CHALLENGES: Pendulum VFX is a boutique visual effects studio based in Los Angeles, balancing big output with a globally distributed team. Managing terabytes of assets across on-prem machines and remote artists challenged their workflow based around remote desktop connections, with slow asset transfers, unreliable renders, and VPNs with a single point of failure inhibiting Pendulum VFX from keeping pace with demanding timelines.

WHY SUITE?  Since adopting Suite, Pendulum VFX has built a flexible hybrid pipeline that connects artists around the world and scales effortlessly with each project. Integrations with AWS Deadline and fTrack have streamlined rendering, reviews, and deliveries, allowing the team to move faster without sacrificing creative quality. With Suite as the backbone of its workflow, Pendulum VFX manages more projects while maintaining full creative control.

KEY INSIGHTS:

• 100% increase in project output year-over-year
• Cut file transfer and onboarding time by 99% — from days to minutes
• Global 24-hour workflow delivers projects up to 50% faster
• Fully automated render/review pipeline with AWS Deadline + ftrack Studio
• Zero bottlenecks since switching to Suite’s shared on-site cache

CREATIVE TOOLS:

• Cinema4D
• Nuke
• Houdini
• AWS Deadline
• ftrack Studio

“I can’t fathom shipping hard drives anymore.”

— Ryan Zum Mallen, Founder, Pendulum VFX

Creativity shines when there’s no middle-man. No ladders to climb, no hoops to jump through, nothing standing in the way of an idea being realized. For the team at Pendulum VFX, a Los Angeles-based visual effects studio built around a global team of artists, when collaboration flows easily, creativity follows.

Working under tight timelines for music video, commercial, and other director-led projects, Pendulum VFX thrives on direct partnerships with its network of creatives. This leads Founder Ryan Zum Mallen and Post Producer Damian Giampietro to continually refine their hybrid VFX pipeline and integrate cutting-edge tools like Suite's File Streaming.

“When you have systems that support artists, the result is direct creative control,” says Zum Mallen. “We've built systems to support a smaller group of artists who can complete a higher quality, higher quantity of work.”

From Sabrina Carpenter, Doechii, and SZA, to Apple Music, Nike, SoFi, and, Adidas, Pendulum VFX’s clients rely on the team’s ability to move fast. Choosing cloud storage with file streaming accelerates the workflow at every step.

The problem: VPNs and a broken hybrid workflow

For Pendulum VFX, compositing happens in Nuke, while CG work is split between Houdini and Cinema4D. The crux? Not everyone can be in the Los Angeles office where the powerful on-premise server and machines live.

With key collaborators based across the U.S. and internationally, Pendulum VFX initially tried a system of remote desktop connections (VPNs) and a mix of cloud storage tools to facilitate their remote workflow—but none scaled easily or offered the reliability they needed. Specifically, using a competitive cloud storage platform, the team couldn’t share cache locations across its powerful local infrastructure, bottlenecking the process.

“Before Suite, we weren’t able to set up a shared cache location across our on-prem machines,” explains Zum Mallen. “We would overload the single cache with six machines rendering EXRs through the network, and it kept crashing. If one machine went down, our entire office would crash. It ended up creating a single point of failure. ”

One shared workspace on Suite

Suite’s cloud storage with file streaming transformed how Pendulum VFX balances its in-house infrastructure with globally distributed artists. Even though collaborators can be thousands of miles apart, Suite's cloud storage with file streaming allows the team to work like everyone’s editing from the same local server.

Beginning with initial file ingest via Suite Connect, it’s fool-proof for Pendulum to receive working media. “We provide our clients with a Suite Connect link so they can share media directly into our cloud drive,” says Zum Mallen. “We provide that link to on-set supervisors, they upload, and we share those files immediately with our team.”

Once media is on Suite, Pendulum simply adds team members and enables permissions for specific artists to access certain files and folders. Suite acts as the invisible backbone of the workflow, so remote artists gain instant access to files without downloading or syncing media, and establishes a single source of truth for latest versions.

“Suite gives us a common working space, which is always the biggest hurdle,” notes Zum Mallen. “Sometimes we have to get the work done in a single day, or it’s a last-minute change. Suite makes it so easy to switch people from project to project. VFX is a team sport as well as an artistic endeavor—without shared storage it isn’t possible.”

“Suite becomes our office,” adds Giampietro. “Even though everyone’s remote, it feels like we’re in the same space. We’re not worried about wasted time or shipping hard drives anymore.”

Global workflows made easy

Pendulum VFX works with artists ranging from California to Kazakhstan, and Suite makes it effortless to add team members in any location. With global collaborators always connected to the latest assets, Pendulum can easily bring on the best talent for the job—accelerating project timelines and even extending the workday into other time zones.

“The most freeing aspect is that it allows us to find the right person with the right skillset, add them to Suite, and they’re ready to work,” says Zum Mallen. “Geography doesn’t matter anymore.”

“We have an artist in Kazakhstan who we tap for overnight work,” continues Zum Mallen. “When a client says, ‘We need this tomorrow morning,’ he can continue the job. There’s another artist who’s always traveling internationally… we never know where he’s going to be next. Since we use Suite, though, it doesn’t even matter. We’re more flexible with turnaround times because we know we can onboard those people in other time zones so easily.”

In recent work for SoFi, this easy onboarding played a pivotal role that helped the creative shine. The client requested a futuristic, computer-generated golf cart and—without hesitation—Pendulum’s creatives in Los Angeles were able to add a team of artists in Sweden who specialize in crafting digital, automotive pre-visualizations.

“We didn’t have to worry about his location,” says Zum Mallen. “We simply onboarded him, shared client materials, and had a lot of fun working from initial sketches to the final 3D model.” Check out the results of this collaboration below.

Automations: AWS Deadline & fTrack studio

Suite mounts just like any server would in the team’s rack, allowing it to integrate seamlessly into the hybrid VFX pipeline. Automating renders in AWS Deadline, Pendulum can streamline big deliveries while remote collaborators aren’t burdened with rendering files on their individual machines.

“We’ve integrated Suite with AWS Deadline and ftrack Studio,” explains Zum Mallen. “When our remote team submits files, those assets get picked up by one of our six on-prem machines and processed through AWS Deadline. When the on-prem render completes, files are automatically dropped into Suite and fTrack so everyone can see them.”

“With Suite as the backbone… all of our platforms can work together. Now, we're finally seeing the payoff, how these automations are affecting project setups, onboarding, reviews, and deliveries, everything."

For an Adidas spot featuring Anthony Edwards and Ice-T, Pendulum needed to customize 85 different deliverables—each featuring one player jersey number in the NBA—so the client could run the commercial just a few minutes after Edwards dunked on a specific player. At the time of creating the assets, it was uncertain who Edwards would dunk on, and what their jersey number would be; by using a custom Python script to render each cut automatically, Pendulum delivered 85 final versions without lifting a finger. All Adidas had to do was wait for the dunk to happen…

“Since Suite is just like any file server, we were able to automate one deliverable per player jersey number,” explains Zum Mallen. “We delivered 85 versions of the commercial, so Adidas could easily pick the final deliverable they needed.” Within 15 minutes of Edwards dunking over someone, the spot was live on the air.

Real-world wins: VFX creativity that moves faster

One of the most impactful results of building a VFX pipeline with real-time file streaming is that Pendulum VFX is able to take on more concurrent projects, riding its momentum to build a bigger business. “We're moving faster—we're able to have more projects on our plate,” says Giampietro. “In 2024, we took on 85 projects; in 2025, through just half the year, we surpassed that. We’re pushing the envelope, and Suite gives us the agency to handle it.”

The fun part of VFX work is rooted in unlimited imagination—anything is possible. Apart from general clean-up and beauty shots, “the ask” can range from lighting cars on fire, creating eye-popping title sequences, endless black voids, chrome text that shines on-screen, and whatever else a director can conjure up.

For Sabrina Carpenter’s “Tears” music video, Pendulum completed 90 individual shots in just five days.

Apart from completing all general beauty & touch-ups, Pendulum was tasked with creating five different endings for the video. Given the horror storyline, that meant delivering—quite literally—five different “endings” for her male interest in the video. “We killed this character in so many different ways,” laughs Giampietro. “She throws her stiletto at him. We composited a piano and a tree falling onto him. We even created a CG piano that plays itself.”

From the utterly ridiculous to the ultra realistic, visual effects teams put a vital finishing touch on today’s most outlandish video projects. For Pendulum VFX, by streamlining the workflow, automating the pipeline, and reducing time spent on admin tasks, taking on more work simply means more opportunities to create.

Final Thoughts

Visual effects work is endlessly artistic, an open-ended endeavor that balances creativity and technicality. In VFX, there’s always something new to learn, a new tool, technique, or workflow optimization to adopt. And that’s what gets Zum Mallen and Giampietro so excited about their updated workflow. By simplifying the process, and having confidence in its ability to scale, Pendulum VFX and its global team of artists can focus back on creativity.

For teams that haven’t yet considered Suite's cloud storage with file streaming, Zum Mallen offers his take: “Teams that aren’t using cloud storage are wasting time on logistics. I can’t fathom shipping hard drives anymore. You’re wasting time when you could be focusing back on the stuff that makes you money, and gets you back to working on the creative stuff that got into the field in the first place. I can’t imagine working at our scale without Suite.”

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