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NEWSCASTSTUDIO.COM
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NEWSCASTSTUDIO.COM
By DEREK BARRILLEAUX
CEO, Projective
As we prepare for the much-anticipated
NAB Show, the buzz in the air is undeni-
able. The broadcasting industry continues
to evolve at a rapid pace, and hot topics
such as AI, cloud storage, and advanced
editing tools are on everyone’s lips. But
there’s one subject that Projective is par-
ticularly excited to discuss at the event:
how to make post-production simple.
If you’ve been in the post-production
industry long enough, chances are you’ve
heard at least one person describe it as
“the Wild West.” It’s a fitting analogy — akin
to the rugged and lawless times of the fron-
tier, post-production workflows are often
chaotic, unstructured, and nobody seems
to know exactly what is happening. One
editor might be saving files on a shared
NAS drive, another might have stock foot-
age sitting on their desktop. Freelancers
bring in completed edits from external
drives, while cloud storage usage balloons
to unsustainable levels. Questions are
asked in frustration: “Why is my media of-
fline?” and “Don’t we have that shot in the
archive somewhere?”
What you’re left with is a landscape
teetering on the brink of disarray, where
media is misplaced, files are scattered,
and collaboration is hampered by confu-
sion. The result? Missed deadlines, wasted
time, and frustrated teams.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. With
the introduction of software-based collab-
oration frameworks and project structure,
there are strategies enterprises can adopt
to bring efciency and order without sti-
fling creativity - something that I look for-
ward to discussing with the wider commu-
nity at this year’s NAB show.
Why is post-production
so chaotic?
The evolution of post-production work-
flows has been an exciting one — empow-
ered by tools like Adobe Premiere Pro,
Avid Media Composer, and cloud storage
solutions, creators have unparalleled flex-
ibility. However, this same flexibility is a
double-edged sword. While
these tools allow for dy-
namic and adaptable editing
processes, they also create
an environment where orga-
nization often takes a back
seat.
For example, Adobe Pre-
miere’s ability to work with
media spread across mul-
tiple locations — local hard
drives, external drives, cloud
folders, and NAS servers — is
both a blessing and a curse.
On an individual level, it’s
empowering. For a team, it’s a ticking time
bomb. Where is the footage? Who moved
the files? Why isn’t this asset linked? Me-
dia ofine errors and frantic Slack messag-
es are all-too-common symptoms of this
“Wild West” scene.
Add to this the pressures of modern
post-production. Faster turnaround times,
leaner budgets, growing demands for re-
mote work, and higher expectations for
creative output leave little room for error.
If the creative team is just trying to get the
job done, standards, structure, and securi-
ty sufer. “I’ll just upload that to dropbox,”
or “I’ll just work on my drive for
now,” they often think.
The need for a
collaboration framework
If “the Wild West” is the prob-
lem, then a collaboration frame-
work can serve as the law and
order. A well-crafted framework
doesn’t just organize media; it
structures the entire lifecycle
of a post-production project —
from ingest, to creation, to ap-
proval, and to archiving.
By implementing a collaboration frame-
work for projects, processes become pre-
dictable and controllable. These project
guardrails provide the starting point to
automate project setup, centralize media,
and simplify collaboration. A collaborative
framework ofers automated project setup,
centralizes media, and streamlines col-
laboration. But most importantly, it frees
creative teams to focus on their work, and
not all of the tedious media management
required to even get started.
Chaotic ‘wild west’ of post can
be lassoed with collaboration
Continued on next page
NAB SHOW PERSPECTIVES
BARRILLEAUX
Historically, the post-production world
has focused on pushing individual files
to where they need to be. But for true ef-
ficiency, workflows must be designed
around the project as a whole. When the
project becomes the atomic unit of work-
flow management, everything else — file
organization, collaboration, and archiving
— begins to fall into place.
What are the benefits?
1. THE GREAT ROUND-UP: FILE
ORGANIZATION AND ACCESSIBILITY
A collaboration framework centraliz-
es content, preventing media from being
scattered across cameras, desktops, and
external drives. A structured system au-
tomatically directs all project files to a
shared workspace. A solution that can find
unmanaged assets quickly identifies mis-
placed files and automatically brings them
into the designated project structure,
eliminating those dreaded “media ofine”
errors.
2. THE TRAIL DRIVE: COLLABORATION
WITHOUT SILOS
With a project framework in place,
teams and freelancers can collaborate
seamlessly from anywhere without the
need for separate upload or download
processes. Project-based access control
ensures everyone has access to exactly
what they need — no more, no less — elim-
inating silos while safeguarding sensitive
client content.
3. THE TOWN CLOCK:
FASTER TURNAROUNDS
Automation is a game-changer in reduc-
ing the legwork of setting up workspac-
es or assigning access. A collaboration
framework can automatically set up proj-
ect structures based on templates, saving
media managers hours of redundant work
and giving editors more time to focus on
creative tasks. Furthermore, this frame-
work can be integrated with upstream re-
source management tools for automation,
or downstream playout or orchestration
tools. Thus the value to the organization is
dramatically increased.
4. THE BANK VAULT:
COST CONTROL
Cloud storage is a fantastic resource,
but when left unchecked, costs can spiral
out of control. A collaboration framework
provides visibility into storage usage and
tools to easily archive or delete projects
no longer in use. By streamlining how me-
dia is stored and accessed, organizations
avoid paying for waste.
5. THE NEW FRONTIER: NO MORE
DUPLICATES
Editors are known for making dozens
of copies of a piece of content so that they
can work across multiple projects, leading
to wasted storage space and, you guessed
it, more chaos! With a proactive collabo-
ration framework that seamlessly detects
duplicates without interrupting creative
workflows, significant savings in both stor-
age and costs can be achieved. Arsenal
Football Club successfully recovered 90
TB of storage space — equivalent to near-
ly ten months of their average usage — by
adopting innovative post-production man-
agement technology.
6. NO OUTLAWS ALLOWED: CONTENT
SECURITY
You can’t protect what you can’t
track. By consolidating media into a
centralized, secure environment, col-
laboration frameworks reduce the risk
of unauthorized access. This is espe-
cially critical when working with ex-
ternal
collaborators
or
freelancers.
The road ahead
In today’s competitive industry land-
scape, conversations at major trade shows
have increasingly focused on the impor-
tance of enhancing efciency and stream-
lining workflows to maintain an edge. This
year’s NAB Show will be no exception.
Yes, the future of post-production will
likely be tied to the inevitable AI/ML/Ge-
nAI-driven processes, but even the smart-
est tools won’t solve the chaos of post-pro-
duction without a foundational framework.
If we can encourage organizations to think
less about the tech-driven part of “how to
do post-production” and more about “how
to organize post-production,” the benefits
will be staggering.
For teams stuck in chaos and operating
with a “Wild West” mentality, it may be
time to adopt a collaboration framework.
This could be the key to bringing struc-
ture and order to your post-production
process. After all, with efciency comes
better creativity — and ultimately, better
content.
Derek Barrilleaux is the CEO of Projective
and a thought leader in post-production
innovation. Derek’s work focuses on
driving more streamlined, collaborative
workflows in media and entertainment.
Continued from previous page
When the project becomes the atomic unit
of workflow management, everything else —
file organization, collaboration and archiving —
begins to fall into place.