MovieLabs

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About the Academy Software Foundation
Developed in partnership by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Linux Foundation, the Academy Software Foundation provides a neutral forum for open source software developers in the motion picture and broader media industries to share resources and collaborate on technologies for image creation, visual effects, animation and sound. The Foundation is home to OpenColorIO, OpenCue, OpenEXR, and OpenVDB.  For more information or to get involved in the Academy Software Foundation, visit ASWF.io.

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Media Inquiries
Emily Olin
Academy Software Foundation
eolin@linuxfoundation.org