Post-Production Pain Points: #3 - Technology
INTRODUCTION
The technology powering so much of video post-production was turned inside-out when the Covid pandemic struck. The daily work of editing, creating motion graphics, sound design, sound mixing and more had to continue, but all the hardware and software tools designed, installed and optimized to power an office-based post team suddenly had to support the needs of a remote workforce. And this conversion needed to happen without missing a beat, while also maintaining a high degree of security to protect valuable assets; latency-free solutions to allow frame-accurate editing and sound design; and a review/revise/approval process that took into consideration the needs of managers and creative collaborators. A tall order indeed.
CHALLENGE #3: TECHNOLOGY
As business continues to adjust to the new realities of the post-pandemic world, one of the truest cliches is that there is no putting the genie back into the bottle. Many of the changes brought about over the last 3+ years are here to stay, including the preference for many members of creative teams to work remotely. The tools that enable this have proven themselves, and the opportunity to live and work wherever people choose has been liberating.
At the same time, management has various reasons to bring staff back on-site, including beliefs about worker efficiency and the value of face-to-face collaboration, as well as a strong motivation to fill costly and otherwise under-utilized office space. Regardless of how a company chooses to resolve these competing interests, we now have technological choices to support a seamless workflow on site, via remote access, or in a hybrid solution.
Post-production is, at its simplest, a series of repeatable and scalable steps to shape raw assets into finished projects. At each point, leaders need to make informed decisions about the tools that meet their specific requirements.
Typically, these steps fall into the following sequence:
Editing raw assets
Adding visual effects
Creating the music bed & editing sound
Mixing the audio
Color correction or color grading
Quality assurance
Delivery
In each of these steps, there are a range of available technology options, and deciding what is best for an organization or project will depend on numerous factors, including budget, timeline, project size, long-range content strategy plans for an organization, IT requirements and more.
To illustrate some of this complexity, let’s look closer at editing.
Raw assets need to be collected, organized and stored before they can be edited. One option might be for a shared server, allowing multiple members of a post team to access the same content at the same time. A server may be on premises at the company’s office or in a secure data center. Alternately, assets may be stored in the cloud, such as AWS or Microsoft Azure. Or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, for new companies or small projects, keeping content on standalone hard drives or a RAID may be sufficient plan. (In any scenario, it’s critical that back-up copies of all assets be stored separately, to protect against device failure, file corruption or natural disaster.)
Once storage is determined, decisions need to be made about editing tools. This includes not only the specific platform (Avid vs. Adobe Premiere vs. DaVinci Resolve) but also the way in which editors will access the raw footage. Some editors who work remotely need to download video assets to their home systems or receive hard drives with the footage. Others may log into remote desktop apps such as Jump or Splashtop, which let them edit on an office-based system from the convenience of their homes. Others use fully remote tools such as Lucid Link or Teradici to access the server-based or cloud-based content directly. Each option comes with its own pros and cons, tied to cost, connectivity, the nature of the projects, etc.
Similarly, for each of the other steps in post, there are technology solutions, many fine-tuned and revamped to meet the needs of a remote workforce as well as the ultra-high definition capabilities of 4K content. And with the rapid rise in virtual production and AI tools, the landscape is only getting more complex.
CONCLUSION
More so than with staffing or workflow decisions, selecting the right technology for an organization’s post-production is a highly specific process. A well-informed consultant or post-production lead will ask a lot of questions from various stakeholders inside the organization to inform a decision about the hardware and software tools that will meet budget and IT requirements, empower the post team, and provide the company with the results that they need and expect.
With the right technology, a company can be well positioned to produce and distribute videos that meet their strategic goals today and into the future. Want to learn more about the right way to tackle your business’s video needs? Have questions about your organization’s content plans and the best way to bring them to fruition? Let’s talk!
