Life Is Better With Akamai — Edge World 2019 Main Stage Films

01 / The Ask

Content for the biggest screens in the room.

Edge World is Akamai's flagship customer conference. The Main Stage runs on a three-screen array — a 3968x1280 center screen flanked by two 2304x1280 side screens — and it needed original film content: a set of general-session videos to open and carry the keynotes, plus a wrap video to close the show.

Teak brought me on to executive produce that content end to end. Not stock, not a signage loop — produced films with a concept, a cast, a built set, and a cut, delivered to spec for a stage where a single frame is over 39 feet of screen.

Main stage spec — 3968x1280 center + two 2304x1280 sides

Diagram of the Main Stage three-screen array: a 3968x1280 center screen showing WELCOME, flanked by two 2304x1280 Edge World side screens above a round stage — The three-screen array the films were cut for

Rendering of the Edge World Center Stage design — a lit keynote stage reading EXPERIENCE THE EDGE between two Edge World side screens above a full audience — Center stage design — the surface the films played on

02 / The Concept

Six directions. One with optimism.

We pitched six creative directions for the general-session films — each a different way to make edge computing feel human. The client chose the kids.

Shatner at the Edge

Shatner flubs the VO, awed by the future he's narrating.

The Kids Know

Kids speak to camera about the future — chosen direction.

Unexpected Spox

Streaming's unlikely beneficiaries thank the Edge.

The Oracle

The Matrix oracle receives nervous CTOs in her kitchen.

The Video Is Hacked

Anti-spokesmen argue you off the Edge — and sell it.

You Can't Deepfake the Edge

Deepfaked figures prove the Edge isn't fooled.

“The Kids Know” was the shoot's working title — kids straight to camera, walking chains of causality to mind-blowing conclusions about what the edge makes possible. The through-line was something these videos rarely have: optimism. The finished films shipped under the title Life Is Better With Akamai.

03 / Casting + Set Build

Build the stage. Cast the kids. Clear the paperwork.

To make the films feel native to the Main Stage, we recreated the Center Stage design in studio — a built oval platform with a curved three-panel screen wall carrying the Edge World particle-and-code art.

Then we cast the company: two SAG-AFTRA principals and nine non-professional performers, working under a SAG-AFTRA Corporate-Educational waiver with Film SF permits on file.

Production credentials

Production: “Kids Get The Edge” (shoot title)
Client: Akamai
Company: Teak LP
Cast: 2 SAG-AFTRA principals + 9 non-professional performers
Clearances: SAG-AFTRA Co-Ed waiver, signed; Film SF permit on file
Location: The Producer's Loft, 2773 Folsom St, SF — May 9–11, 2019

Crew members kneeling to fit the blue-and-orange trim around a plywood oval stage deck under a studio lighting grid — Building the oval stage deck in studio

The curved three-panel screen wall standing on the finished oval deck, displaying the Edge World orange-and-blue particle-and-code artwork — The curved screen wall — Edge World particle art

04 / The Shoot

A working set, run around a company of kids.

Three shoot days under full film lighting — ParaBeam arrays, boom, multi-camera — staged around child performers and the working-hours, breaks, and guardian rules that come with them.

The producer's job here is protecting the schedule and the kids at the same time: keeping the set moving while every minor stays supervised, rested, and on-clock.

Wide view of the lit set — ParaBeam lights and a boom over the oval stage where the host and crew work at the white table — Full set — lighting, camera village, monitor station

The camera village beside the set — operators, a laptop monitor station, and the ParaBeam rig overhead — ParaBeam rig and camera village

Child performers and their guardians waiting in the green room while a stylist works with one of the kids — Green-room prep — guardians on hand

05 / Onsite Capture + The Wrap

Capture the feeling. Cut it overnight.

The wrap video couldn't be built in advance — it had to feel like Edge World actually felt. Onsite, we captured the show as it happened: the code-projection environments, the Main Stage, the energy on the floor.

Then we cut it into a wrap film that closed the conference on the same screens it was shot around.

Edge World Main Stage — onsite

Attendees walking through a conference corridor while lines of Go source code are projected over the walls, ceiling, and across them — Code-projection environment — captured for the wrap

My Role

Executive Producer

Owned the content package end to end — concept, cast, shoot, edit, delivery.
Concepted the film ideas and ran them through client creative approval.
Cast the shoot; built the set; directed crew across a multi-day production.
Managed a company of child actors and their guardians on a working set.
Ran onsite capture at Edge World to feed the live wrap video.

The Takeaway

A film shoot and a live event are the same job: protect the thing you can't reshoot.

Concept, cast, a built set, a company of kids, and an onsite wrap cut overnight — carried end to end by one producer, delivered to a stage where every frame is 39 feet wide. Original film production and live-event capture, run as a single pipeline.

Jill Honig · Executive Producer · For Teak · Akamai Edge World 2019