Adobe’s signature red square logo adorns a new space this year in Park City, UT, as the brand enters its 14th year as a sponsor of the Sundance Film Festival and its second with a physical space. This year, Adobe, which is presenting sponsor and the official editing platform of the festival, took over 608 Main Street to create Adobe House, which from Jan. 24-27 is offering three levels of activations, content and special events.
“We are going even bigger this year than last, and one of the things we’re really trying to do is make sure we’re engaging the full breadth of members of the film industry that touch our products every year,” Heather Freeland, chief brand officer at Adobe, told EM. “So, we’re increasing the programming that we’re doing and partnerships we have across the week with others in the industry to engage unsung heroes in film, the folks who are behind the scenes—the editors, the directors, but also the gaffers, the sound engineers—because they’re an important part of our community.”
To that end, Adobe House begins at the ground level with a collab with The North Face where hand-selected directors will be able to pick up an Adobe co-branded jacket. On the second floor is a community art project incorporating Adobe Firefly, the brand’s generative AI model for editing, where participants will be able to create on-site and share with the wider community. And on the third level, the brand has created a space designed to look like the art department of a film set, mirroring the different phases of filmmaking. Attendees will be able to customize their own beanie and attend panel discussions, networking events and dinners.
Among these events is a meet-and-greet for the Sundance Ignite X Adobe Fellowship program, in addition to programming around introducing next-gen filmmakers, AI in filmmaking and diverse storytelling. A special focus of Adobe’s is around helping filmmakers market their work, with Freeland herself leading a panel on marketing effectively with the tools available.
“I’m particularly excited about how we’ve built this like you’re on a film set,” Freeland says. “We have different stations throughout that celebrate the journey and the behind-the-scenes, and so you can get coffee and snacks at the craft services area, we have the ‘screening room’ for panels, we’re going to have gaffers’ tape on the floor to mark things out, so that it really feels like home to this community.”
