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A young, independent movie studio is hoping its investment in digital asset-management technology from a startup vendor will help it improve workflow and gain an edge on bigger, more established competitors.

"It's one of the places where we feel we can even the playing field," says Tom DeLuca, VP of new media at Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., the company behind such films as Shadow Of The Vampire, Lantana, and Monster's Ball. The online archiving and collaboration application from startup DAX Solutions Inc. is expected to help Lions Gate substantially cut expenses. Lions Gate will use the technology to, among other things, deliver dailies in digital form to executives and editors just hours after a day's shooting is complete. It also expects the convenient access to production documentation to result in simplified approval processes and improved communication. Most studios are just starting to build automated workflows that can speed business processes or enhance collaboration, DAX says.

Digital asset-management systems provide companies with a tool for archiving and searching everything from video and still images to presentations and text documents, as well as converting the formats and resolutions of media files for reuse. The technology was originally aimed at the entertainment industry, but it's been slow to take hold there.

Meanwhile, bigger vendors in the field such as Artesia Technologies, Documentum, and IBM began targeting their digital asset-management systems at large companies, leaving room for smaller niche vendors to go after more specialized markets. DeLuca says the studio was prepared to buy a digital asset-management system from one of the market leaders, but it discovered that DAX's system reflected a better understanding of the movie business and wouldn't require significant customization. "They saved me six months of development time, and they understood the procedures of a studio," he says.

Lions Gate is archiving all the assets related to current projects, and it's preparing to begin the laborious process of archiving materials from its 2,000-film library. Publicists and distributors will be able to use the system to access any materials related to a film at their convenience, to plan marketing efforts or press releases. DeLuca wouldn't reveal how much Lions Gate is spending on the initiative, and DAX declined to reveal pricing. Analyst Bob Markham at Giga Information Group says most enterprise deployments of such systems start at half a million dollars.