Building Hollywood's Digital Backbone for the Remote Era

The Friction

Global content production was fragmenting. Studios were managing massive assets across continents: VFX houses in London, directors in LA, editorial teams in New York. But the infrastructure couldn't keep pace: scattered files, insecure sharing, broken approval chains, and workflows designed for physical proximity, not distributed teams working with 8K footage.

The Kernel (The Architecture)

Stephen Cronan co-founded 5th Kind to build CORE, a secure, metadata-driven platform that unified the entire creative workflow into one intelligent system: asset storage, collaboration, reviews, approvals, and distribution. Not just a file-sharing tool. A complete operating system for modern production.

The Studio's Role

Steve architected the technical infrastructure that would become the industry standard for secure, distributed creative workflows.

The Build:

• Metadata-Driven Digital Asset Management: Built CORE to automatically organize and track every version, approval, and change across massive production pipelines
• Workflow Orchestration & Approval Pipelines: Enabled real-time collaboration between Marvel's VFX teams, Disney's editorial departments, and global studio networks
• Enterprise-Grade Security Infrastructure: Created the security layer that allowed blockbuster-level assets to move safely across continents

The Scale:

By the late 2010s, CORE wasn't just powering Hollywood. It had become critical infrastructure for global content and enterprise teams: Marvel, Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., Illumination, Epic Games, Riot Games, Toyota, Saudi Aramco, and Nissan all relied on the system for mission-critical production. The platform watermarked and distributed tens of millions of files annually, accessed by over 4,500 companies worldwide.

The Handoff:

In 2023, Sohonet acquired 5th Kind, integrating CORE into its global remote-collaboration ecosystem. The architecture we built now powers secure asset management and distributed workflows across the entertainment industry.

The Legacy

That infrastructure layer didn't just solve a studio problem. It redefined how global creative teams operate. The system we architected in 2012 for film production became the backbone for remote collaboration across industries. The rails we laid enabled an entire generation of distributed production.

Gallery