Remote production has become an attractive proposition, with multiple benefits. The challenge, though, is to provide sufficient connectivity to allow the production and post production teams access to content in a timely manner.
In this short blog piece, EditShare’s CTO, Stephen Tallamy, runs through some of his top tips for making remote editing more productive.
1 – Get Organized Remotely
In a remote editing set-up, the editing software is on your computer but the raw footage is on a server at a remote location. It might be the broadcaster or production company’s headquarters, in the cloud, or if you’re involved in fast turnaround editing it might still be at the location of the shoot.
To minimize the download time, I recommend your first task is to organize the clips and decide what you need directly on the server. To make this easy you’ll ideally use a web-based tool to start building up your project structure. EditShare’s award-winning FLOW software has built-in web tools that allow you to easily drag and drop material into bins, create sub-clips and even create a rough timeline and cuts-only edit before you start downloading.
This will have two benefits. First, you get your material and can start working faster. Second, you have fewer clips to download to your computer, so you can be more productive. Especially if you already have a rough timeline mapped out.
Organize your footage using AirFLOW to save time in the edit.
2 – Embrace the Proxy
What are proxies? They are reduced resolution versions of clips, which make it easier for the editing software to run seamlessly on your computer. We all use them every single day, without even thinking about it. It’s what we generally look at when we are in the edit software – a scaled rendering of the original media.
Unless you’re working on the finest details of the image, you don’t need to worry about the full resolution versions.
If you do have full resolution content available in your editor, then don’t forget that Premiere Pro allows you to toggle between looking at the proxy and the full resolution with a single click of the mouse. If the toggle proxy button is not there, below the source or the program monitors, then click on the + button to reveal it. Once you have the toggle control, you can switch instantly into full resolution to check a detail, then back to the proxy for smooth playback.
Add the Toggle Proxies button to your Button Editor to switch between proxies and original media.
3 – Centralize the Proxy Creation
This is the logical extension of tips 1 and 2. In standalone editing, you import the full resolution material and your software creates the proxies. This takes time and processing power.
But if you organize your material in advance on the server, you only need to download the proxies, saving even more bandwidth and download time.
FLOW actually has two types of proxies. You can determine whether you want one or both, and set parameters, on a project by project basis.
The first is what we call the “streaming proxy”, which is an MPEG-4 file designed to be lightweight for internet delivery. It can start with a 4K or 8K file and still deliver a compact proxy.
The second is an “editing proxy”, which is in H.264 or ProRes, and supports multiple audio tracks, in a wrapper recommended by Adobe for seamless use of the proxy toggle feature. But while it is designed for maximum flexibility in editing, you can work perfectly well with streaming proxies if you have a simple audio layout in your original media.
Set your proxy format once and automatically create both streaming and edit proxies.
4 – Plug In To Adobe® Premiere® Pro
Working in a web tool can be great during the organization stage, when it gets down to the edit you really want all your focus on the job in hand. You want to stay inside your editing software.
One of the great benefits of using Premiere Pro is that Adobe actively encourages open interfaces, which in turn means that developers like EditShare can provide very tight integration. We’ve put a FLOW panel into Premiere Pro, so all the things I have talked about, like organization in advance and selecting what proxy to use, can be done within the familiar user interface.
The EditShare panel also allows you to send your work in progress, as a proxy, to a producer, who can make comments tagged to markers in the timeline. It’s a fast and seamless way to work towards approval.
Use the FLOW panel to select media, import markers, rough cuts and publish for review
Finally, that same panel gives you relinks to the original footage, should you need it, which leads naturally to…
5 – Finishing the Job
At the end of the project you need to conform it: finalize the edit with all its transitions and effects using the full resolution originals, and output to the final format.
If it’s a prestige project, the editor will want to check the final output. So, you relink to the original footage and download only the parts of the project you need for the edit.
But if speed is of the essence, then you upload the EDL to a remote renderer or Adobe Media Encoder hosted on the server. You upload a very lightweight file, and the heavyweight processing power of the server speeds the rendering. This is ideal, for example for sports highlights packages.
These are just a few thoughts on how remote editing can be smooth, seamless and productive. For a glimpse of how it works in practice, you can watch our short YouTube video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DahAtBLMZbg
The media and entertainment industries have long been popular targets for piracy and intellectual property theft. In today’s technology-centric environment, where video streaming and cloud sharing are essential parts of day-to-day life, securing video assets throughout production, post-production, and beyond has become more important than ever.
When content is leaked before it has reached its final, release-ready form, not only does the content owner lose out on revenue and future ROI, but your organization risks damage to its reputation from the release of a low-quality product and not prioritizing client security.
Why Watermark Tech is Important in the Media and Entertainment Industries
Video piracy and leaked content cost the entertainment industry billions of dollars every year. In fact, in some countries, pirated content accounts for almost half of all the video content being viewed in those regions.
To help prevent theft and leaks, post-production teams rely on a core group of security tools and cyber hygiene protocols, including security certifications, role-based provisioning, identity and access management, and digital watermarking.
Watermarking is a highly effective way to prevent the unauthorized release and distribution of video content and track who is actually viewing and sharing the content.
In addition to protecting and securing content during the post-production process, watermarking has the added benefit of increasing brand awareness with your centrally placed logo and business name on every video and link.
Why Choose MediaSilo’s SafeStream Watermark Tech for Post-Production
One of MediaSilo’s many enterprise-grade security features is SafeStream, a highly effective, tamper-resistant watermarking tool. SafeStream provides additional layers of protection against asset theft and misuse with two different types of watermarking tech:
1. Visible Watermarking
Visible watermarks are the most overt type of watermarking. These watermarks are placed clearly in a video to provide a traceable, visual deterrent intended to make potential bad actors rethink sharing confidential, proprietary content.
Visual watermarks can be customized to include the authorized viewer’s full name, email address, or custom text.
2. Forensic Watermarking
Forensic watermarks are digitally embedded into a video, so the unique characters that identify the video’s origin are invisible to the viewer. If a video is later leaked, forensic watermarks allow security teams to trace back the source of the leaked footage.
Used alone, forensic watermarks protect content while creating an uninterrupted user experience for viewers. However, many administrators choose to use forensic watermarking in conjunction with visual watermarks for a double layer of security.
Benefits of Securing Your Video Content with SafeStream
In addition to visible and forensic watermarks, SafeStream provides MediaSilo users with several other features and capabilities that make it easy to watermark video content for secure viewing and sharing throughout the post-production workflow:
SafeStream watermarking can be mandated at the project or admin level by enforcing an embedded watermark template across the organization.
The watermark template is set as a default by an administrator and cannot be turned off by users.
SafeStream provides the option to allow both administrator and project owner roles to manage watermarking or limit permissions to just admins to enforce full compliance.
Authorized users can apply default watermarking templates or create their own custom template using viewer names, emails, or custom text
Administrators can track who views watermarked videos at any time, which makes it easier to find the source of leaked assets and the unauthorized users who download them.
The MediaSilo cloud collaboration platform is designed to streamline and secure your video management workflow with one integrated solution. SafeStream watermark tech is just one way we achieve this.
Download MediaSilo’s Guide to Post-Production Workflows to learn more about how post-production is evolving in the era of remote work and how you can increase efficiency, productivity, and security no matter where your team is located.
Leaked and stolen content comes at a huge cost to the owners. By some estimates, the entertainment industry loses upward of $71 billion each year to media piracy. And with our increasing reliance on streaming media for both professional and personal use, there is no reason to think that the demand and subsequent financial impact will decrease anytime soon.
Unlike other types of theft, once a video asset is leaked, there is no real way to get that content back. Since it is almost impossible to stop others from copying, sharing, downloading, and distributing a pirated copy, the best plan of action is to prevent the leak in the first place.
So, from post-production to pre-screening, how do you secure your pre-release environment and prevent assets from being leaked?
After the last piece of footage is shot, a video still has a long way to go before it’s officially ready for distribution. Along the journey from post-production through pre-screening, there are a lot of potential leak points.
Fortunately, with the right technology, policies, and practices in place, your team can mitigate the risk of leaked assets.
1. Access Management
Poor password protocol, including weak, shared, and reused passwords, is a common vulnerability across every organization. In fact, a 2021 study from IBM and the Ponemon Institute found that compromised credentials were the leading cause of data breaches among study participants.
With so much at stake during post-production and pre-screening, it is essential for video management teams to enforce strong identity and access management policies.
To ensure assets are protected from theft and unauthorized viewing, the traditional username/password combo has to go. Instead, organizations need to implement secure access technology, such as multifactor authentication, single sign-on, and passwordless login.
Additionally, enforcing strategies such as controlling user privileges to limit who has access and lifecycle policies that regularly review access and permissions to prevent privilege creep will help prevent data loss and breaches.
2. Role-Based Permissions
Along the same lines as managing how users are granted access, role-based provisioning lets the administrator ensure only the right people have access to the right assets at the right time.
Throughout a project, different users need to have access to certain files and resources in order to do their jobs. However, not every user needs the same level of permissions, and they most likely won’t need the same level of permissions for the entirety of the project.
For example, the marketing team doesn’t need the same access to a video file as the sound editor needs, and the client doesn’t need permission to download and edit the original video file.
By assigning project-based permissions for standard and customized roles on an as-needed basis, the admin has more flexibility and control over what a user can do on a given project.
It’s also important to remember that role-based permissions are project-dependent. That is, a user’s role may be different on each project they are working on. While they may need almost unfettered access to change and share files for one project, they may simply need view-only permissions on another.
Paired with the access management policies above, role-based permissions can stop a hacker from penetrating too deeply into the system where the most valuable content and data are stored.
3. Leak-Tracing Technology
It’s always preferable to prevent a leak from occurring than to clean up after one, but humans make mistakes and, leaks happen.
Watermarking is an effective tool that can both help deter asset leaks and provide traceability back to who is viewing and sharing an asset. This capability helps secure and streamline workflows from post-production to pre-screening by ensuring reviewers have a current, authorized, and secure version of the asset available.
MediaSilo’s watermarking technology, SafeStream, creates multilayer protection against theft and unauthorized sharing with:
Visible Watermarks
As the name implies, visible watermarks are placed clearly within each frame of a video. These watermarks are intended to provide a traceable, visual deterrent against unauthorized sharing and public distribution of confidential, proprietary content.
Visual watermarks can be customized to include the authorized viewer’s full name, email address, or custom text or even used for branding purposes by including the company name or logo.
Forensic Watermarks
Forensic watermarks are digitally embedded into a video, so they are invisible to the viewer. Forensic watermarks contain unique characters that identify the video’s origin, so it is difficult for unauthorized users to pass the asset off as their own.
SafeStream is highly customizable, allowing admins to create watermarking standards for specific projects or for entire workspaces. SafeStream also streamlines and unifies your security efforts with shareable watermark templates for specific teams or user groups.
4. Security Certifications
One way that MediaSilo is keeping assets and workflows secure is by obtaining SOC 2 Type II certification. This high-level certification ensures that our infrastructure, software, personnel, procedures, and data have met rigorous third-party-verified standards for security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy.
In other words, we have official verification that our internal operations at MediaSilo are as secure as yours.
Download MediaSilo’s Guide to Post-Production Workflows to learn more about how post-production is evolving in the era of remote work and how you can increase efficiency, productivity, and security no matter where your team is located.
Collaborating with a team can mean a fount of new ideas, creative solutions, and brilliant plans. It can also mean a perfect recipe for miscommunication and technological frustration, but team collaboration is inevitable – as is the need to share files online.
Working with other professionals in your field isn’t quite as nightmarish as a high school group project, but it’s still fraught with potential dangers. Sometimes files don’t send, or videos don’t play. One person wants to use Google Drive, but the other is all about Dropbox. People lose track of what’s been done already. There’s no consistent branding across all platforms. Chaos ensues.
The only guaranteed way to save yourself and your team from a world of broken links and malfunctioning fax machines is to find a trustworthy team collaboration app.
Programs like Wiredrive remove the roadblocks from team collaboration. Everyone has experienced the acute frustration of a failed video upload, but Wiredrive’s selective transcoding ensures crystal-clear playback every time. Wiredrive’s digital library means that all of your work-in-progress and final media assets are safely stored in one central, searchable hub. You won’t have to stress over creating a branded experience because Wiredrive allows you to feature your brand on every email, reel, and presentation you send.
Now that we’re all past disorganized group projects, it’s time to ditch the rudimentary methods of file sharing. Glitchy videos are fine for sharing Youtube clips, but not ideal for presenting the professional face of your company. To upload larger files without a hitch, you need a fast, commercial-grade collaboration app.
With Wiredrive, there’s no need to download software for instant playback on uploaded videos and all major formats are supported with no lagging.
Sometimes the challenge of collaborating goes beyond the chaos of uploading, though. Collaboration is all about communication. There’s the issue of keeping track of multiple moving parts, making sure that every media asset is reviewed and approved before it heads out into the world, and remembering who did what when. Luckily, programs like Wiredrive are prepared to keep your team up to date with time stamps and comment tracking. Reviewers get an email alert with one-click access to a preview, so they can respond as soon as a new piece of media is shared. Leaving feedback and comments is easy and organized.
With an app to take care of the filing, comment tracking, and data protection, the team is free to concentrate on the important stuff. No one wants to spend precious hours of work time watching a video buffer or waiting for a folder to upload. A team collaboration app streamlines work and keeps track of every step along the way, so no one’s left out of the loop. A good team collaboration app goes the extra mile to make sure that your final product is easy to share and consistent with your branding. Finding a reliable app that can handle your video uploads is essential to taking your team from frustrating to functional.
There’s no need to suffer through miscommunications and multiple fuzzy videos on multiple platforms. If you and your team want to skip the headache and start sharing files and feedback with ease, you need an app that’s designed with the sole purpose of making your collaborations hassle-free.
No matter which creative industry you are in, you likely often hear, “Send me your reel.”
Production companies, directors, creative agencies, post houses, and even marketing and brand teams are expected to have a demo reel to showcase their best work, much like an artist, model, or photographer has a portfolio.
But in different subsets of the creative industry, there can be different meanings or expectations for what the demo reel actually includes.
So what exactly is a reel, and what can you do if you don’t have one?
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the many names, types, and uses for reels as well as some best practices for how to make and share one with your clients and collaborators.
What is a reel and why do I need one?
Borrowing from the old way of storing film, a reel is an edited video highlighting the best examples of your work.
In creative industries such as film production, media, advertising, and post-production, a reel is a great way to demonstrate your vision or past work to a potential collaborator or client. For an experienced professional, a demo reel can be a great way to highlight the best of the best of your creative portfolio.
Taking inspiration from other creative industries, the concept of reels is beginning to make its way into B2B and B2C marketing and sales, with companies creating a reel of their products and services to give customers an overview of their brand identity and specific offerings. In these situations, this unique video could also be referred to as a highlight reel, promo reel, or brand video.
“No matter your specific use case or industry, think of a reel as a trailer for you and your work.”
No matter your specific use case or industry, think of a reel as a trailer for you and your work. Similar to movie trailers, you don’t need to tell your audience the whole story, but you do need to get them interested in seeing more.
What are some different use cases for reels?
While companies, brands, and creatives can have demo reels, the ultimate finished product can be quite different.
Production Company
Whether working in media and entertainment, advertising, or both, a strong demo reel is a must for any production company.
For a producer, brand, or agency looking to begin a new production, a company’s reel is the first place they will look to make their hiring choice. What these decision makers are looking for is a company that they feel will fit the right creative style and artistic tone for the project at hand.
A challenge for many production companies is how to show a wide range of styles and skills in a single reel. It is not uncommon for a company to produce multiple reels to show different skill sets—a commercial reel, a narrative reel, and a documentary reel, for example.
In any of these cases, be true to your strengths and what your company does better than anyone else.
Advertising Agency
For an advertising agency, the power of your reel comes from the power of your creativity.
What brands are really looking for when hiring an agency is a representation of emotions or ideas that are often hard to articulate quickly and clearly. They are also looking for individuality. Do your spots look the same as everything else they’ve seen so far? What sets you apart from the rest?
Similar to production companies, agencies also often have the issue of choosing which spots to include in their reel. But don’t be intimidated; editing a reel is just another opportunity to flex your creative muscles while showing off your distinct style.
Brand
You might not think of a brand having a “reel,” but with the broad reach of digital and online marketing campaigns, a video reel for your company can give you a competitive edge.
A brand reel allows a potential client or customer to immediately understand not only your company and your product(s) but also your values and vision. For those advertising directly to customers, brands can also choose different levels of focus, such as on a specific product or even a popular marketing campaign that your customers might recognize. For those with specific skills, such as animation or visual effects, reels can showcase the depth and breadth of your capabilities.
For a B2B brand reel, you might want to focus more on the story and identity of your company. In these cases, you want your demo reel to focus on answering questions such as:
What are the values you serve and the morals you represent?
Can you align yourself with one of your more recognizable users and tell the story of your success through their success?
However, a brand reel in these situations often requires more work, where new footage, voiceovers, or specific messaging is often needed in conjunction with clips from existing campaigns.
Commercial Director
For a commercial director, your reel is your calling card.
Whether you work directly with an agent, sales rep, or are a freelancer, you cannot book work with a new client, brand, or company without a reel that stands out. A director’s reel is an incredibly personal representation of your personality, vision, and work. It should show your skill, experience, creativity, and range all in one presentation.
As with other use cases, commercial directors can take different approaches with their demo reels. Some can choose to make a traditional “sizzle reel” made up of a variety of clips cut together with music, while others can create a compilation reel showing longer clips or entire end- to-end spots.
The approach you take depends on your audience and the type of commercial (i.e., automotive) that is your main focus.
Film Director
While there is a lot of overlap between commercial directors and film directors, a main distinction is the end goal of their reel. A commercial reel is all about sales, using creativity to sell a brand. For a film director, you have more flexibility to tell a story; capture a performance; and play with style, color, sound, and emotion.
Director of Photography
Of all of the examples we’ve discussed in this guide, a director of photography is the person who gets to have the most fun with their reel.
For a director of photography, their art is 100 percent visual, and there is no need to worry about the actor’s performance or the scene’s sound design. The main focus is capturing beautiful shots and jaw-dropping camera work. It is also a way to showcase an eye for composition, lighting, and layers of storytelling through exceptional camera work.
Actor
An actor’s demo reel is about creating a collection or montage of your best performances so directors can see your range and abilities.
That means you should work to keep things simple, using copies of the footage from your previous work and weaving them together to show your abilities, beginning with a high-impact scene to grab attention.
In this case, don’t worry about production quality or camera work. A great performance will shine through even if the shot doesn’t look very cinematic.
How do I share my reel?
Once you have created a reel that best represents you, your work, and your audience, your task is still not done. Your approach to sharing it can also reflect your specific tone and style.
It’s important to be thoughtful about how you choose to send your demo reel to show that you understand the best and most effective way for the viewer to engage with your content.
For example, you can host your reel on YouTube or Vimeo and send a link to anyone who requests it. While this is a simple and straightforward option, it does not allow you to tailor the viewer’s experience with your content or customize your presentation. At the same time, the content around your video can be distracting or deflect from the message you want to send about your brand and individual identity. Finally, if your reel contains sensitive or confidential content, these platforms offer limited security features.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are asset management and presentation platforms such as MediaSilo that give artists all the tools they need to organize, update, and beautifully display their reel on a secure and customized page.
MediaSilo’s intuitive presentation tool, Spotlight, allows artists to easily build a custom landing page for their video and include additional links, information, and branding. There are also prebuilt reel templates so you can publish content in a few clicks. Or there’s the option to build something entirely from scratch that suits your specific needs.
You can also choose to share your demo reel with others while it is still in development and use MediaSilo to get time-coded feedback, comments, and on-screen annotation from your collaborators.
When your reel is completed, it can be launched on your Spotlight page and easily shared using a variety of secure and private or public viewing options. Once your reel is shared, MediaSilo’s comprehensive analytics dashboard lets you see exactly which videos are getting the most traction and who is engaging the most with your content.
When should you not to use a reel?
Although there are a lot of use cases for demo reels, they aren’t always the answer to your content-sharing needs.
For example, rather than sharing a reel, many creative professionals will choose to create and share an online portfolio that showcases their best work. Editors, in particular, may benefit from a portfolio over a reel because specific skills with timing, pacing, and tone are really best shown over a full scene, spot, or short film. Many directors, agencies, and brands also prefer a portfolio to show a wider scope of work.
In other cases, you can combine a reel with a portfolio, which can be a good compromise if you do not know the preferences of the audience, but you would still like to prioritize which specific pieces they see.
Whether you are sharing a reel, portfolio, or both you can easily make a branded presentation page for all of your work using Spotlight.
Bring it all together.
Reels represent a creative way of expressing ideas and are a powerful way to communicate an artistic vision.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to making a reel that works for you, your business, and your audience, so take the time to try different options until you find the best way to showcase your work and talents.
If you work in video production or a similar creative field, your media reel is key to getting more clients. You have to make a great impression in a short amount of time. That means carefully curating your own work to make sure the best clips are on display, while also remembering that out of context, they might not have the same effect.
Using a media management app like Wiredrive will make this process much simpler. By having easy access to all your media files, as well as the ability to collaborate with other members of your team while making your selections, you can take the time needed to make the best possible choices.
To make sure your media reel shows off your skills, keep these tips in mind:
Have a Consistent Tone
In terms of tone, your past projects could be all over the map. Some are profound, some are funny, some are professional and informative. You might think that by tossing them all together in your reel, you’ll be able to show off how versatile you are.
What’s more likely, though, is that the rapid shifts in tone will prevent your work from having its intended effect. A funny clip might not be as entertaining if it comes right after an extremely serious one. Instead, try to aim for a consistent emotional feeling throughout your reel. Better yet, organize the reel so that the tone develops gradually into something new. A reel that begins as light and amusing, yet by the end has seemed to naturally grow into something very moving, will work better than one where the amusing and the moving are chaotically thrown together.
Show What Happens Behind the Scenes
Clients aren’t strictly interested in the finished product. While that is what’s most important, they want to see that your process reflects your expertise.
With that in mind, incorporate some behind the scenes elements into your media reel. This will demonstrate to clients that the great work they’re watching was not a fluke, but a natural result of your approach to a project.
Share the Good Stuff First
A demo reel has to have a certain flow to it, and often, the impulse is to build up to your best work. Think of an action movie trailer. Typically, it starts out fairly calm, with the more intense moments reserved for the end.
This works for a trailer, because moviegoers are a captive audience. Clients are not. They might not take the time to watch your entire reel if they’re not impressed with it from the start. As such, while it is important to keep the overall flow in mind, it’s more important to put your best work front and center.
Additionally, give clients the option to view your entire portfolio if the reel was interesting to them. With a media management tool like Wiredrive, you can easily share all your media assets with clients, giving them more reason to consider your team.
No matter what type of content you produce, analytics play a major role in your ability to be successful. This is just as true for a video as it is for a listicle. By understanding what does and does not engage an audience, you can fine-tune your work in the future. As more digital content incorporates multimedia elements, it’s now more important than ever that teams have access to a media management tool that provides this information. That’s why Wiredrive features comprehensive and intuitive analytics reporting. As a collaboration app, it already gives teams the ability to easily organize and provide feedback on their media files. Through analytics, it also offers the kind of insights that provide for greater success.
Monitoring Viewer Trends
Walk through the offices of any major digital publication, and you’ll likely spot screens throughout the hip open-space layout displaying the ever-shifting engagement data. Which articles are getting clicks. When people are reading them. How long they stay on the page.
These screens are there because being able to constantly see how content is performing is the simplest way to perfect it. Audience trends are fairly unpredictable. Teams need to be able to modify their approach quickly if need be. These data allow them to do so as soon as they notice a new trend.
It’s the same for those who work primarily in multimedia as it is for those who focus primarily on prose content.
In that respect, Wiredrive fulfills a key need. Through its analytics feature, it’s possible to see when a file was viewed, how many views it received over a certain period of time, and how long viewers watched it.
Unlike other analytics services, which often do not provide their own collaboration tool, Wiredrive allows users to share comments and feedback on files via the same system they used to monitor engagement. When media companies notice that content is not performing as expected, they typically convene meetings or send emails to address the issue. While this isn’t an entirely flawed approach, it also isn’t perfect. Ensuring that everyone on an email chain has reviewed the analytics data can be cumbersome. Meetings can occur days after a trend is spotted; in the meantime, little can be done to make the right changes.
Wiredrive’s analytics tools are built directly into its other features. As such, when teams see that a piece of content is failing, they can immediately begin collaborating to address the issue. If they notice it is succeeding, they can communicate their ideas on what made it work.
The result is stronger engagement. Analytics are only helpful when used to make the needed changes to a strategy or approach. On its own, this information is merely numbers on a screen. With Wiredrive’s media management features, you can use that information to get started on a new approach right away.
Today’s post-production teams are often highly distributed, with team members scattered across towns, cities, and even time zones. Fortunately, collaboration technology has made huge advances over the past few years, making working with your far-flung colleagues as seamless as working with someone in the next room.Although collaboration technology1 has revolutionized how we work, it has also helped open up the floodgates for potential data breaches. In 2020, when millions of workers suddenly pivoted to remote environments, security experts marked a significant increase in cyberattacks2, including phishing, ransomware, and brute-force password attacks, often enabled by poor cyber hygiene, lax password protocols, and unsecured remote access points.
In fact, a report by the Identity Theft Resource Center3 states that data breaches increased by 68 percent in 2021. These 1,862 security events surpassed the number of breaches in 2020 (1,108) as well as 2017’s record of 1,506.
Effective data protection is crucial for video production projects.
The media and entertainment industries have always been popular targets for hackers and other malicious users. But with cyberattacks on the rise and remote work environments likely here to stay, it has never been more important to make sure your collaboration software is secure enough to meet the challenge.
It has never been more important to make sure your collaboration software is secure enough to meet the challenge.
Some of the more common threats video post-production teams encounter include:
Intellectual property theft
Unauthorized access to files
Accidental or malicious file corruption
Ransomware
Depending on the type and the extent of the media breach, the consequences can be devastating to you and your clients.
For example:
File encryption/deletion can delay post-production work and require expensive remediation to restore lost or damaged footage.
Exposure of personal data can result in compliance penalties, fines, and legal fees.
Leaked film footage can reduce potential revenue and impact the success of the asset.
All of these scenarios can cause irreversible reputational damage to your brand, resulting in loss of customers—both current and future.
Look for these security features in collaboration software.
With security being a key requirement for your collaboration software, it’s important to find a solution that is tailored to the specific security and productivity needs of post-production teams.
MediaSilo studio-grade technology makes asset security a priority with three key capabilities:
1. Watermarking
Video watermarking is an effective way to deter unauthorized release of assets, track who is viewing and sharing content, and indelibly brand your shared content. MediaSilo’s SafeStream watermarking technology provides enterprise-grade security for your assets at multiple levels:
Visual watermarks: User-specific information is burned directly onto the video to create a robust layer of theft deterrence.
Forensic watermarks: Invisible tags trace a video to the user who requested playback, making it possible to trace leaks to the source.
Ad-hoc watermarking: Send review links with custom watermarks for one-off use cases.
Workspace or project-level watermarking: Create watermarking standards for specific projects or entire workspaces.
2. Role-Based Security
The post-production process requires the input of many different people—from video editors and sound technicians to graphic designers and visual effects artists. And while all of the players will need access to the project files, not every user needs the same level of access.
While all of the players will need access to the project files, not every user needs the same level of access.
Role-based provisioning lets the project administrator define who can access what and when by assigning permissions for standard or customized roles to provide flexibility and control over what a user can do in a given project.
For example, the project owner can delete a project, modify watermark settings, invite users to a project, or modify a user’s role within a project while an internal collaborator can only view, edit, and share assets within the team.
In addition to limiting permissions by roles, lifecycle policies can be used to set expiration dates for project assets and review links to control who has access to what and when.
3. Access Management
With so many employees now working outside of the traditional firewall, organizations are having to change tack and make the people the perimeter.
There are several ways to add additional layers of security to ensure only authorized users have access to your collaboration platform:
Multifactor authentication (MFA)
MFA requires credentials to be verified by more than a password alone. For example, when logging in, a user may be asked to enter something they know (a password) as well as an additional code sent to their phone or email.
Single sign-on (SSO)
SSO lets a user log in to multiple applications with one set of credentials. This increases security because it reduces the number of potential entry points (i.e., attack surfaces) for malicious users.
Passwordless login
This security approach creates a one-time link that confirms browser and machine identity each time before granting access tokens for login, and removes the possibility of a password being hacked or stolen.
Turn to MediaSilo to protect your assets.
Preventing data and media breaches is a top priority for every post-production team. MediaSilo’s secure collaboration technology can help ensure assets are only accessible by the right users and that videos are watermarked for protection against unauthorized sharing and leaks.
Once the camera stops rolling, it requires monumental effort from a team of professionals to take that video through post-production to the final product. During post-production, the video files will be reviewed, changed, shared, and saved by editors, artists, graphic designers, sound editors, members of the marketing and distributing teams, and many, many others.
In addition to the internal post-production team members, there’s also a multitude of external users that will need access to at least some of your files some of the time.
For example, on any given project, you may need to share the asset with freelance sound editors, VFX contractors, technology vendors, your clients, and other outside stakeholders that need to sign off on their portion of the project before it can officially be labeled as “done.”
With this many cooks in the proverbial kitchen, it is essential for the project administrator to control who can access which assets, what they can do with those assets, and when they can do it. This is where role-based provisioning comes in.
Why Role-Based Provisioning Is Important in Post-Production
Role-based provisioning keeps your workflow flowing and your content protected from theft, corruption, cyberattacks, unauthorized access, and even accidental file damage.
Although all of the different users have a legitimate need to access files and assets, not every user requires the same level of access. And it’s very likely that a given user won’t need the same access and user permissions for the entire post-production process.
To prevent overprovisioning and permissions misuse, users should only be granted the minimum amount of access needed to do their jobs.
Role-based provisioning lets administrators—and in some cases project owners—grant permissions on an as-needed basis. By customizing access for each user based on their specific role on a specific project during a specific time frame, it’s easier to control who is accessing files and footage at any point in the post-production process.
To prevent overprovisioning and permissions misuse, users should only be granted the minimum amount of access needed to do their jobs, and those user permissions should be revoked when the assignment is complete or after a predetermined amount of time. This helps prevent security and quality control issues due to vulnerabilities from unmonitored accounts and unauthorized access to critical systems and files.
How MediaSilo Makes Role-Based Provisioning Intuitive and Customizable
MediaSilo recognizes the importance of limiting and controlling access to video assets and files. We have prioritized access management and security by making role-based provisioning easy to implement and customizable to meet the needs of each project.
In MediaSilo, roles are created by the administrator using custom user permissions templates. These roles govern the level of access a user has to a project.
For example, MediaSilo administrators can assign role-based permissions that determine how a user can interact with a particular asset. For example, they may only be able to:
Upload into assigned project rooms
View
Share internally
Manage and share but not delete or download
Users can be assigned different roles on different projects, which may grant the user more or less access to assets on each project. But if a user is not assigned a role on a project, they won’t have access to that project’s files and resources.
Account Level Permissions
There are three user types that determine account-level permissions:
Administrator
This user has unlimited permissions. They are automatically added as a project owner on every project in the workspace, and only an admin may add and remove users in the workspace.
Manager
A manager is granted standard user permissions, but they also have the ability to create new projects. Creating a project automatically makes the manager the project owner (in addition to the administrator).
User
A user cannot create new projects, and they are limited to the default or custom roles assigned by a project owner.
Project Level
At the project level, roles are used to define who can perform certain actions and who has access to which assets:
Project Owner
This role, which cannot be modified or deleted, can be either the user who creates a project or an administrator. The project owner has every project-level permission, and only project owners can delete a project, modify watermark settings, invite users to a project, or modify a user’s role within a project.
Default Roles
These are premade roles that are available in every workspace. Default roles are based on industry or project needs, and they may be modified or deleted by an administrator as appropriate.
MediaSilo’s default roles include:
Uploader: view and create new assets
Asset manager: create, view, edit, delete, and share assets internally
Internal collaborator: view, edit, and share assets internally
Public collaborator: create, view, edit, download, and share assets
Custom Roles
Custom roles can be created in the Role Editor found on the Administration page. These roles are workspace-specific with custom permission selections assigned by the administrator. Custom roles are a good solution for team members who may need a unique set of permissions, for example:
VFX artist
Marketer
Content Editor
Role-Based Provisioning in the Era of Remote Work
With post-production teams increasingly working from disparate locations and the rising risk of cyberthreats and other bad actors, using role-based provisioning to control who can access video assets and sensitive files is a common-sense security measure.
Download MediaSilo’s Guide to Post-Production Workflows to learn more about how post-production is evolving in the era of remote work and how you can increase efficiency, productivity, and security no matter where your team is located.
Even before the drastic changes many businesses have undergone the past few years, creative professionals were known for their ability to share their talents with one another to take a project from rough cut to final masterpiece.What has changed for those in post-production, however, are the collaboration tools that are now available to help them do their work more efficiently, securely, and effectively—from audio to visual effects—all within one purpose-built platform.
So whether you are in the market for a new post-production collaboration tool or if you are just beginning your research, here’s what today’s industry-leading platforms can offer your team.
How Modern Post-Production Tools Deliver for Remote Teams
Post-production teams have unique requirements when it comes to their collaboration platforms; not only do they need a logical and intuitive way to manage their assets, but they also need the right blend of security, communication, and functionality to streamline their workflows.
Fortunately, today’s modern post-production tools blend the latest innovations and industry best practices to help your team take its content to the next level.
Here are six of the key benefits:
1. Centralize projects and ease management, which saves time.
Retire manual workarounds, cloud drives, email, and texts as the primary way to manage, collaborate on, and complete projects. Instead, manage your entire portfolio from idea to customer delivery in one platform. This helps save your team time and ensures everyone is working from the same foundation.
2. Boost communication.
Go beyond chat messages and email, and use features such as in-asset tagging and frame-specific comments to pinpoint edits and feedback for follow-up action, helping to reduce turnaround times and prevent key details from being overlooked. Modern post-production tools also keep an audit log of all edits and feedback for each project so teams can track the evolution of a creative asset.
3. Provide version and user access control.
Assets can take a long and varied journey until they reach their final, locked version. A post-production tool makes it easy for editors to keep track of all of the versions and related elements until the cut is locked and keep careful watch over which users have access to your content and projects.
4. Make personalization and administrative management easy.
A modern post-production tool provides an easy and secure way to centralize file storage. It also has the ability to introduce user- and asset-based access controls and customizable tagging and organization. This can even apply to collaborators outside of your organization or customers, providing them private links with time- or user-based access controls.
6. Deliver must-have production features and tools.
The last thing you want to do is introduce more tools and technologies for your team to juggle during their workflow. Today’s post-production tools not only integrate into your team’s existing creative ecosystem but can also enable them to natively add visual and audio effects, make color and text edits, and share works in progress.
MediaSilo is Designed for Post-Production Collaboration
While it seems like all of these benefits could easily turn into a long wish list, MediaSilo is specifically designed to provide these features—and so much more—to your team.
From real-time feedback and file sharing to customizable, secure, and web-based user access, no matter the size of your portfolio or your industry, MediaSilo is designed to help your team do their best work, regardless of where they are.
If you are ready to learn more about how MediaSilo can enhance your post-production workflow, we recommend you check out our Guide to Post-Production Workflows to take a deep dive into the power of the MediaSilo platform.
