G-Technology®, Seed&Spark® Partner to Empower Independent Filmmakers

Strategic Collaboration to Educate and Help Indie Filmmakers Create Better Content Through Improved Digital Workflows

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Jan 20, 2015, 08:00 ET

PARK CITY, Utah, Jan. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Sundance Film Festival -- G-Technology, a leader in delivering premium storage solutions, today announced a partnership with Seed&Spark, a community crowdsourcing ecosystem that enables independent filmmakers to fund, promote and distribute their projects. Kicking off at Sundance, the partnership will inspire and educate the Indie filmmaking community through support of Seed&Spark's crowdsourcing platform, while giving them access to the professional tools and resources necessary to make their visual concepts and dreams a reality.

With roots deeply ingrained in delivering premium storage solutions for audio/video production, photography and the professional digital content creation market, G-Technology understands the rigorous requirements of pre- and post-production workflows. Whether it's for storing, transferring, editing or distributing content, Seed&Spark users can now ask their supporters to contribute toward G-Technology storage solutions to help make their digital workflows simpler, better and faster.

"We're dedicated to providing filmmakers and other creative professionals with the tools they need to bring their work from concept to reality, and our partnership with Seed&Spark gives us another way to extend this commitment," said Diana Cartwright, Senior Director of Global Marketing, G-Technology. "When the results of hard work and creative vision are edited and stored on external hard drives, keeping that data safe and secure is paramount. Our goal is to provide the most flexible and reliable storage solutions that maximize time and efficiency, so creative professionals can focus on their creativity, not their gear."

G-Technology and Seed&Spark are kicking off their collaboration with the Show Us Your Drive contest. Beginning Jan. 27, filmmakers, photographers and other creatives can share their photos and stories, detailing the special care they take with their external hard drives to protect their precious content—from long road trips to avoid airport x-ray machines to elaborate rituals intended to appease the "storage gods."

"When you buy a hard drive, it's a neutral object. When you store the results of years of hard work, blood, sweat and tears on it, it becomes a sacred object," said Seed&Spark CEO Emily Best. "We and all our filmmaker friends have funny habits and superstitions around our hard drives - how we name them, protect them, travel with them, edit on them - which was the inspiration for the contest."

Stories and photos shared on Instagram® and Twitter® tagged with #ShowUsYourDrive will be entered in the contest¹. Filmmaker judges Matt Sobel (director of Take Me to the River), Academy Award® nominee Alex Buono and Frontline Documentarian Sachi Cunningham will choose their favorite story from among the entries. On March 31, one winner will be selected to receive $5,000 in G-Technology storage solutions and will be featured in Seed&Spark's Bright Ideas Magazine.

In addition, G-Technology is supporting the Indie community as a sponsor for Seed&Spark's #stayindietour. This cross-country crowdfunding workshop visits U.S. cities to teach filmmakers best practices for creating, funding and promoting their work. With G-Technology's support, attendees in select cities will receive training on storage workflows and how to make their digital workflows faster, simpler, better and more scalable.

"It's thrilling to partner with G-Technology to help educate, equip and empower filmmakers," continued Best. "They're the gold standard in storage solutions amongst creative professionals, and we're excited to work with their team and develop a range of initiatives that will directly help a new class of storytellers create and share projects they truly love."

For more information, please visit http://showusyourdrive.com.

Stay connected with G-Technology:
G-Technology's roots are deeply ingrained in delivering premium storage solutions for audio/video production, photography and the professional content creation community. From storing, transferring, editing and distributing content, G-Technology makes the workflow simpler, better and faster. G-Technology's high-performance portable and desktop drives, flexible transfer/edit solutions and fast RAID systems are all built for professional content creation environments where performance and reliability are paramount. Because G-Technology holds itself to the highest standards, its products can be found in premier production and post-production facilities worldwide.

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About HGST
HGST is a wholly owned and independently operated subsidiary of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC). HGST sets the pace for storage innovation and is helping the world harness the power of data. Building on its reputation for producing reliable HDDs, SSDs, and developing tighter integration with software, HGST is optimizing storage efficiency and reliability for today's data-centric economy. Founded by the creators of the hard drive, HGST serves a broad range of market segments, including enterprise, cloud, OEM, mobile, consumer electronics and personal storage. HGST was established in 2003 and maintains its U.S. headquarters in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit www.hgst.com.

About Seed&Spark:
Seed&Spark is a truly independent filmmaking community where filmmakers and audiences come together for crowdfunding, production, and streaming distribution. Every time an audience member supports the making of a moving picture project (funding, following, sharing) they earn "Sparks" which can be redeemed to watch movies on the streaming platform. Supporting films lets you watch more films: It's the new ecosystem for filmmakers & audiences! Seed&Spark also published a semi annual print magazine for film audiences, Bright Ideas, featuring the new and dangerous voices of truly independent cinema.

More Information: http://www.seedandspark.com/
Like on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seedandspark
Follow on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/seedandspark

GTechnology external hard drives serve as an element of an overall backup strategy. It is recommended that users keep two or more copies of their most important files backed up or stored on separate devices or online services.

GTechnology is a registered trademark of HGST, Inc. and its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

¹Neither Instagram nor Twitter are sponsors of, or endorse, the #ShowUsYourDrive contest.

For more information contact:

Erin Hartin

HGST/G-Technology

Cell: 303-601-8035

[email protected]

Brian Chui

Grayling

Cell: 510-207-9898

[email protected]

Katja Schroeder

Seed&Spark