Huston School of Film & Digital Media Website

Established in 2003 at the National University of Ireland in Galway, the Huston School of Film and Digital Media is one of the most respected centres of its kind in Ireland.  Named in tribute to legendary director John Huston (who lived in Galway for many years and directed such classics as ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ and ‘The African Queen’), the school offers postgraduate training and education in aspects of film and digital media, with a special emphasis on the potential of new technologies for cinematic storytelling and documentary production.

Like all education providers, Huston School of Film faces considerable competitive pressures in trying to attract prospective film industry students to its courses.  “Using innovative technology to enhance the curriculum is central to attracting and retaining students,” said James Finlan, Coordinator of the M.A. in Production and Direction.  “Providing our students with access to professional quality broadcast production systems as part of the course gives them a strong competitive advantage upon graduation.” 

The Huston School of Film has invested in digital editing systems since its establishment in 2003, but the standalone Avid editing suites were starting to create considerable inefficiencies and workflow issues within the curriculum.  The school had issues managing and sharing data and they had to copy media between the suites, which was not representative of real world media management. The collaborative ethos of shared workflow is a vital skill to teach students as it mirrors the environment that they will encounter working in the media industry.

Having previously worked with Tyrell, The Huston School of Film selected the company to provide a comprehensive and forward-looking editing environment with a tapeless, integrated workflow.  Central to the system is the fifth-generation Avid Unity MediaNetwork, a powerful, scalable shared storage network which was designed by Avid for storing, accessing, and sharing media in collaborative workgroup environments.  When compared with standard storage area networks (SANs), the Avid system offers significant advantages to Media Education customers since it integrates seamlessly into the production process and allows real time HD editing.  Huston School of Film now has four state-of-the-art editing suites running Avid’s industry leading editing software, Media Composer, which allows students to share media projects and ideas.

The result is a dynamic, shared workspace allowing significantly improved throughput of material.  Students can access media files from any of the suites, and then edit and finish audio and graphics work in a collaborative environment.  An edit station in the main lecture room also allows for theatre-style viewings of projects, where lecturers can instantly review student work over the network and add notes directly to each student’s timeline. The system can scale to support up to 46 single-stream clients and 128 TB of storage giving the school the required platform to facilitate the expected growth in student numbers.

“The system has really allowed Huston School of Film to optimise our technology resources and reduce administration efforts and overheads. Our students are now editing centralised media simultaneously from different suites,” said Finlan.  “No one has to wait for one task to be completed to start another.  Everything can happen in real time, which is modelled on today’s collaborative production environments.  It was also very important for us that this system could scale to accommodate the future.  Because our media assets are stored centrally, we can continue to add storage space as we need it and slot new technologies in to it as we expand.”

Tyrell brought some unique service and support benefits to the mix, according to Finlan.  “Tyrell already has a strong customer base in the west of Ireland, which reassures us that they will be onsite quickly if we need them to resolve any issues.  It is also key for us that they have specialists in the education sector, as it shows their commitment to our industry and means they really understand the unique set of challenges which we face.”