In the post industry, the biggest pressure today – aside from the usual need to control costs and boost productivity – is the need to support a “work anywhere” environment. Creative staff want the flexibility to work their preferred hours, from a location of their choosing. It reduces or eliminates the commute to an office, which has real environmental benefits as well as reducing stress for the editor.

EditShare led the industry in developing cloud solutions. It took existing, successful products and concepts and added the open-ness, interoperability and scalability that the cloud offers.

All of this experience is now brought together in EditShare FLEX, which offers a highly tailored environment for all the major tasks from remote editing to secure archiving. Most importantly, FLEX is designed in such a way that it is simple to implement and intuitive to manage. It does not require IT expertise to get the best of the system, nor to ensure security and reliability.

Migrating to the cloud gives businesses the obvious advantage that they do not need to physically host the hardware on which their work depends. This reduces the space they need, the power they consume, the air conditioning demands and the downtime and staff to ensure that the hardware is maintained and updated as required.

Conversely, the creative team will be accustomed to their preferred software and know how it should respond. Forcing a change of edit software, for example, would be simply unacceptable. Equally, making the system less responsive to key presses or mouse clicks would be unsettling and cause slow down workflows and become a stumbling block in adoption.

The guiding principle of EditShare FLEX is that you should carry on using your preferred tools in exactly the way you are used to. Cloud and remote working means there is an abstraction between the operator and the physical workstation, but that cannot be any sort of obstacle: it must be completely transparent.

To make this possible, EditShare has collaborated with industry leaders. FLEX uses the popular and widely recognised Teradici software to provide remote access from anywhere to virtual workstations. And if you are new to cloud connectivity and do not have an established fast file transfer process we can integrate CloudDat software from Data Expedition Inc.

Even more important, the FLEX virtual workstations in the cloud support whatever NLE software you currently use: it is completely agnostic. Indeed, if you have some editors who prefer Premiere Pro, some who are Avid fans and others who are most comfortable on DaVinci Resolve, you can support all of them, simultaneously and completely transparently.

There are two main bundles of the FLEX offering at present, with more to come in the future. FLEX Cloud Edit does what the name suggests: allows your editors to sit wherever they like and edit on virtual machines in the AWS cloud. Customers can take this bundle a step further with FLEX Cloud Edit+ which adds workstation management and file transfer acceleration, providing video production teams with an end-to-end video studio suite virtualized in the cloud.

The second bundle is FLEX Sync, which synchronizes between local EFS storage and cloud-based archives. It can be set to be completely automatic and it eliminates the need for LTO tape libraries, another continuing cost for space, maintenance, tapes and upgrades. By moving your archive or DR backup to the cloud, you also gain massive resilience. Once your archive is available in the cloud it unlock opportunities to utilize it for other cloud solutions, including FLEX Cloud Edit.

There are options in each service so you can tailor your system to precisely your requirements. If you do not have the necessary IT and engineering skills in house, then EditShare’s professional services team can provide the system design and scoping.

The great advantage of FLEX, though, is that you maintain full control over your working environment. Your talented and creative team will notice few changes, and will be able to work as productively as before, if not more so.

It delivers against the key concerns. It provides secure and efficient remote working, alongside edit-in-the-cloud, with all the CapEx savings and OpEx control that implies. And you maintain full control over your working environment and, most important, the security of the content entrusted to you.

The newest Shift updates let you shorten the time you spend on the sharing tasks you perform most often. From grabbing all the files you need at once, to flying through dialogs faster, to finding links at your fingertips – getting more of your time back is the biggest feature you’ll find in the latest release of Shift.

Newest features and improvements:

Now frequent sharers can fly through the sharing dialog quickly without digging through options they don’t need. The Share menu now offers basic and advanced views to streamline our most common user workflows, while maintaining advanced functionality for more in-depth workflows. The most common sharing settings are now presented first and set to the admin’s defaults when sharing, while advanced settings are easily available to users who want more granular control.

Customers can opt to add visible watermarks to specific, one-off instances of sharing assets in a Review Link, even if the project was not set up to require watermarking. If a file is coming from a watermarked project, the Share dialog will default to the project settings. What’s more, the original asset will remain clean and unmarked for other uses – but visibly protected in the specific link.

Mix and match file sharing

Instead of selecting only files or a folder, now you can multi-select combinations of files and folders to move all at once. Add the files and folders you select to the collection bin or playlist, share them via Review Links or Presentations, or delete them. Just hold down Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) to select whatever combinations of files and folders you need.

Sent Items Drawer

Finding previously sent items is now much quicker, making it easier for anyone who needs to review and edit the contents of Review Links. Just open up the left drawer of the Shift UI, navigate to the new Sent Links tab, and click into the Review Link you want to edit. You can reorder assets, drag in new folders and files, or remove items from the link. Open up and edit link settings from this space as well. Once you’ve edited the link, it’s automatically updated so prior recipients don’t need a new link.

Player Updates

Play video content in whatever way makes it easier for you to view – in a loop, auto-advance, with varied playback speed, a 5-second skip forward & back, and adjustable volume – with the new and improved player controls added to Shift. Your video setting preferences are saved and carried throughout the app, no more having to re-select showing duration every time you watch a video!

History Tab

Check out the newest addition to the sharing dialog – the History tab. See at a glance who has been sent a link, when it was sent to them, and who has had access to it in its lifespan – even on public and password-protected links. From there you can immediately re-send the link to them, or copy the link URL, with the click of a button.

For more information on how this release might benefit your team, or to discuss how to add watermarking to your account, reach out to your CSM or customersuccess@shift.

Big brands today deal with a significantly greater quantity of digital and video assets than ever before. As a result, these companies have had to find better and more efficient ways to manage their assets. To meet this demand, a number of different digital media management softwares have begun to crop up, offering companies of varying sizes the tools they need to effectively organize their video content. These digital asset management systems help companies consolidate their assets on one platform that is easily accessible and allows for better team collaboration, more streamlined workflow, and simple usability for employees and clients alike. Wiredrive is one such system, built specifically for companies in creative production who handle a great deal of video assets on a daily basis.

Digital asset management systems such as Wiredrive offer big brands a platform capable of handling every digital asset that comes their way, regardless of size or format. With the growing popularity of 360 video and VR, many of these systems, Wiredrive included, have adapted to support these video formats as well. Having one universally accessible platform for all assets is crucial for big brands, allowing them to consolidate all of their content so that it is easy for all project members to upload, access, and organize their files.

It is essential too that large companies utilize a media management system that can be customized to their specific needs. Wiredrive allows users to create custom metadata categories, tags, and keywords to match the company’s specialized naming conventions, and gives users the ability to build custom folder structures to match specific workflows. Knowing that they can organize their video assets with customized metadata is a primary concern for big brands who want to be sure that content can be easy to locate and difficult to lose track of.

Implementing a video asset management system that is easy to use and has an intuitive interface is also key, especially for large companies dealing with many stakeholders all around the world. Wiredrive not only offers speedy and globally accessible service, but it also boasts a simple interface that all users will be able to navigate without any hindrances or need of additional IT support. Having a web-based video asset management system with no learning curve significantly cuts down time and cost, two factors that are very important to any big brand.

Large companies deal with a vast quantity of video assets with varying life cycles. To manage all of this content properly and efficiently, big brands also need to be sure that everything is properly archived in a manner that makes it quick and easy for an individual to locate specific files. Video asset management programs like Wiredrive make it easy to build corporate memory, giving users the tools necessary to create highly organized and detailed libraries so that members of the organization can find what they need and distribute it within minutes.

The on-air promotions team at FX Networks, the flagship general entertainment network from Fox, uses Wiredrive to streamline creative workflow for on-air communications that effectively promote the network’s programs and reflect the FX Networks brand. FX Networks is carried in more than 98 million homes, and are known for its growing roster of critically acclaimed series, including Sons of Anarchy, American Horror Story: Coven, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The League, and Louie.

Making time for work that matters

Creative services for on-air campaigns at FX Networks previously required a protocol that involved a sludge of meetings, which ultimately resulted in an increase in workload for teams. Wiredrive simplified their highly iterative process by allowing the team to cut back on meetings and focus more on meaningful projects.

“Before Wiredrive, we would have to set up recurring meetings to present concepts and progress in order to receive feedback. At times there would be a delay in receiving feedback so in order to fill time, we’d take on additional projects,” remembers Andre Carbonari, Creative Director of Broadcast Design. “The feedback process is quick and easy on Wiredrive. We speed through approvals and are more productive now that we can focus on one project at a time, rather than juggling multiple.”

“The feedback process is quick and easy with Wiredrive. We speed through approvals and are more productive now that we can focus on one project at a time, instead of juggling multiple.”

Maintaining a sense of teamwork

The FX Networks environment requires flexible communication systems for its increasingly mobile employees. With Wiredrive, teams feel more connected as a result of the solution that allows them to work the way they work best: anytime, anywhere, and on a wide-range of devices. “Our decision makers are constantly traveling, and want to promptly access projects and see progress on everything, such as how a graphic is appearing in a TV spot,” says Andre. “Wiredrive makes it easy to get things in front of people and signed off on. We simply send a link and distribute it to multiple people who can review it on their tablet or phone as soon as the project becomes available.”

Keeping things under wraps

With a dedicated following for many of its popular shows, it’s natural for FX to make sure footage doesn’t make it online in order to maintain that element of surprise for viewers. Wiredrive plays a role in ensuring they succeed in protecting sensitive media. “It’s nice to have peace of mind knowing that people won’t have a problem looking at a private link I send – it will play on any browser and device, and also get there reliably and securely.”

To learn more about the latest FX show’s, visit their site: www.fxnetworks.com

Leslie Osborne is the Assistant Manager, Worldwide Creative Content at Paramount Pictures. With a long title and an even longer list of responsibilities, Osborne is at the charge to create and oversee marketing content across some of Paramount’s largest feature films, including Interstellar, Transformers, The Big Short, and more recently, Arrival, Fences, and Silence.

Paramount is one of Hollywood’s most well established studios, founded in 1912 by early film pioneer Adolph Zukor. Over its evolution as a mainstay in Hollywood, it has produced films like Titanic, Forrest Gump, Iron Man, Indiana Jones, and Ghost, to name a few. With numerous blockbuster releases under their belt, Paramount’s marketing division works with many outside creative vendors, coordinating screenings, junkets, and events, and collaborating with key advertisers to make sure their film releases are as impactful as the movies themselves. Wiredrive helps keep all of their operations as efficient and user-friendly as possible.

Saving countless hours

Six years ago, Paramount moved their marketing division onto Wiredrive technology to help best manage workflow and ensure everyone was on the same page. With so many moving pieces on countless projects, the marketing team was quick to adapt to the new interface.

Before the advent of Wiredrive and sharing files digitally, managers like Leslie were forced to work around time-consuming analog solutions. “Back when we used tape delivery, we had to do everything from duplicating or sending tapes to making viewing CDs or DVDs. I was personally grateful for our company’s decision to use Wiredrive and embraced it right off the bat, because I was the person having to ship out tapes at 10 o’clock at night.”

The use of Wiredrive has not only allowed a more fluid workflow, it has freed up countless hours for Osborne and her team to focus on creative marketing activations, like the massive campaign around Office Christmas Party, the upcoming holiday release starring Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, T.J. Miller, and Kate McKinnon.

Developing as the industry grows

Collaboration is key to what Osborne and her team accomplish, and the more creative minds involved makes their product all the better. The nature of her business has changed drastically in the last decade or so, providing for much easier communication among a wider group of collaborators all excited to lend their hand in the game. While telecommunications and wireless have made notable advances, the importance of having a quick and secure assets sharing service was essential to the team and makes something as simple as an internal meeting that much more productive. “In meetings, like today, [a client] messaged one of the gals in my office and said, ‘I need all these promos ASAP.’ They hadn’t mentioned that beforehand but it came up in conversation, and it was like ‘well it would be beneficial if we can just look at it right now.’ So she was able to send him the link to the folder that had everything. Instead of having to set another meeting, they were able to cover it when it was being discussed in literally five minutes.”
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There’s no going back

“Wiredrive is a genius tool that not only revolutionized delivery within the film industry, but also continues to evolve in ways that are very advantageous for team collaboration and efficient workflow.”

Just as Osborne’s team continues to manage an ever-growing slate of blockbuster releases, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Meryl Streep-led Florence Foster Jenkins, the nature of their collaboration with Wiredrive has also evolved. What started as implementing a new system has drastically improved their operations across the board, with quick uploads and a cloud-based server to ensure that deliverables can be seen instantly anywhere in the world you need them. Wiredrive acts as the behind-the-scenes player to ensure that Paramount’s marketing teams can spend as little time delivering assets and still feel rest assured that everything is where it needs to be. “It’s a great tool for organizing things so that even if you aren’t aware of something you can go into the project and see what’s in there, because sometimes there’s so much going on that we may not all get the ability to sit down together and watch.” So besides the joys of not rushing out to overnight something before the store closes or hoping a postal worker arrives in time, Wiredrive’s digital asset management allows a certain security from very natural human errors by making everything you need available at just the click of a link.

Our guest Doug Sherin has been working as a director’s rep for advertisers for over 16 years. In that time, he’s seen the industry grow and change, and learned that the only way to move forward is to always be flexible. ‍

Doug Sherin – Co-Founder – Options
Grace Amodeo – Program Manager – Shift 

Grace:
Let’s start by introducing yourself — tell us about your career to this point.

Doug:
I actually started off at the age of nine in front of the camera for commercials. I went from being a child actor to a talent agent assistant to a talent agent representing actors. I found myself one day applying for a scheduling position at a post-production company called Encore, and that’s where I started to be exposed to the other side of the business. I was a people person, and instead of scheduling the time I was representing these post-production artists and transferred to working at Riot Santa Monica. Working at Riot, I met Kimberly Griswold who is my business partner and life partner, and she was representing directors. She had the idea to quit our jobs and start our own company where we would represent directors, visual effects companies, and editorial. And we did it! We didn’t really think about it, but it turned out to be the best thing that we could have ever done, and that was in 2004.

Grace:
Tell me more about the company you created 16 years ago — Options.

Doug:
Over the years, the personality and the face of the company changes based on who you represent and how you’ve represented yourself in the marketplace. We don’t “sell”, I think it’s a misnomer that sales reps or director’s reps “sell”. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who you meet with, who you wine, who you dine, who you’re submitting — you still have to have an appropriate talent that’s right for the job. We’ve always booked jobs based on being an absolute resource, meaning seeing a brief and knowing who’s right for it, then putting that submission in such a valuable presentation that you hope the producer and creatives you’re submitting to can see the same vision. That’s the fulfillment that we’re in this business for, to fill those creative voids.

I think it’s a misnomer that sales reps or director’s reps “sell”. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who you meet with . . . you still have to have an appropriate talent that’s right for the job.

Grace:
How do you describe your role in the greater ecosystem of the advertising industry?

Doug:
It does begin and end with trust. You have to have the respect of your peers so that they look to you to be that resource. The role of the rep has really evolved in many different ways over the last two years. And with COVID especially, because it’s expedited a lot of ways of doing business differently. This business is a hands-on business, it’s a personal business. Personal meetings, personal dinners, personal one-on-ones. And so that aspect has been removed, it was already on its way to being removed, but with COVID and the advent of Zoom, now everything is on Zoom.

There has always been a weird and strange reputation that goes with being a rep. We’re actually an integral part of the process as a team member, not as a standalone. We’ve always operated as part of the process as a team member that has a set of eyes, and taste, and a business protocol that is proactive on behalf of our roster of companies. And that’s still in play. You need collaborative entities to attack this business. There’s a lot of hand-holding and collaborative effort with the rep, not only to come up with a strategy but also to identify who on the roster is compatible for their marketplace. We help identify targets and help our roster of companies have that blanket of respect and respectability that hopefully we, as Options, have instilled into the marketplace. Hopefully we can help open some doors and eyes based on that. There’s no guarantees, no matter what the process is.

Grace:
How do you measure your success in the advertising industry?

Doug:
You can’t just base it on monetary reward. It just can’t be that. We’re very grateful, being in this particular business and working for ourselves is a success. We’ve created our own environment, our own business platform, our own protocol of how we want to be a part of this business. And not everyone’s going to fit into that protocol as a potential client, and vice versa. But I deem us to be a tremendous success, each and every day that we’re working for ourselves. I don’t think a lot of people can say that. Especially during COVID it’s really hard to gauge success, because we’re all pretty much at a level playing field. So that’s the new level of gauging success, how do you adapt? How do you evolve your business? You have to evolve in order to survive, and there has been a tremendous evolution. It’s been going on for years, and COVID’s just pushed it fast-forward.

There’s another part of this business that’s been so wild and wacky, and that is there used to be a time where the freelance director was few and far between. And the industry has changed to the extent that I think there are more freelance directors than there are roster directors. It’s had a big effect on all production companies, at least through my examination. Because not everyone has the right director, so everyone is trying to dig into their back pockets of who they know freelance wise who could fill this void. I’ve heard upwards of 75% of jobs are being booked with freelance directors. It’s a new phenomenon in the sense that it’s a greatly accepted and normal protocol, where once there was a stigma to put on the freelance director. But as I stated at the beginning of this conversation, every job begins and ends with the right chosen talent for the job. Either they have what it takes or they don’t, and that’s the bottom line.

Every job begins and ends with the right chosen talent for the job. Either they have what it takes or they don’t, and that’s the bottom line.

Grace:
Why are flexibility and adaptability such an important part of your job?

Doug:
If we’re going to keep doing things as we did 10 years ago, the advertising is vastly different. So not only do we have to think differently, so do the directors that we put up. There’s a lot of very talented directors out there that have been very successful for a long time, and adaptability may not be in their wheelhouse at this stage of the game. So what are you going to do? You could go with someone that you know is a superstar and was doing all the Super Bowl commercials several years ago, but now this Super Bowl commercial has 25% of the budget and three more spots to be delivered. So there are a lot of directors that have adapted. I think for the guys and gals that can adapt and have adapted, they’re going to survive. And for the up-and-comers that started off as editors and visual effects guys, they have a multi-discipline background from the start and they could bring all those tool sets to the director position. That’s a huge bonus for a lot of projects, not for every project, but for a lot of them. For these multifaceted creatives, it’s the right time and place.

Grace:
What’s an example of a success story you’ve had at your time at Options?

Doug:
I think there were several. And it’s not just inherent to a job, it’s in the submission process in general. That’s really the toughest obstacle, because I don’t know every producer, and every producer doesn’t know me and probably doesn’t want to know me because they have a pool of resources that they know and love. So even as recently as right now, I write producers all the time and it goes into a vacuum. And it’s usually the same producers over a period of time, and that’s okay. Like I said, they don’t know me and they don’t need to know me. But I try. And there are times when you just act as if you know what they’re looking for and you put it forward. And at some point, it is going to be in their hands. And you hope that a producer says, you know what, let me take a look at this. And then you know what happens? They write you! They liked it, they thought it was good.

And the next thing you know, we are bidding our guy or gal. And I just went from, you don’t me and don’t want to know me, to you love me! And if we get the job, that’s the success. We made the connections, we knew what we were talking about. We just needed you to hear us. It is persistence, it is luck, it is maybe that person finally deciding to be a bit more open-minded, or maybe they were at a cocktail hour and you shook hands. There are so many talented people, directors, and artists. There are so many loved and liked reps. There’s just a lot. And in a sea of “a lot”, it’s really hard for someone to see you.

Grace:
Where do you imagine the advertising industry might go in the next 5-10 years? What comes next?

The one constant for the future is change, whether it’s our business or any other business. So who really knows what’s around the corner?

Doug:
I don’t know if there is an answer. It’s a constant whirlwind of change on an almost daily basis. We’ve seen a tremendous influx of brand-direct scenarios where the brands themselves are taking control of their marketing and ad dollars. That’s going to be a phenomenon that is going to continue. The traditional agency world is still going to survive, it’s going to be out there. I don’t know how it’s face is going to change. They too are becoming more adaptable, because there is going to be more of an ask from clients of deliverables against the dollars. The one constant for the future is change, whether it’s our business or any other business. So who really knows what’s around the corner? You just have to be prepared to be flexible, because otherwise you’re going to be left in the dust. There’s nothing that’s going to be left that is traditional.

Technology has advanced a million fold in the last 5-10 years, things are very different. I will tell you that I do appreciate this business, the opportunity that it’s given us, the career that it’s given us and will continue to give us for a while longer. It’s still fun, and it’s challenging, and it’s tough, and it’s hard, and it’s exciting, and it’s up, and it’s down and such is life! We’ll embrace it as long as it embraces us. This industry has that same mindset where I think everyone just loves to come up with answers. And that’s what we gotta do, just come up with answers.

As any media company will know, a streamlined and efficient workflow is dependent on sharing media files quickly, easily, and reliably. Wiredrive was created with this in mind, giving businesses one file sharing site for all their media assets. Having a single centralized platform for all your media file management needs will ensure optimum media sharing capabilities and increased production workflow.

Whether sharing media with team members or clients, your business needs a file sharing program that has versatile capabilities, reliable and speedy upload times, and built-in team collaboration and asset management tools. With a program like this put in place, your team will have all the tools needed to share media in a way that enhances and improves workflow. So how exactly does a tool like Wiredrive give your team the best way to share media?

Consolidation

Regardless of project scope or bulk of media assets being handled, having one platform for media sharing is essential for optimal workflow. Wiredrive allows you to upload and manage all of your files on one universally accessible platform, making it easier and faster for your team to work together. Using a cloud-based file sharing program such as Wiredrive means that your team members can have fast, web-based access to all their files no matter where they are. With all media assets located in one place, files can be labeled and organized and made visible to all participants in real time.

Wide Range Capabilities

Not all media files are the same, however to ensure a streamlined workflow, your business needs one file sharing program that can handle all types of assets. Leaving it to your team members to figure out how to share big files or different media formats, will only slow down the process and negatively impact productivity. Wiredrive allows you to share anything digital, whether video, image, audio or PDF format. Sharing big files is just as easy as sharing small ones, and your team members will be able to upload complex media rich files from any device, anywhere. Wiredrive also gives you options for how to share your media assets, offering your team everything from media galleries, to video reels, to media plugins.

Internal Collaboration

With all of your company’s media assets on one file sharing site, your employees and clients will need an easy way to review and track all projects. Wiredrive offers all of the metadata management tools and real-time updates necessary to ensure that your team stays on the same page and keeps moving forward. Comments, approvals, views, and forwards are all communicated to you via email notifications, guaranteeing that you don’t miss any updates along the way. All approvals are tracked, time-stamped and logged, helping streamline workflow for both works-in-progress as well as completed projects.

Media sharing is a key component to the workflow of any media company, regardless of scope or size. Without an effective media sharing program, the productivity and efficiency of your team will suffer and the long-term success of your company (as well as the happiness of your employees and clients) will be jeopardized. Wiredrive provides you with all of the tools your business needs to ensure that you are sharing your media assets in the best way possible. Ours is one of the fastest and easiest to use out there, designed with one goal in mind: to give you the best way to share media.

Chelsea Pictures, a production and talent management company, uses Wiredrive to actively track the progress of creative work and create a centralized hub for collaboration in order to perennially collaborate with the industry’s best. Their work across broadcast, digital, film, TV, branded entertainment, and print has garnered the industry’s top accolades, and the work of their directors has been showcased at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals, among others.

Always ‘Unstoppable’ Commercial via Chelsea

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Taking communication to the next level

Wiredrive is a key component to simplifying Chelsea Pictures’ work processes, from project management to group meetings. The ease of access to information from past and current projects and clients keeps communication running smoothly within the team, as well as with partners and clients. Whether they’re trying to find a specific director or an updated rough cut, Chelsea Pictures relies on Wiredrive as a content repository that’s crucial to decision making.

“We have team conference calls on Monday mornings to talk about what the week ahead looks like and what’s happening in production. We use Wiredrive as a way to communicate with our reps, executive producers, and everyone in the company about everything our directors are doing,” explains Allison Amon, co-founder and partner.

“One of the reasons we started sending treatments through Wiredrive was so we could trace where the treatments were going, who was looking at it, and how often they were looking. Knowing when an agency producer has looked at our treatment has been super helpful in knowing when to make that next follow-up phone call. How quickly someone looks at your project is often an indication of whether you’ll get the job or not.”

“How quickly someone looks at your project is often an indication of whether you’ll get the job or not.”

One step ahead

Before joining Wiredrive in 2007, Chelsea Pictures e-mailed PDFs of treatments to showcase work to clients. Since making the switch, the company has saved precious time and cut down on the follow-up process as a result of Wiredrive’s ability to track and notify the team of any project viewing activity.

Delivering the perfect pitch

Chelsea Pictures captures the eye of agencies and production companies by using Wiredrive to create custom reels of their talent’s best work, which they often modify in real-time to tailor to their client’s preferences. By having complete control over the way they build and bundle reels in Wiredrive Library, Chelsea Pictures is able to stand out from the crowd and present work in a concise yet influential way. “All of our work is categorized in our Wiredrive system. If an agency producer is looking for a certain director, we put together custom reels that we can quickly adjust based on what they’d like to see—it’s a significantly easy process,” adds Allison.

To learn more about Chelsea, visit their site: www.chelsea.com

Phoebe is a favorite at Wiredrive, and we were able to grab a few minutes with her to better understand her role at Wieden+Kennedy and how everyone in the creative industry can benefit from an organized metadata video nerd.

Tells us about your role at Wieden+Kennedy.

I’m responsible for storing and organizing the agency’s finished creative work, as well as the corporate memory and context of our work, and making sure our teams have access to it.

What does your typical day look like?

I hunt down work and provide context behind it, such as who worked on it, what did it mean, what was the significance of it for the agency, how it is being used now, who needs to connect with it, and who is going to look for it.

How do you keep all of that work organized?

I’m constantly deciding what to keep in the collection versus what to remove from the collection to make it easier for our users to find what they need. For example, we’re not going to include a ton of versions of a broadcast spot. When you search for a specific piece of work, you get the one you need—the final version.

It’s a librarian’s job to cull the collection and use the metadata to point people in the right direction.

How do you cull a collection?

Well, that is where the context piece comes in! Understanding our work well enough to know what versions are the best, or are the favorites, or are the ones that aired, takes a little extra research and a little extra time with the people involved in our creative processes.

From the technical perspective, we created a file-naming convention when we first started and that lent itself to an easy search process even though we don’t have the staff to dedicate to cataloging. Wiredrive has a pretty open platform so that we can manipulate the tool to do exactly what we need. We can create as many metadata fields as we need, which is important.

The biggest product strength for us is how easy it is to build reels and send links so that everyone can benefit from the library. It’s also a great research tool for us.

Phoebe at the W+K headquarters in Portland, Seattle.

What’s an example of a problem you solved today?

I got an email from someone who worked on a very famous global soccer spot in 1994. He wanted a particular reel of a 45-second spot that only ran in Berlin and he thought maybe New York. Since I have an uncanny ability to remember our work as well as a system organized with metadata, I can say, “Actually those were 40-second spots, not 45 seconds! Here’s the work and, also, here’s a great behind-the-scenes interview with Joe Pytka where he’s talking about the campaign with you.” I added it to his reel—already branded with the Wieden+Kennedy logo so it looks sleek and professional—and sent it to him. It’s great because it is so clear and easy.

What about your background makes you a good fit for an advertising agency and why library school?

I have a background in video and film production. I went to film school when I was young and worked in that industry for about a decade before I went to library school. I burned out while making a feature film, and I just wanted the opposite of film. I wanted somewhere quiet and wonderful and academic instead of ridiculous and loud and absurd.

I have a lot of passion in both areas. That makes me a great fit for the agency because I would talk very easily about film and formats—more so than most librarians.

What’s the difference between an archivist and a librarian?

People use those words interchangeably, but they are very different in their purpose.

In a nutshell, and there is a lot of overlap here, an archivist preserves and protects artifacts and information. A librarian provides better ways for people to access and share materials and information. An archivist is also concerned with how to share the information with people, but they also have the directive to protect an original, usually fragile, artifact. A librarian usually has a collection of copies meant to be shared, used, and even replaced. In the digital media world, this gets tricky. It is not uncommon for librarians working with special collections and corporate environments to have more fluid roles. And this is why I am a little bit of each, plus a bit of a knowledge manager, plus a bit of a historian for W+K.

Does an agency need a librarian?

If they want to find their work and the context for that work, then they need a person who knows the agency’s work like the back of their hand, as well as the story behind it. They need someone who can be responsible for the memory of all of their creative content. Librarians are typically hard-wired for this, and can often be useful in hundreds more ways, from helping with HR/training needs and event planning to absolutely every type of research imaginable.

What if an agency can’t afford a full-time librarian?

Smaller companies that don’t make hundreds of spots per month may not need a librarian per se. However, they need someone who connects with the work and has an interest and passion for organizing. You could hire temps or freelancers to catalog for you, but that leaves out the heart and soul that binds the collection together, and you are left with no contextual piece. A librarian needs to have a love for the work the company does. You can’t just be a librarian or simply like video; you have to be a nerd for it.

To learn more about Wieden + Kennedy, visit their site: www.wk.com‍

The Global Goals campaign with Project Everyone and UN agency partners branded the goals and aimed to reach 7 billion people in seven days. Project Everyone is the brainchild of Richard Curtis, a famous filmmaker, with the ambition to tell everyone in the world about the Global Goals so they are achieved in the best possible way. All over the world, the project is supported by many organizations and individuals including celebrities, media, NGO organizations, businesses, film companies, and production companies who have agreed to carry the goals to their fans, customers and users.

The quest for the right collaboration tool

The Global Goals project is by its nature a branding and advertising project. The initiative of this magnitude is dependent on large quantities of media files, created to carry the message across the globe. To be able to successfully and efficiently communicate with partners from all over the world and exchange documents, photos and videos, The Global Goals needed a media sharing solution that would support an operation of this importance and scale.

“We had heard from colleagues in different organizations about Wiredrive, and once we evaluated its features it became clear that this would be a great solution for our needs. Originally we planned to use Wiredrive only internally, as our team’s shared drive, but as time went on and we created more and more content, including videos, sending links externally using Wiredrive proved to be the easiest and most efficient way of transferring large files.” explains Katie Bradford, Director of Operations at The Global Goals.

The quest for the right collaboration tool

Using Wiredrive as their secure file storage and collaboration tool, the Global Goals team is able to share large files faster and more efficiently, both internally and with the project’s partners.

“We use Wiredrive every day as our internal storage system and the sharing function has allowed us to send content all over the world, from classrooms in Panama to the web team at MSN…The benefits we have with Wiredrive, such as ease of use and simpler sharing, are particularly noticeable when using large video files…Wiredrive showed as the perfect tool for all our needs, and became an absolute necessity at the height of our launch campaign. We would be lost without it.”

Besides file sharing, Wiredrive simplifies content organization and collaboration within the Global Goals organization. Unlike other solutions, Wiredrive’s project folder can be shared and updated even after it is viewed without needing to resend the presentation link. This feature allows the Global Goals team to save precious time since they don’t need to resend links every time changes to the project are made or worry if they missed an update.

“Wiredrive showed as the perfect tool for all our needs, and became an absolute necessity at the height of our launch campaign. We would be lost without it.”

Wiredrive stays at the heart of the project

The Global Goals project has impressive impact and visibility within almost every country in the world. In just a couple of days, the project’s promotional campaign managed to reach over 1 billion people over social networks and other digital platforms, with 4 million total video views across all Global Goals initiatives. Within the first and most intensive 7 days of promotion, Global Goals activities were visible to 3 billion people or 40% of the planet’s population.

Being visible and having extensive reach helps the project establish UN Goals as the benchmark of progress and nurture a new generation of campaigners to achieve these Goals in the future. Wiredrive stays in the heart of this long-running initiative, as an irreplaceable media sharing solution and a reliable partner for the entire Global Goals organization.

To learn more about The Global Goals, visit their site: www.globalgoals.org