AWS for M&E Blog
EngineLab drives a new era of cloud-based content production with AWS
In a rapidly evolving media and entertainment landscape, agility and scalability are essential. As studios navigate industry volatility and increasingly distributed creative teams, cloud-based workflows are no longer a futuristic concept—they’re a competitive advantage. The founders of EngineLab, which launched early 2025, recognized the growing need for industry-specific expertise in cloud transformation for studios. Now, EngineLab has teamed up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help creative teams reduce the time needed to build cloud workflows for their highest priority projects from months to days.
Standing up infrastructure in 72 hours
Sam Reid is no stranger to trying new things. When he was the chief technology officer at Untold Studios he led the company’s efforts, from their startup in 2018, to launch entirely on the AWS Cloud in just six weeks. This made Untold the first creative studio operating entirely in the cloud. Then in early 2025, Reid decided to start his own business and was joined by fellow co-founders Daniel Goller and Matt Herman—founding EngineLab.
The trio realized that many artists needed help handling the complexities of their digital infrastructure. None of them could have imagined the call they would get after being in business for only a few days. On Friday, February 21, 2025, Technicolor began notifying employees that operations would be shut down the following week. Leaders from one of Technicolor’s commercial VFX studio subsidiaries, The Mill, decided they would take this opportunity to start a new company and keep projects they were currently working on going. The new company, ARC Creative, had 72 hours to stand up their infrastructure or risk costly delays. This is when the phone rang and the EngineLab team had their first project.
“We started chatting with the ARC team and discussed what they wanted to do, and how they wanted to do it. We soon came to the realization that the Flame workflow for finishing and VFX was the most important one to get up and running. Because it was the most sensitive workflow with the most client interactivity,” said Reid. “So, our remit was to get this workflow created and running in the cloud as quickly as possible, which we ended up completing in three days. We got approval on Friday and they were up and running by Monday.”
EngineLab enabled ARC Creative to deliver client projects without missing a beat. They leveraged the team’s experience in creating similar workflows, along with using a host of cloud-native services, such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) for graphical workstations and Amazon FSx for scalable storage.
“EngineLab is about empowering creatives to focus on their craft without being distracted by the technical hurdles,” said Reid. “We spent seven years solving cloud challenges firsthand. Now we’re packaging that expertise to accelerate others’ journeys.”
Figure 1: EngineLab founders, from left to right: Matthew Herman, Daniel Goller, Sam Reid.
Building on a strong foundation with AWS and generative AI
EngineLab relies heavily on AWS infrastructure and services to deliver fast, scalable, and cost-effective solutions for their customers.
“We have significant experience with AWS, which helps us know exactly what the services do and how to use them,” said Reid. “This helps us advise clients when to use certain services, and in some cases, when not to use them in favor of another service or solution. That judgment, based on real-world experience, is what allows us to spin up fully functioning studios in a matter of days instead of months.”
“It’s fantastic to see specialized partners like EngineLab emerge and strengthen the AWS Partner Network,” said Nina Walsh, Global Leader of Industry Business Development for Media & Entertainment, Games and Sports at AWS. “Having worked closely with Sam for five years, I’ve been inspired by his dedication to pioneering industry advancement using the power of the cloud, while driving innovation for creative industries. EngineLab’s deep expertise and ability to accelerate cloud adoption will be invaluable to studios looking to modernize their workflows and embrace cutting-edge solutions on AWS.”
The EngineLab team also emphasizes the importance of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), leveraging AWS CloudFormation to create repeatable, auditable, and scalable deployments across multiple regions. This codified approach verifies studios can scale quickly across geographies as project demands evolve.
In addition to using AWS for its core infrastructure, EngineLab is pioneering the integration of generative AI into creative workflows. The company leverages Amazon Bedrock to power AI-driven tools that streamline traditionally tedious post-production tasks (such as adjusting eye-lines in VFX shots or creating shot segmentation and depth mapping). By automating non-creative, repetitive tasks, EngineLab allows artists to focus on the work that matters most.
“AI isn’t about replacing artists—it’s about speeding up their workflows so they can spend more time being creative,” said Reid. “We are using Amazon Bedrock and we’ll continue to use the service whenever we can.”
EngineLab is also using generative AI services from AWS to develop custom AI assistants integrated into popular collaboration tools like Slack and Teams. This offers studios new ways to enhance productivity without disrupting existing workflows.
Driving the next era of cloud-based content production on AWS
While still in its early days, EngineLab is already fielding significant interest from studios eager to modernize their technology stacks. By pairing cloud scalability with AI acceleration, EngineLab helps creative teams weather the ups and downs of a volatile market. Scaling up resources when projects surge and scaling down when work slows, helps preserve operating capital without compromising performance.
“In an industry that’s naturally bursty and prone to disruption, cloud technology is the best way to stay agile,” said Reid. “Working with AWS for over seven years, we’ve built a strong relationship based on customer-centricity and innovation. With AWS, studios can access the latest hardware, optimize costs, and stay resilient no matter what comes their way.”
The close partnership between AWS and EngineLab is driving new possibilities for media production. As AWS continues to innovate across cloud, AI, and media services, EngineLab is well-positioned to bring these advancements directly to creative teams. With EngineLab’s deep expertise, agile delivery model, and commitment to empowering creativity, the future of cloud-first content production is closer—and faster—than ever before.
Connect with EngineLab on LinkedIn or at hello@enginelab.io, and learn more by exploring AWS for Media & Entertainment or contact an AWS Representative to know how we can help accelerate your business.