iBelieveInSwordfish Motion Design and ASG Build the Infrastructure for 24K Immersive Art

How iBelieveInSwordfish Motion Design Scaled With High-Performance Infrastructure

For Matt Silverman, motion design isn’t just a job, it’s a journey creating meaningful experiences for clients and their audiences. As the founder and Executive Creative Director of the San Francisco Bay Area–based studio iBelieveInSwordfish, he’s spent the last 13 years leading a team that brings everything in motion to life from elegant UI animations to jaw-dropping immersive installations for some of the biggest names in tech including Google, Amazon, Bosch, Samsung, MSC Cruises and more. Silverman’s work spans Oscar-nominated film titles, Super Bowl campaigns, interactive cruise-ship experiences, and live-action content. “If it moves, we’re here to help,” said Matt Silverman.

Behind every high-concept animation or immersive experience lies an enormous amount of data, and a production pipeline that has to perform under pressure. “We’re often delivering content at incredible resolutions; 9K, 24K, sometimes even 43K,” Matt continued. “And it’s not just about size. It’s about how fast we can move media through the pipeline, how many artists can hit the server at once, and whether our tools can keep up with our imagination.”

MSC Ceiling

A Longstanding Partnership

Matt first connected with Advanced Systems Group’s President, Dave Van Hoy nearly 20 years ago, back when he was building out the graphics department at his prior company, Bonfire Labs. “We were pushing into uncompressed HD workflows, working on national campaigns, and hitting the ceiling of what our old infrastructure could handle,” he said. “We needed shared storage. Our previous vendor just didn’t get it, but Dave and his team at ASG did.”

ASG designed and implemented a Quantum StorNext SAN that became invisible in the best possible way: it just worked. “From day one, their support was incredible,” Matt recalled. “There was one meltdown while delivering on a huge deadline, which turned out to be a problem with our internet and unrelated to the SAN. I’ll never forget asking Steve Smulian from ASG, who was stumped, ‘Want to get some ice cream?’ This distraction shifted the whole mindset, and in a moment of clarity, Steve figured out the problem and got us back on track to deliver the biggest job of my career.”

Scaling Up for the Immersive

When Matt launched Swordfish in 2012, he brought along ASG as their integration partner. The Quantum SAN they implemented supported the studio for nearly seven years, including Swordfish’s first large-scale project for Mediterranean Shipping Company – MSC Cruises: a visual masterpiece for the World Europa, one of the largest cruise ships ever built. Swordfish designed immersive animated sequences for a 103-meter LED ceiling – sunrises, whales, scuba divers, and skies that shifted with the passengers’ journey.

By 2022, though, the system was showing its limits. “We were literally watching our 78TB storage network fill up overnight while working on 46 hours of 9K content,” Matt said. With twelve artists hitting the SAN at once, tasks that once took minutes stretched into hours.

With a second immersive MSC project on deck, this time for the Euribia, it was time to scale up. Tim Gross, ASG Systems Engineer, worked closely with Matt to rethink Swordfish’s infrastructure. “We redesigned the system around a 100Gb Ethernet TruNAS platform, scaled to 780TB,” said Tim. “It wasn’t just about adding space or speed. It was about wide bandwidth to handle an ocean of data simultaneously, giving artists the performance they needed.”

“Tim, Ed, and the rest of the team at ASG really guided us through unfamiliar territory,” Matt said. “They understand both the technology and the creative stakes. We’re artists. We don’t want to think about the server, just that it’s going to keep up.”

ASG’s President, Dave Van Hoy, attributes the strength of their partnership to history and trust. “That history means a lot when you’re building complex systems or working under pressure,” he said. “There’s an efficiency that comes with knowing how each other works, and a lot of mutual respect.”

MSC World Europa Exterior

The new infrastructure allowed Swordfish to finish the 24K ceiling content for MSC’s Euribia while experimenting with new tools like Unreal Engine to accelerate render workflows and avoid expensive cloud rendering bills.

“We used to spend hundreds of thousands on rendering in the cloud,” Matt said. “Now we’re delivering the same quality (sometimes better) with Unreal Engine on three PCs with NVIDIA cards in our office. It’s been an absolute game-changer for us.”

Pushing the Pipeline with Real-Time Innovation

Continuing its evolution, Swordfish is building out real-time pipelines in Unreal Engine, integrating AI-generated art, and developing full-scale virtual production environments. With ASG’s support, they’re able to explore these future-forward workflows with confidence.

“We’re not a huge team, but we want to do big things,” Matt said. “ASG helps us reach further. They don’t push tech for the sake of it. They listen, understand our needs, and help us make smart decisions. ASG isn’t just a vendor, they’re an extension of our team.

“Swordfish is one of those clients that’s always pushing the creative edge,” adds Ed Chen, Strategic Account Manager at ASG. “Our job is to make sure their infrastructure supports that goal, whether it’s storage, networking, or workstations. It’s a real collaboration.”

Matt put it best: “I can’t keep up with the latest and greatest hardware – that’s what ASG is for. They don’t just know what the technology is, but why it matters. And when something goes wrong, they’re the people you want on the other end of the phone.”

Looking Ahead

From HD commercial spots to 24K immersive art, iBelieveInSwordfish has continually evolved its creative and technical capabilities. With ASG by their side, they’ve turned infrastructure into an enabler.

“We’ve done things I never thought were possible,” Matt said. “And we’re just getting started.”

For Further Reading: ASG Transforms the Iconic Miami Beach Bandshell into an Immersive Experience for The Rhythm Foundation.

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