If you’re unfamiliar with the church world, the extent of video production used in megachurches’ weekly services might surprise you. The definition of a “megachurch” is any church with a weekly attendance of 2,000 or more. They come in various denominations. In the United States, they are mainly protestant and often non-denominational.
Many of these churches actually use two video teams. One team runs the “live production” for the weekly service. This generally includes multiple cameras, image magnification (IMAG), live switching, slides, and streaming the service online. Furthermore, megachurches often employ a smaller “film crew” to create elements such as bumpers that complement the week’s message, commonly known as a sermon.
We’ll take a closer look at how the video teams of these houses of worship function and some of the challenges they face.
Video is a key medium for megachurches
It’s reported that 66% of megachurches “always or often” have video segments as a part of their services. Video helps these churches communicate a consistent message to their communities. Some churches meet at a single location with multiple services, while other churches have adopted a multi-site approach to their ministries. In either case, a core creative team usually helps produce design and media (with the help of volunteers) for the entire organization.
Live Production
The “Live Production” video team helps to produce the Sunday service. 75% of megachurches use IMAGE (image magnification) technology to help the crowd get a better look at the speakers and worship leaders. This involves a multi-cam setup that generally employs professional cameras, broadcast zoom lenses, and support such as jibs, gimbals, and beefy tripods.
Volunteers trained by the staff on the live production team frequently operate the cameras. This also offers an excellent opportunity for students and older teens to get some hands-on experience with gear. Even though I didn’t attend a megachurch, I remember as a teen learning to work a soundboard, lavs, recording gear (cassette tape! It was the 90s!), and projectors, and I’m still using those skills today (well, maybe not the cassette tape skills).
These live production teams need to have a firm grasp on camera operation, running professional cabling through long runs, taking live direction over headsets, or even wireless focus pulling.
Over 90% of these churches also use streaming for their services. I was surprised to learn that 45% of Americans have viewed a church service online, even though many don’t attend church in person.
This actually produces a large amount of data that needs to be managed and referenced for special events, compilation videos, or social highlights. Increasingly, ministries have needed more robust digital asset management tools to help them disseminate these assets to their teams.
Multi-site megachurches
Many megachurches have adopted the multi-site model. In this model, there is a main campus and satellite campuses. Generally speaking, each satellite campus has its own set of volunteers and worship music leaders. The sermon may be live-streamed from the central location. Other times, the satellite locations use local pastors to deliver the message. There are multiple ways of executing this strategy and many times, the satellite locations grow into their own autonomous congregations.
Church film crew
In addition to the live production crew, megachurches often have a “film crew.” Typically, a smaller team focuses on producing pre-recorded material intended for playback during the service. In many ways, this parallels the setup of professional sports broadcasts or even “Saturday Night Live.” In both kinds of shows, there is a live presentation, and they also cut away to pre-recorded segments.
The teams that create these pre-recorded segments function as small film crews rather than broadcast teams. So they might use equipment such as cinema cameras, cinema lenses, and audio techniques more commonly found on a movie shoot.
The film crews could be volunteers or even contracted on an occasional basis. The sermon series “bumpers” could also incorporate motion graphics and 3D effects. The goal of these teams is to use the beauty of cinematography and the emotional impact of storytelling to touch their audience. These teams use aesthetics and story as an extension of the Sunday message. They try to find ways to visualize the text of scripture or the stories of their community.
Challenges of video production in a megachurch
Most of the time, church leaders aren’t media professionals. This leads to challenging situations around review and approval processes. All video professionals know that it takes a long time to do high-quality work. We also know that people outside of production have difficulty understanding the necessary timelines to deliver solid work. Sometimes, those mismatched expectations can lead to burnout. In the article, Life after Church, several filmmakers describe those challenges.
Communication is key to helping leadership teams and creative teams work together in healthy ways. Creative briefs, budgets, and time estimates can help align expectations regarding production.
When you enter post-production, the review and approval process can be tricky on any project. This is where tools like MediaSilo can come in and streamline the process. It makes it much easier to work together as a team.MediaSilo also makes it simple for teams to find and repurpose archival footage. This helps to keep the video team’s efforts valuable into the future so that you aren’t digging through hard drives looking for clips.
Streamlining review and approval
Church film crews (often just a couple) also cover things like international mission trips, fundraising videos, testimonials and more. When working on the road, it is common to need to “get something up so they can see something.”
However, WiFi networks can be slow and unreliable in the field. MediaSilo’s uploader is one of its best features. It gives you the percentage uploaded, the upload speed, and the estimated time for the upload to complete. If the upload is interrupted, MediaSilo will let you know. Then, it will continue where it left off once a connection has been re-established.
When you approach the end of a project, you can enter into a phase where you repeatedly upload versions and tweak a video. We all know how disappointing it is to attempt a large upload to a cloud provider and have it fail after partially completing the upload. You can waste hours trying alternative services, re-uploading, or changing formats.
MediaSilo features panels for Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve so that you can go right from your timeline into the cloud, and reviewers will be notified. This eliminates the frustration of a multi-step export, upload, checking the upload, and then sending out a review email/message. This automation can distinguish between getting home in time for dinner or getting stuck late in the edit bay on a Saturday night.
Churches and feature-length films
As filmmaking has become more accessible, churches have embarked on feature-length documentaries and even narrative films. The Kendrick brothers (Fireproof, Courageous, War Room) started their film career out of Sherwood Baptist Church. That experience helped them grow as filmmakers, and they eventually started their own production company, Kendrick Brothers.
The church has a complicated and evolving relationship with Hollywood. The award-winning documentary Reel Redemption, directed by film critic Tyler Smith, goes into the history of how the church has engaged Hollywood. Smith covers it all from the Hayes-code to the international hit, Passion of the Christ, to schmaltzy faith-based films, to the latest entrants that have sought to improve on the craft of filmmaking. It’s an insight deep-dive into this little known chapter of Hollywood history.
This system has provided a network where young people can start as volunteers on a live production team on Sundays and move up to bigger projects with larger audiences while growing their careers as filmmakers.
Conclusion
According to NPR, there are over 1,800 megachurches in America. Many of these are amongst the fastest-growing churches in America. However, the pandemic did have a substantial impact on in-person church attendance. But with over 60% of the US population attending church at least once a month, we will continue to see the importance of video production grow in the faith-based space.
In the same way, as we are seeing the cross-pollination of disciplines between television broadcast tools and film production techniques, we’ll see collaboration between live production and film crews in churches.
EditShare tools like MediaSilo and EFS can help facilitate that collaboration with solutions for on-site storage, remote collaboration, and review and approval.
It will be exciting to see this space continue to grow. And it will also be good to see it develop in its capacity to nurture artists while still faithfully sharing its message.
Data breaches are costly – creatively and financially. Trust your content to a product that values data security. With just a few clicks, you can easily protect pre-released or confidential content, ultimately protecting creative impact and revenue potential.
Users can now watermark images and documents with email, name and/or custom text with SafeStream technology at the Workspace, Project or Review Link level. Whether you’re trying to protect scripts, key art, screenplays or call sheets, we help keep your projects safe and sound. Sleep better knowing you don’t have to worry about waking up to a catastrophic content leak.
Apply Watermarking Requirements to Your Workspace
As an administrator, you can require visible image and document watermarking for every new project created in your workspace.
Start by clicking the gear icon in the left-side navigation bar, which will take you to the Administration page. In the SafeStream tab, select Watermark Settings from the menu to open your workspace-level watermark settings. Now, toggle on Apply Visible Image and Document Watermarking.
Next, use the dropdown menus under Image Template and Document Template and select your default watermark template to apply to new projects. You can choose a template that displays a viewer’s full name and email address, the viewer’s email address only or a custom template created for your workspace.
On all templates, the watermarks will be displayed in a “wallpaper” format, which repeats diagonally across the entire image or document.
Apply Watermarking to a Project
You can apply visible image and document watermarking to all images and documents inside a project, provided the files match our list of supported file types.
From the project settings, a project owner or administrator can find watermarking options in the SafeStream tab. Simply toggle on the Apply Visible Image and Document Watermarking tab and use the dropdown menu to select the template you want to apply to the images and documents in this project. Whichever template you choose, the viewer’s identifying information will be displayed in a “wallpaper” format, which repeats diagonally across the entire image or document.
Apply Watermarking to Unwatermarked Files in a Review Link
Applying watermarks to images and documents at the Review-Link level allows you to protect select items you’re sending without using those watermarks on the entire project.
Click the Advanced button in the bottom left in the Share for Review window, and toggle on the Apply Visible Image and Document Watermarking tab in the Watermarking section. The default templates chosen by your administrator will display automatically. You can keep these selections or choose a different template. Whichever template you choose, the viewer’s identifying information will be displayed in a “wallpaper” format, which repeats diagonally across the entire image or document.
If these watermark templates display a viewer’s identifying information, you must enter link recipients in the Audience tab on the left side of the share window.
Your choice of watermark template can affect the link’s Access setting.
If a watermark displays the viewer’s name, you must select Workspace users and enter workspace users as recipients.
If a watermark only shows the viewer’s email address, then you have the additional access options of Public and Password protected. When you select Public or Password protected, you can enter any email address in the recipients field, even if that email does not belong to your MediaSilo workspace.
For more detailed information, please visit our support page or contact us at sales@mediasilo for a demo.
You already know how important good audio and sound is for a film. When was the last time you watched through the entirety of a video with bad-quality audio? As an audience, we can deal with a certain level of poor video quality, provided the sound quality is still good. However, as soon as the sound is bad, we’ll stop watching.
While filmmaking is a visual medium for storytelling, it’s undeniable that audio plays a huge role in the process. To create great films and videos, you need to produce great audio and sound. Let’s take a look at 8 tips to achieve great film audio production.
Microphone choices
First things first, let’s talk about microphones. Yes, every camera nowadays comes fitted with its in-built microphone, but let’s be honest…these simply don’t cut it.
If you’re serious about capturing great audio and sound, you must invest appropriately. Just as we invest in cameras to achieve beautiful visuals, we need to invest in microphones and develop professional microphone techniques to capture stunning audio.
For video production, there are two main microphones to consider:
Shotgun mics
Long and cylindrical, the shotgun microphone is directional. It picks up sounds directly in front of the mic while rejecting and toning down ambient sounds to the rear and sides.
Shotgun microphones are highly versatile, allowing you to capture all kinds of sound, from actor dialogue to room noise and wild sound. Because of its directional nature, you will need to think about where you place a shotgun microphone and how you use it. We’ll take a look at how to do this below.
Some of the broadcast-grade shotgun mics you may want to consider:
Lavalier microphones, often termed “lav mics” or “lavs” in the industry, are the classic small-form clip-on microphones you’ll see used frequently in interview videos or where a presenter is talking to the camera.
Unlike their shotgun counterparts, lavalier microphones are very small and designed to be lowkey and unobtrusive. Because of this, Lav mics don’t really pick up that much background noise. Lavs are much more about capturing quality, clear audio from the person they’re attached to.
Some of the broadcast-grade lavalier mics you may want to consider:
To boom, or not to boom? That’s a common question when tackling how to capture great audio during video production. As discussed above, there’s a clear difference between shotgun and lav mics. To capture really high-quality audio and sound for your film project, you need to consider the following:
Which one you’re going to use
When you’re going to use it
Where you’re going to use it
With a lavalier microphone, you’ll capture clear, crisp human speech from the actor. However, it can create a sense of closeness for the audience, which may feel a little jarring or strange if we’re watching a wide shot. This is where you need to think about the microphone perspective.
Shotgun microphones can be attached to a boom pole, which then gives you the freedom to experiment with the microphone perspective. If you’re looking for closeness, you can bring the boom in closer to the actor. Equally, if you’re going for a wider shot and want to capture a bit more of the room tone or environment, you can bring that boom away so that the audio recording feels more natural with what you see on screen.
Stop and listen
When you’re in the middle of production, firing on all cylinders and juggling ten things at once, it can be easy to forget to check your audio before hitting record. However, it’s an essential part of any professional production.
When you take the time to listen to your audio before each shot, you’re allowing yourself to catch any potential mistakes or errors. You may notice that you can hear the traffic from a distant highway or planes from a nearby flight path. All these details help you to adjust and rethink the way you shoot this particular scene. Or perhaps (I’ve experienced this plenty of times), you realize you need to switch on your microphone!
By taking the time and slowing down to listen and double-check things, we save ourselves a lot of pain further down the line in post-production.
Invest in necessary accessories
Again, just like with cameras, where we buy different lenses and ND filters for specific scenarios, along with tripods, lights and whatever else you can think of, you need to invest in additional accessories and gear for your audio-capturing gear.
Noise-canceling headphones
On the topic of listening to audio before shooting, it’s well worth purchasing a high-quality pair of noise-canceling headphones. These will eliminate all the background noise on set and enable you to focus on the actual sound of the film. This approach often helps you detect any potential mistakes that need to be smoothed out. When the guy with the headphones on set says do it again, you do it again.
Some of the best noise-canceling headphones you may want to consider are:
It’s advisable always to avoid filming in windy conditions at all costs. However, that’s sometimes easier said than done. As filmmakers, we can’t control the weather; therefore, it’s well worth ensuring all your microphones (lavaliers and shotguns) have deadcats. These fluffy mic buffs will shield the condenser from any unwanted noise, such as wind or even a sharp exhale of breath, that could cause the audio to clip and create all kinds of issues in the edit.
Compressors and limiters
Making use of compressors and limiters can help you to smooth out an audio signal. On many higher-end microphones, you may well find that they already come with an in-built option for limiting. Employing a limiter prevents the amplitude of a signal from exceeding a predetermined value. In other words, you hopefully stop any potential clipping from happening.
Meanwhile, a compressor will reduce the volume of louder sounds while amplifying quieter sounds. This effectively compresses the audio signal’s dynamic range, making it “smoother” and easier to work with.
Think about your location
When you’re location scouting in pre-production, don’t just analyze a space from a visual perspective. Think about location in terms of audio.
How does your voice carry in a certain location – is it bouncing off walls and echoing? Are you on a busy flight path? What elements of the environment can you control, and what can you not?
Developing location-sound strategies will help you immensely later in post. Ideally, the more things you control, the better.
Room tone
On the topic of location, it’s a great idea to pick up room noise and ambient sound from the places you shoot in. Think of this as Foley on set.
When you’re in post-production working on your film sound design (more on that below), it can be very difficult (often impossible) to recreate the exact ambiance and match it with the scene you’re working with. Sometimes called “room tone,” this process helps you precisely capture the tone of your room.
For this, you may want to invest in an audio recorder, or you can use something like a shotgun microphone. However, you do it, it’s a really useful habit to have, giving your sound designer much more to work with in the edit.
Clean dialogue
Depending on the type of video or film you’re making, you may want “clean dialogue” capture.
Even if two actors are interacting with each other, going back and forth in a scene, it’s a good idea to have them redo their lines afterward, just one actor at a time. Capturing these lines crisply and clearly, with no interference from anyone else, gives you much more to work with in post-production. Clean dialogue can allow you to speed up lines, cut them out, overlay them elsewhere, and perform many other little tricks in the edit.
Post-production
Typically, the phrase “we’ll fix it in post” should cause you to run for the hills. As a professional filmmaker, you should never rely on post-production as a surefire way to patch up bad production. However, certain elements of post-production audio are essential when it comes to quality audio and sound.
For example, don’t be afraid of SFX. Great filmmakers understand that not everything can be captured during production. When you’re editing your film, you need to work closely with SFX to help build out your environments with sound design, helping to bring the visuals to life and make the audience feel like they’re truly there. This is where capturing things like room tone and ambiance can lend a helping hand.
Additionally, if working with actors, you may also need to capture ADR (audio dialogue replacement) to ensure you’ve got the best-sounding edit possible.
Wrapping up
So, there are 8 great tips to help you capture great audio and sound in your next video. It’s a challenging part of the filmmaking process to perfect, and many filmmakers can shy away from it. However, as this arti
In my last blog, I introduced the thinking behind our new workflow management layer, EditShare One. If you have not read that yet, you can find it here. In this blog I’ll explain how it is used in a real-world production.
Footage is shot, in a studio or on location. Those files are ingested into the shared storage, along with the metadata. That may include information from a production assistant on set, about good or bad takes and other details.
Depending on the nature of the production, a producer or director may want to make another decision on preferred takes, or an edit assistant will need to build bins making it clear to the editor which is likely to be the best material.
The editor then cuts the scene and hands it on for review. That may lead to rework later, or the scene may be locked ready for final assembly and finishing. In parallel, the sound designer will be mixing and sweetening the audio to match the cut.
The producer will be monitoring progress at all times and will be commenting on scenes as they are cut, giving notes to the editor and sound designer. The final cut will be passed to the colorist, and again the producer and director will make comments on the grade.
There may be other people taking note of the progress too. For marketing, there may be a second editorial team creating trailers and teasers, for example. Where an independent company is making programmes for a broadcaster, the executive producer will want to check progress.
The huge advantage of collaborative file-based workflows is that every stage is non-destructive. You can go back and tweak any stage of the post production until everyone is happy, because all of the material is still available in the shared storage.
EditShare One and the Produce Tool provide access to the material throughout the process. There is a single sign-on to all the content and metadata, but each user has different requirements, and will be presented with different tools, different media and metadata, and different capabilities.
A producer could be alerted to new cuts that need to be reviewed and signed off. The user interface would simply offer the new material, a player, and a text tool for comments. No need to know how the underlying technology works, or even where the content is at that moment: just focus on the job at hand.
More generally, the Produce tool is a simple dashboard that saves time and potential confusion in searching through media spaces and folders. It is completely independent of all the other tools, so users simply see what is relevant to them.
For the editor, the EditShare One intuitive interface appears as a panel within the edit software itself. Editors are, of course, free to choose whichever software package works best for them, but within the Adobe or DaVinci user interface is a panel or integration tool which is linked to EditShare FLOW asset management and its management tools.
Producers can highlight interest points in transcriptions through EditShare One’s web-based UI, which editors can then import using the FLOW panel. Services, like AI speech-to-text transcriptions, can also be seen in the FLOW panel to speed up work even further. This automated process creates rough cuts or integrates selected clips into Adobe Premiere sequences, enhancing overall efficiency in the editing process.
Once the sequence or program is completed, the same simple user interface exports it as new material in the shared storage and drives it to other EditShare One users who need to see it.
The goal is to make it simple to create and expedite collaborative workflows, wherever the individuals are, by offering just the functionality and material each needs, at the time they need it. By simplifying everyone’s working environment, more time is available to concentrate on making great content.
Remote workflows have quickly become the norm across much of the post-production world. While bringing significant advantages in flexibility and the opportunity to collaborate globally, it also brings some significant challenges. Internet speeds, communication and leaks keep producers up at night. So let’s look at the top five most common challenges of remote post-production and some practical tips on how to overcome them.
Challenge #1: Uploading and downloading large files
Efficiently getting files to and from the cloud can be a significant challenge. Slow upload speeds, interrupted file transfers, hanging loading screens, and uncertain transfer completion times are just the beginning. Although numerous services are dedicated to file sharing, few are optimized for media professionals.
The consequences of a failed upload can mean the loss of hours. Who hasn’t seen an upload get halfway through and then it gets interrupted? Now, you have to start over again.
The first step to solid performance is ensuring your physical network is reliable. For instance, if you have cable internet, have the cable company inspect your network at the box outside the building, the splitters in that box, and the jacks in your home. Unterminated cable jacks can degrade the performance of your connection. Faulty splitters can introduce problems as well. Your ISP service person can test the performance of the signal at the jack coming out of the wall where your Gateway (modem/router combo) is connected.
Once you’ve ensured that the signal at the jack is solid, make sure your Gateway or modem is up-to-date. A DOCSIS 3.1 modem is capable of faster speeds than a DOCSIS 3.0 modem. If you rent your modem from your ISP, sometimes you can be eligible for a free upgrade on your modem. If you’ve had yours for a few years, this can significantly boost your network’s performance.
Hard-wire your network
A hard-wired connection is the next thing to consider. WiFi performance keeps getting faster but is still vulnerable to latency issues. As cloud technologies improve, editing apps can stream connections to editors. Even if you have a fast connection, you may not get performance if you are experiencing latency issues. Your internet “speed” measures the “bandwidth” or how much data can be sent simultaneously. The latency measures how fast it gets from the destination to you. By using a wired connection with Cat6 ethernet cable, or better, you reduce the traffic that can compete with your work. A good switch, cables, and ethernet adapter will ensure that your video files meet with the least amount of resistance from competing traffic in your home.
If you have family, and everyone hops on the network when they come home, do everyone a favor and let them know that if they are trying to game or video chat while you are uploading, it will slow everyone down. Many ISPs offer very fast download speeds but relatively modest upload speeds. (Like Xfinity 1200 Mbps down and 35 Mbps up). So a family member can watch a movie, and it won’t slow down your upload, but if they hop on FaceTime, they are uploading video data that will compete with your workflow.
But transfers can get interrupted with even the best setup. Some cloud services not optimized for video will make this an excruciating process. You’ll have to try to cancel an upload. That may or may not register. Then, you’ll have to begin the upload again. This results in you reaching back out to your client, informing them they must wait while a new transfer is completed.
MediaSilo monitors the speed and completion percentage of your upload and estimates how long it takes until the transfer is complete. Suppose your transfer is interrupted (maybe a Thunderbolt cable came unplugged from an otherwise solid connection). In that case, MediaSilo will pause the transfer and continue to look for the link to be re-established. Once a connection is live again, MediaSilo will pick up where it left off and complete the transfer.
Challenge #2: Keeping track of revisions
The second challenge that remote post-production pros face is versioning. An exported file is sent out for review, and comments come back in an email. This works for a version or two, but at a certain point, someone on the email chain or Slack channel gets left out of the loop, and people get confused about what is being referenced.
MediaSilo addresses the challenges of versioning with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop method of updating assets.
This method eliminates the uncertainty when you upload a new version to the cloud and wonder if it will update the old one. Often, the file names have incremented according to the version, and the duration may change. When you face this kind of uncertainty on a longer project, it means that you have to check the upload when it is completed and possibly manually version the asset so that your review links don’t need to be updated.
If the new version is in MediaSilo as a separate asset, just drag it over the old one, and you are all set.
Challenge #3: Communication
Communication can be tricky in an all-remote world. There are multiple communication channels, each with its own settings and notifications. It is challenging for clients and executives to know what has been covered already, what is “final,” and what is still a work in progress. Sometimes, you have different “classes” of reviewers. For instance, direct collaborators may want to call out small things, and executives may just want “the big picture.”
MediaSilo enables you to create different review links for the same asset so that viewers will only see the comments relevant to them.
If your workflow requires a private review session, you can create a review link and turn on the toggle “On this link only.” This way, comments made in the review link are only visible to people with access to the review link, and comments made in the review link will not appear in your MediaSilo project when you enter Review Mode.
Reviewers can then comment on the assets according to timecode. They can even use the drawing tools to call things out visually. If your reviewers put their comments into the comment section, you can export those comments as well.
So whether you need to keep the commentary private or work together, MediaSilo’s advanced commenting functionality helps streamline communication.
Challenge #4: Visibility
Have you ever sent off a link and wondered, “Did they even watch it?” This question is crucial when submitting to film festivals or potential distributors. Without this feature, editors can feel in the dark about whether or not they can begin a new revision or if they should wait for additional viewers to watch the video.
MediaSilo includes analytics for your assets. You can see if viewers watched the whole thing or if they dropped it off. This was a vital feature in the submission process of The Othrs‘ latest documentary, “Defiant,” which went on to become a TIFF Official Selection. They knew if all the key partners had viewed the film or if any stakeholders had yet to review it. The ability to tell not only who watched it but also when they viewed it and where they were viewing it from proved invaluable.
You can enjoy a broad overview of all of your assets, Spotlights or review links. You can see who downloaded the videos, and if they haven’t, you can see when their link will expire and nudge them to view the asset to ensure the project meets its deadline.
This insight helps resolve many unanswered questions in the review and approval process. Ultimately, this helps remote team members achieve visibility and transparency with each other.
Challenge #5: Security
In some ways, this challenge should be numero uno. A leak can spoil a film and jeopardize a project. Sharing a link and hoping for the best simply won’t cut it. New tools come on the market to circumvent older methods of DRM. And leakers can have private, personal agendas that don’t align with your team’s goals.
This problem is why MediaSilo implements a multi-prong security strategy. The MediaSilo platform is SOC 2 Type II certified and follows the Secure SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). This ensures that every feature is built securely.
MediaSilo provides an array of tools to safeguard your assets with SafeStream. User permissions and classes help to limit the scope of your project’s exposure. Visual watermarks deter would-be leakers. Forensic watermarking enables you to track the source of leaks if they do happen. Administrators can implement security policies at an organizational level so editors don’t have to go through the hassle of turning watermarks on and off in their timelines.
Conclusion
The world of remote post-production is upon us. Producers who take advantage of the opportunities will see productivity gains and cost savings like never before. Tools like MediaSilo will help deliver assets and streamline communication workflows so deliverables can arrive on time and on budget.
MediaSiloallows for easy management of your media files, seamless collaboration for critical feedback, and out-of-the-box synchronization with your timeline for efficient changes. See how MediaSilo is powering modern post-production workflows with a 14-day free trial.
Reuben Evans is a director, an award-winning screenwriter, and a member of the Producers Guild of America. As the former executive producer at Faithlife TV, he produced and directed numerous documentaries and commercials. Reuben’s tools of choice are RED Cameras, Final Cut Pro, and DaVinci Resolve.
Quickly migrate all of your content to MediaSilo with MASV. MASV enables accelerated uploads without compressing or splitting files, allowing collaborators to upload to MediaSilo without needing access to your secure workspaces.
In this webinar, you’ll learn:
What is MASV, and how does this work for me?
How to quickly migrate all of your content to MediaSilo.
How to use MASV Portals.
Okay. Let’s get started. Thank you for joining today, everyone. My name is Michael Kammes, and today I get to proudly say I’m with EditShare, and we’ll be talking today about how the MediaSilo product, which are probably familiar with, from Shift Media, now that we’re with EditShare we’re gonna talk about how MASV can greatly enhance your MediaSilo experience.
So joining me today is Ricky, who you’ll get to meet in a few minutes who’s a Senior Product Manager, over at MASV. As I said, my name is Michael Kammes, and we’re gonna go over MediaSilo and how MASV can greatly enhance your experience with MediaSilo. But there’s a couple things we wanna do before we jump into that. First, is that I want to make sure all of you know that Shift Media, which was a rebrand several years ago that is the parent company over MediaSilo and Screeners.com and Wiredrive, right before IBC, so about a month or so ago, a month and a half, Shift Media merged with EditShare.
Nothing has changed in terms of who you’re talking to when you contact Shift Media. You’re just contacting EditShare, but the same people are there. So you don’t have to worry about any hiccups or bumps in the road. Everything has gone great so far. So just feel free to reach out. If you have any questions, But as of now, nothing has changed in terms of pricing or availability of product. We’re all just one big, happy family.
So as we move along, I wanna make sure all of you are aware of what MediaSilo is. Those of you who are already using MASV and wondering what the heck is MediaSilo, let me show you that. So if you don’t mind, I’m gonna exit out of this window and I’m gonna jump over to a web browser and what you’re seeing right now is the web interface for MediaSilo. And MediaSilo is an on-demand review and approve platform that you can access in your web browser or via a desktop app or even on your mobile device, and it allows you to upload content.
It allows you to leave comments on that content. It allows you to look at things in a time code, accurate way, and then send links out to people. But you’re probably wondering, well, okay, how do I get content up to MediaSilo? Right?
Well, what we’ve built is the easiest way possible, which is from my finder, or explorer if you’re on windows. If I wanna get content up here, I just drag and drop. And as you can see on the right hand side there, we upload as fast as we can. We break things up into chunks and we upload as fast as humanly possible, no matter how many files you have, but there are inherent limitations.
There are some features that we just don’t have inside the MediaSilo uploader that we thought internally, what can we do to make the MediaSilo upload and transfer experience better. So I’m gonna go back to my keynote, and we asked ourselves the following questions. Right? What if with MediaSilo, we could give you the users of MediaSilo greater control over transfers.
Right? What if we could give you the ability to say I wanna upload it tonight? I wanna upload it in an hour. I wanna upload it using only this amount of bandwidth and not everything.
What if we could give more people access to MediaSilo, not just people who have accounts with MediaSilo, but what about outside collaborators?
For our enterprise clients, which we have many, what if they wanted to code against our API and automate file movement with their internal DAM, MAM or PAM systems or their other cloud storage systems.
We also found that, you know, metadata is king and that all of the media you have has metadata, but how do we get that metadata to go with the media in MediaSilo. Quite often, we have to enter that manually after you’ll cut and paste, and that can get pretty tedious. How can we solve that? And once we hit that fifth question, we realized, is this something we wanna try and build?
Or why don’t we just talk to our clients and see what our clients are already using. And one of the things that became very apparent is that a ton of our clients are using MASV. And so we got together with MASV. We broke bread. We had some coffee and decided that an integration between the MASV technology, no pun intended, along with MediaSilo would greatly benefit our clients and also give folks who use MASV an opportunity to start using some media-centric tools.
So today, we’ve brought on Ricky. Ricky’s a Senior Product Manager at MASV, and Ricky is going to show us just exactly how MASV can work with MediaSilo. So I’m gonna stop sharing my screen.
And, Ricky, thank you for joining us today.
Thanks, Michael. It’s great to be here. Hi, everybody.
So let me just share my screen and I’ll start my presentation and demo for everyone.
Outstanding.
So let me just first start with a full chart diagram here just to give a sense of where we sit, how we interact and how our customers use us. So both MASV and MediaSilo are in the cloud.
In the first block here, we have our users who want to send files, either to MediaSilo or and or also to their collaborators.
So they can send files directly to customers. They can send files through our MASV portals, which I’ll show in a little bit. And, MASV is the fastest way to send big files as well as many files. So we can handle files in the terabyte range.
And we have customers who, for example, send mapping data, and they will send literally up to a million files at a time. And so we can do that quite well.
Great thing about our integration with MediaSilo is that we’ve done all the heavy lifting to make the integration work. So for our customers, there’s no necessity to dive into the APIs.
We have a very easy, no code way to integrate. You just have to enter your credentials, set the path you want to, ingress into MediaSilo, and then we and MediaSilo take care of the rest.
I’ve mentioned with portals, a benefit of portals is that your collaborators who want to send files into MediaSilo don’t necessarily have to have an account. And so that you can have people working from anywhere in remote locations all around the world.
Who can then send their media directly into MediaSilo.
Ricky, just something I wanna make sure that the lead doesn’t get buried. What’s fantastic about that is, traditionally with MediaSilo, the users that are on MediaSilo have permissions. And those permissions allow you to view content, upload, download content, etcetera.
This allows MediaSilo users to send a link to someone who is utilizing MASV, and then anyone can upload if they have that permission, and they don’t have to have an account with MediaSilo. So this could be, external stakeholders, this could be maybe subcontracted creatives. It could also be end users who say, look, you know what? I want the video to look more like this. Here’s an example, or here’s a PDF on our brand guidelines. It allows just everyone to get content into MediaSilo without having to have a paid account.
Exactly. But all the permissions that are set inside MediaSilo are still recognized, of course. And so, there’s still the security aspect of the media once it’s inside MediaSilo.
Excellent.
So just to give an example of how our customers in the production world work. So this is an example of a workflow that is part of an article that we’ve posted at this site here. As you can see, we have a post production workflow article that dives into the roles and the workflows in more detail, but you can see where these are all sorts of areas where people in different roles and different processes and stages of the post production can utilize MASV. And, for example, here, you can deliver daily through MASV into the MediaSilo portal, for example. If you have VFX pulls, then you can send the files to whomever after having had reviewed the media and the shot so you know which takes to deliver. So, again, that’s where a MediaSilo is used for the reviewing of the shots, and then you can send the camera originals to your vendors, for example.
So here are some examples, sort of, sample folder structures that our customers use. If you’re sending dailies, then you’ll break it down into different shows. And then you’ll have folders for each day and all the different components and all the different elements that you are shooting every day and then sending through.
If you’re doing a VFX pull, you already have all your shots saved, and then you can, again, decide to send the folders or files that you need to for your vendors.
Ricky, something else I wanted to point out, this is over the past couple of years, we’ve obviously seen the rise of camera to cloud, you know, getting content directly from the camera up to the cloud to use. But, a majority of folks are still doing the let me take the camera cards and I have a DID on set or, you know, a runner is taking it back to the post facility or even the office the next day and uploading from there. And the beauty of what MASV is doing is that you’re retaining the folder structure and the file structure. So any organization will translate to the web, but also if you’re uploading the original camera negatives, the original camera content directly through MASV to MediaSilo, we are retaining that high-res content in its folder hierarchy and also generating proxies.
So you still have access to the high-res to pull down later if you wanna go out to another facility or finishing house but you also have the proxies generated as soon as you upload. So you kinda get the best of both worlds, right? You get the content in the cloud with the folder structure you’ve created but with using MASV to get that content uploaded through a web page or even a dedicated app.
Exactly. And even some of our customers, they wanna enforce the full instructor, older vendors and collaborators. So sometimes, even before the footage and the media is ready to be sent, they’ll just send over this entire folder structure so that it’s already ready at the other end.
And when we were talking prior to us doing the webinar, you had mentioned that, you know, one of the things that MediaSilo is not currently utilizing, unless it’s been configured elsewhere, is something like multi connect. Right? So if you are in a remote location where you may not have broadband, can MASV actually use the other tier of transfer mechanisms?
Exactly. Yeah. We can bond internet connections on your computer. So If you have multiple ethernet ports or if you have multiple wifi dongles, you can combine them all. We can, use all of that aggregated bandwidth to send your files as fast as possible because you may be in a remote location that just has poor landline internet, perhaps, maybe maybe you have 5G or whatever, but, just combine all the internet you can, to send files out of the usually remote locations.
Excellent. Thanks. Thank you for that.
Yeah. You bet. So I’ll just start with going to our web app. So, MASV allows you to access us through a web browser using our web app. We also have a, native desktop app as well that runs natively on Macs, PCs, as well as Linux machines. We also have an API that you can use, and you can run headlessly as well, either using our API or we have a Docker container as well so that you can install that onto any server in the cloud, for example. You can install the Docker image in, an access of Synology or QNAP or TrueNAS.
And, so wherever you have your files, we can access them and send them and receive them.
So typically, in our web interface, we have some administrative tools, as well as the ability to still send files directly through the web app in the drag and drop format.
But the desktop app is more powerful. We recommend our users use the desktop app wherever possible, because it provides more resiliency. It provides some bandwidth controls that Michael had alluded to earlier, which I’ll show when we get to the desktop app.
But all the project administration, user administration, all those management tools as well as cloud integrations are set up within our web app. So for example, we already have a MediaSilo integration set up here. I’ll just quickly show how we set that up. I would have the credentials for the MediaSilo account. I can choose a project within MediaSilo if I wish to. I can also set a target directly within the MediaSilo folder structure, if I wish to. And then an interesting thing about our connection with MediaSilo is that if we have or if we are capturing metadata, we can send that metadata into MediaSilo as well so that all that important metadata is in the database of MediaSilo and searchable and viewable within MediaSilo.
And just to make sure we don’t gloss over that, a lot of time spent when it comes to review and approve is copying and pasting descriptions, information from one platform to another. So being able to sync metadata from one location to another that travels with the media just takes one less stressful step out of media migration, out of your workflow, and it makes your life that much easier not to have to cut and paste and manually type in info time after time.
Exactly. So let me show you a portal, for example.
This has been optionally set with a password so that even if somebody has access to the URL and they shouldn’t have had, they wouldn’t be able to access the portal itself.
And you can skin this. Right? So it looks just like your organization.
Exactly. So this is a custom branding for monkey games, for example. This is our standard branding for MASV, but as you can see, you can customize the logo, the colors, the background as it fits your organization or your project.
So here, also we have the drop zone, for dropping your files and folders. You can enter information.
Typically, our portal has only three fields. The uploader enters the email, they can give a package name if they wish and send a message so that the recipient can see what this package is all about.
But with this portal, I’ve configured it to have my own custom fields. So, for example, if I’m working with someone who’s working on my show, if I’ve got a bunch of shows, going on right now, I can select these preset options so that I can easily enter the metadata that’s required by the production company, using custom metadata fields can ensure that there’s no error in entering information. If you’re simply sucking from dropdowns, and it just makes the whole process more efficient as well.
We have lists of all the files that we’ve been sending and receiving. So, for example, these are files that have gone through my portal. And, I can see the contents of these, and I can download them if I wish.
We’ve already had the integration with MediaSilo set up. So the files have also automatically been forwarded to my MediaSilo account.
So this is, interacting with our web app. But let me show you the desktop app.
So similarly, we can send files. We can receive files. We can manually send two portals. So, again, I just designate the portal that I want to use, and I drag and drop my files.
Another strength of the desktop app is that you can create automations so that you can have watch folders on your local storage so that you just have to move files into the watch folder and the transfer will happen automatically.
And, also, you can configure so that your portal will automatically download files to your on-prem storage, if you wish. This is on top of that MediaSilo integration automation where we send the clouds to the MediaSilo bucket, if you wish at the same time to also send files to your on-prem storage. This is how you would set that up.
And again, this is where our customers either want to have backups in multiple locations. So, of course, whenever you’re shooting with your masters, you wanna duplicate them and back them up as quickly as possible for safety. You wanna send them to the cloud for people to review in MediaSilo. And so we enable all of that, with single automations with setting this up to the portal.
And within the desktop app, with our advanced controls, you can customize the service, so that, for example, if you have certain transfers that you know are very important, you can set priorities to the transfers, and, so that specific packages or portals can be granted more bandwidth so that they will be transferred faster than than the others. So the other transfer is really queued up afterwards.
We have a lot of speed settings as well, as I mentioned, there’s multi connect. If you are, working at a facility with great on the 5-GigaBits-per-second bandwidth. There’s a setting for that so that we optimize our service so that we can take full advantage of all your great speed.
Also, we can do a speed test of your local storage so that we can sort of ascertain whether you’re using old-school hard disk drives if you’ve got SSDs, if you’re running on a NAS, we can sort of figure out what the optimal right modes for handling such storage. So we do all these things just to make the transfers as fast as possible through all the various possible bottlenecks that’s in your system at your facility.
And, so by default, MASV will flood your internet connection. We typically will just want to use all your internet connection, which if all you’re doing is transferring files, that’s fine. But if you’re working at a facility with other people, if, for example, here we’ve got Zoom calls with our clients and our vendors at the same time that we wanna transfer files and backgrounds, then we have to behave nicely. So we can set speed limits. And you can schedule these speed limits as well so that you can still work effectively at your computer, your coworkers can work effectively, and you can still send files with MASV. And then when the speed limit ends, for example, at the end of the business day, when all your colleagues have gone home and you’re no longer doing Zoom calls, then we will, again, automatically revert back to maximum speed for sending your files overnight, for example.
And, just to be clear, this is something that MediaSilo doesn’t do. Right? Like I mentioned at the onset, we will flood the pipeline and we’ll flood the pipe and upload as fast as possible, but there aren’t any inherent controls to throttle or accelerate, or to postpone.
Some of that you can try and code through our API, but we don’t have any of that out of the box. And that’s one reason that MASV is just plug and play with your MediaSilo credentials.
Exactly. At this point, I can take a quick break to see if anyone has any questions.
Sure. A couple questions have come in during chat. And I knew this one was gonna come in. But let’s, let’s take it anyway.
I typically use Signiant and Aspera. What are some reasons or why should I use MASV rather than Signiant or Aspera?
Right. So our pricing model is very different from the Signiant and Aspera. We don’t charge per-user seat, whereas they do. So we generally go with a pay as you go model. So, you’re only, I guess, paying us for the data that you transfer. We have on our website our pricing plans.
We start off at twenty five cents per gigabyte of transfers. But if you typically are a heavy user, you may want to be a subscriber and then pay on a monthly basis, for example, and then you’ll get a discounted rate. And if you’re a very, very heavy user of transfer, then you can contact us. We can negotiate large volume pricing as well, down to five cents per gigabyte pricing.
And all those other features that we have in MASV, such as custom metadata, such as SSO, such as the portals, free use of portals. We typically don’t charge on top of your base rate or your fees. So you pay your transfer fees and you get all of our features included in your account.
And I guess while we’re talking about pricing, for you to use MASV with MediaSilo, there’s no additional cost on the MediaSilo side. You can request an API secret key, which is something we do quite a bit. And then you just plug those in as Ricky showed, you enter in your credentials and it just works.
And, as Ricky mentioned as well, it adheres to the permissions that you’ve given those users. So there isn’t any kind of security, you’re not taking a hit in security by doing that. So that again, there’s no cost on our side for that.
So other questions. Oh, I just. Go ahead.
Sorry, I just also wanted to mention that typically Aspera and Signiant users have high initial capital costs, because they generally have to install servers. They need IT to set up their system. They have to open ports for UDP, which is how Aspera and Singian, transfer their files with, but for us, it’s much, much simpler. So again, there’s no upfront costs. You only pay as you go for actual transfers.
If you’re facilities policy is not to allow users to install software, or even browser extensions, then simply use our web browser, and anybody has instant access to our sites, to our service, you can sign up for a new account and within a minute, you you can get going in and start transferring files and your partners and clients can immediately receive those files as well.
Again, without the delay of setting up a contract, if necessary, with our with the competitors, I guess, and also then of setting up the hardware and allocating the hardware and so on.
Another question, can one transfer go to multiple endpoints?
Yes, for sure. So for example, with a cloud integration, I’ve already set up two integrations in my account.
I don’t know. If you’re trying to share your screen, I’m not saying it.
Oh, sorry. Sorry.
Well, the answer is yes. Okay. And let me just quickly share again. There we go.
Here’s a portal with access to all my integrations that I currently have. And I can just quickly add more integrations on the fly if I want. And although this is set up to flow to MediaSilo, I can just easily set it up to flow to multiple cloud storage providers, if I wish. And also with the desktop app, if I have an automation to receive from that portal, then that means any files uploaded to that portal will go to my on-prem storage here on this computer, as well as to these two cloud storage devices as well.
With the portals, you can also set multiple recipients.
Who will either get the download links, or they can also set up their own automations as well so that, well, sorry, I guess, test accounts, but I could set up my email address, I could set up yours, Michael, and so on. And we would both be able to receive files uploaded to the portal at our own local storage devices.
Got it.
Another question, our team typically records b-roll with their phones. Is there a mobile app to upload content with MASV?
So at the moment, we don’t have a mobile app, but you can access our website on your phone, such as a portal. So you can, on your browser on your phone, go to a portal that you’ve been given to, and add your files here. Just click add files, it will then pop up a little dialogue to access your camera’s photo library, for example, and then you can send files from your phone that way.
Excellent. Well, I I think that does it. The majority of the questions I think were answered during the presentation.
So I’m gonna share my screen one last time.
I’ll go back to Keynote, and there’s Ricky again. We’ll hit play.
We’ve just gone through Q and A, so, I’ll leave chat open for another minute or so to see if there’s any other questions.
Ricky, is there something that we haven’t talked about that, you find, people will ask you maybe the second time you meet or the third time you meet. Is there something else kind of fundamental about what MASV does that you think the folks who are watching and listening may find interesting.
I think we’ve covered all the major points.
Okay. Well, if you check out your screen right now, you’ll see different ways to get a hold of us. First off, we have EditShare. Right?
Again, Shift Media and EditShare have merged, and we’re keeping the EditShare name and all products will be rolled under EditShare. So your MediaSilo, your Screeners.com, your Wiredrive, and you can learn more at EditShare.com. And of course with MASV, you can sign up for MASV and give it a shot at MASV.io. As you can see on screen, this has been recorded.
So if you wanted to rewind it, watch something, clarify it, show it to some of your tech friends, that would be great. Ricky, thanks for joining us today. Shauna, thanks for handling this on the back end, and we’ll see you on the next webinar. Thanks, everyone.
Thank you, everyone.
MediaSilo allows for easy management of your media files, seamless collaboration for critical feedback, and out-of-the-box synchronization with your timeline for efficient changes. See how MediaSilo is powering modern post-production workflows with a 14-day free trial.
Production workflows have become way more complicated than they used to for all sorts of reasons, but there are ways to keep the complexity under control.
The move from film or tape to files has had the incidental effect of massively increasing shooting ratios. It is simply easier to do more takes with more cameras, and keep them all, when they are “just” digital files.
It wasn’t that long ago when holiday-makers had to take one or maybe two rolls of 36-exposure film on a vacation and carefully choose the moments they wanted to capture. Now our cameras and phones get filled with hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures which we later need to sort out. The same has happened for the movie and television industry.
While shooting ratios have gone up, timescales have often been reduced. The goal is to get from set to screen as quickly as possible, especially to start recouping production costs.
More material; less time. We have to find a better way to work.
Many production workflows are still rooted in old, linear methods. Which is understandable: if you are trying to complete a project, then having proven and comfortable practices can be very reassuring. But it is definitely time to rethink the way we work.
The idea of having a central place for all the assets that make up a production is not new. All the material comes into a single server, and everyone who needs to access it can log in. Completed work gets written back to the same server, making the process convenient and streamlined.
This is great. But the challenge is that this “single server” might actually be a distributed set of storage nodes, on location, in a post house, at the production company, or in the cloud. The system that is tracking all the material needs a single database that covers all these locations.
Also, the content might come in different formats: the camera resolution (and there may be more than one camera type); the edit format (perhaps with a proxy for remote editing); and the delivery packages. Metadata needs to track not only formats and resolutions, but also the points at which value judgements are applied: quality control; editorial decisions.
But our main goal is to create the best possible television programme or movie, which means everyone, at every stage, needs to devote their energies on their part of the production without getting bogged down in the complexities of the underlying media management system.
The goal, then, is to have a high functionality, agile storage infrastructure that can handle multiple formats (and converting between them), is geographically diverse, and can manage metadata. That is exactly what EditShare FLOW was designed for.
But on top of that you need a simple, intuitive, role-appropriate user interface, so that each person in the creative team sees the information and content they need: no more; no less.
That is why we have developed EditShare One: the next generation of workflow management. One single sign-on; one place for capture, edit, review and deliver; one platform for production collaboration.
What makes this possible is a single user interface concept that is infinitely customizable. Every user has their own dashboard, showing them just the content and features they need. These dashboards are dynamic, so tasks can be assigned as needed, with all resources available.
We think EditShare One is a transformative leap forward in workflow management. It makes collaborative production environments practical and productive, and leaves creative people free to get on with creative tasks.
In my next blog I’ll look at a typical workflow, using the Produce Tool within EditShare One.
The Othrs, an award-winning full-service media and production company, has steadily earned acclaim with documentaries such as “The Great Hack,” “The Square,” “The Vow,” and the 2023 sequel “The Vow II,” offering audiences narratives of ordinary people traversing through extraordinary moments. These narratives are a testament to The Othrs’ talented and dynamic team, although crafting these compelling stories is accompanied by inherent challenges.
The Othrs experienced difficulties unifying their post-production workflows while maintaining rigorous content security. With its growing creative teams, The Othrs required a platform that was not only secure and user-friendly but also capable of accommodating its creative personnel scattered across the globe. To navigate these evolving challenges, The Othrs employed MediaSilo by EditShare.
Examining projects like “The Vow 2” and “Flight Risk” illuminates MediaSilo’s crucial role. Dailies were uploaded to the platform from one location in a format that, while compressed, did not compromise on quality, ensuring immediate access for globally distributed producers. Furthermore, MediaSilo became a centralized exchange hub for proxies, graphics, music and other vital assets, functioning as a secure repository and a dynamic exchange platform.
Specifically, MediaSilo’s advanced review and approval features proved indispensable for multiple projects overseen by The Othrs. Sebastian Iturralde, Post Supervisor at The Othrs, highlights the importance of MediaSilo by stating, “Real-time collaboration from people in other time zones wouldn’t be possible for us without MediaSilo.” The platform allowed for timecode-accurate comments and notes, which were essential for use within editing software like Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro. Moreover, MediaSilo’s versioning capabilities facilitated unified change tracking between versions. “It was key to have the ability for everyone to seamlessly watch different versions of cuts while they’re all saved in the same place,” says Sebastian. This approach significantly enhanced communication clarity and efficiency during the review and approval processes.
“Real-time collaboration from people in other time zones wouldn’t be possible for us without MediaSilo.”
MediaSilo also served as a repository for pre-production and non-video files. In the event of an emergency, this approach provided a reliable cloud backup for the high-resolution media stored on their on-premises Avid NEXIS storage system.
Considering the sensitivity of content featuring whistleblowers within their type of documentary filmmaking, security is non-negotiable for The Othrs. MediaSilo, with its advanced permissioning tools and security compliance, stands resilient as a digital fortress. Recognizing the robust security measures provided by MediaSilo, The Othrs began entrusting it with increasingly sensitive content.
With their latest project, “Defiant,” which premieres this fall at DOC NYC and is a TIFF Official Selection, MediaSilo was considered vital in the submission process. “One of the key advantages of using MediaSilo was the ability to share a unique link with a distinct password for each festival, along with the option to set expiration dates,” said Fazïa S’Lika, Producer. These features simplified the submission process, allowing them to share the film with exactly who they needed to, when they needed to, without fear of leaks.
MediaSilo bridges the gap where remote and on-location workflows diverge, providing seamless facilitation of hybrid operational models through its intuitive design and robust functionality. Especially useful is MediaSilo’s “Feed” function, which keeps all team members on the platform up to date on any changes to their workspace and projects since they’ve last logged in. Karim Amer, co-owner at The Othrs, notes, “As the owner, I can get a sense for all of the projects by tracking the MediaSilo feed.”
Offering unmatched flexibility with user seats, storage space and a predictable cost structure, MediaSilo outperforms competitors in these domains. Its economical scaling solutions for enterprise-level usage are not only cost-efficient but also integrate into The Othrs’ existing workflows, accommodating both remote and on-location operations.
“We are on team MediaSilo. I use it every day.”
For The Othrs, MediaSilo isn’t merely a tool—it’s integral to their digital strategy and workflow. Sebastian points out that without MediaSilo’s capabilities, executing nearly 90% of their groundbreaking work wouldn’t be feasible. MediaSilo not only makes real-time collaboration possible in the fast-paced world of global production but ensures it is efficient and reliable.
Karim echoes these sentiments, emphasizing his daily reliance on MediaSilo as an indispensable operational tool that keeps him connected and informed about the pulse of all projects under The Othrs’ banner. For him and his team, MediaSilo is an integral part of their daily workflow, a silent partner that is as much a part of The Othrs as any producer, editor or artist.
The alliance between The Othrs and MediaSilo transcends transactional interactions; it’s a partnership forged from challenges and triumphs in the heat of production. MediaSilo is more than a technological tool; it embodies a strategy deeply embedded within The Othrs’ operational DNA, enabling them to continue their journey of telling extraordinary human stories. With security, efficiency and collaboration as its cornerstones, MediaSilo is more than a platform; it’s a catalyst for storytelling in the digital age.
Karim concludes, “We are on team MediaSilo. I use it every day.”
MediaSiloallows for easy management of your media files, seamless collaboration for critical feedback, and out-of-the-box synchronization with your timeline for efficient changes. See how MediaSilo is powering modern post-production workflows with a 14-day free trial.
Broadcasters have been hard at work tackling the challenges of what the newsroom of tomorrow will look like. As broadcasters face the challenge of competition from social media, it’s become critical to look for new ways to collaborate remotely. There’s a tension between tried-and-tested workflows and the need for greater efficiency that comes through new technologies.
What are some of the key challenges facing broadcasters in this new era?
Cross-collaboration between industries
Dave Hoffman, business development manager for the Americas at Blackmagic Design, noted, “Broadcasters are starting to implement tools and techniques from cinema workflows like different effects and lenses, while production companies are implementing gear from the live streaming side, like switchers and routers, for multi-camera scripted shoots and virtual production.” Practically speaking, this means that film teams are broadcasting, and broadcasters are moving into cinematography. These changes bring new tools, skills and workflows to both sides of the equation.
Professional sports leagues are using more large sensor cameras to produce more cinematic images. Gimbals are showing up on the sidelines. Some shooters are experimenting with photo lenses and face-detection autofocus on cinema cameras. Mobile bonding wireless technology makes it possible to record in the cloud as well as in the camera itself.
Cinematographers who are used to working on images with a colorist in post now need to apply those grades on set as it is streamed to clients and producers around the world. Broadcast camera operators are embracing new kinds of optics, focus systems, and lighting demands. Learning new skills is always fun, but it can also be challenging when you are an expert in one discipline and a novice in another.
The great thing about this cross-collaboration is an openness to new tools and techniques on both sides of production and post. Production teams are streaming right from their cameras and post teams are incorporating new tools to accommodate new workflows.
Those new workflows produce a vast array of assets. Some platforms need widescreen deliverables, and some need vertical. Sometimes, you need to have captions delivered in a separate file, and sometimes, they need to be overlaid onto the video itself. And each of these variations needs to be reviewed and approved by multiple parties before they ship.
Asset management for multi-platform broadcasters
Broadcasters are no longer targeting a single medium. The increase in delivery platforms and the worldwide syndication of media means that the average video has to be delivered in multiple versions. Not only are numerous formats required, but each piece of media might have to be tailored to a geographical area, a demographic and a platform.
For example, All Elite Wrestling needs different specs for every show in every location and region. Pay-per-view, international partners, and in-arena LED assets are all different. With at least a dozen assets per talent and close to 200 wrestlers in their roster, it’s a lot.
All these assets need to be created, ingested, grouped, reviewed, revised, and approved. That’s where cloud-based tools like MediaSilo can really streamline workflows. Editors working in a shared environment now have the tools they need to work the way they want to and provide secure, reliable review/approval and presentation links.
A good example of this NLE agnostic approach in MediaSilo is integrations. If you use Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve, you can install a panel right in your NLE. You can sync feedback on both platforms with MediaSilo so that your producers, directors and editors are always in the loop. If one collaborator is using Dropbox and another is Google Drive, MediaSilo can integrate with both (and others) so that you can avoid the hassle of uploading, downloading and transferring between multiple systems.
When you have hundreds or thousands of files, it’s important for your team to know how to find the right ones at the right time. Metadata tagging is a great way to keep track of assets and simplify searching. In addition to plaintext tags, you can now create categories like location, director, and client. Set your categories and tags and quickly find files with the advanced search and filters on every page.
Simplifying collaboration between broadcast production pros
Collaboration tools ought to respect the preferences of the creative teams while facilitating work with freelancers using other tools. For instance, some editors use Adobe, and many editors are adopting DaVinci Resolve for more than just the color grade. MediaSilo has panels for both of them. This “NLE agnostic” approach defines the workflow of MediaSilo. Users can choose to work on the operating system or NLE of their choice while working with others on a different system. Each team member has different needs, so it is important that collaboration tools support the whole team.
However, the challenge to unifying different tools is in tracking, versioning and securing your data. And there are really two sides to that coin. There are assets to track during production and post-production, and there is the versioning and secure presentation of assets during the review and approval process. MediaSilo takes care of both. You can see when someone has viewed a video, where they were viewing it from, and how much they watched.
Security is another major component. In the broadcast world, it’s essential to prevent leaks. Broadcasters want to be the first to break a story. SafeStream is MediaSilo’s powerful security technology. It applies visible and forensic watermarking. This means leaks can be tracked to their source, and potential leakers will think twice before sharing their work before it is ready for release.
Conclusion
With cross-pollination and collaboration between industries becoming so prevalent, new opportunities are abounding. The organizations that can marshall their forces to embrace change instead of resisting it will win in this ever-changing landscape. But the key factor in managing that change will be keeping people in the loop and on the same team. Collaboration tools like MediaSilo go a long way to bridging the gaps between remote teams scattered throughout countries and time zones. They help to deliver the flexibility that creatives need and the consistency that business demands.
MediaSilo allows for easy management of your media files, seamless collaboration for critical feedback, and out-of-the-box synchronization with your timeline for efficient changes. See how MediaSilo is powering modern post-production workflows with a 14-day free trial.
Reuben Evans is a director, an award-winning screenwriter, and a member of the Producers Guild of America. As the former executive producer at Faithlife TV, he produced and directed numerous documentaries and commercials. Reuben’s tools of choice are RED Cameras, Final Cut Pro, and DaVinci Resolve.
Just when you think everything is going well with your team’s project and the finish line is in sight, here comes the curveball. Someone was left out of the loop, or a senior executive gets surprised by a deliverable. The team scrambles to make last-minute changes and push back deadlines. Creative professionals know this can be discouraging. How can we improve our review and approval processes to ensure all stakeholders are included?
We all know that sometimes the approval process isn’t smooth. We’ll examine strategies for handling “curveball” feedback. So, let’s take a look at some specific, concrete steps that we can take along the way to give us the best chance at a smooth review and approval process.
Craft a solid brief
When you work with an agency, we may or may not deal directly with the client. But it is still our responsibility to ensure that the brief answers all of the key questions about the deliverable. Who is the audience? Where will this be seen? What are the goals of the campaign? What is the voice and personality of the brand? Getting as much information about the client’s goals as possible is critical to a successful end product. Here’s a great guide to crafting a brief.
Identify key stakeholders
It’s not uncommon for the task of creating a commercial to be handled by a Marketing VP or another higher-up. But sometimes, not everyone who needs to be involved is actually involved. Nobody wants to make the mistake of leaving out a CEO (who likes to be involved with everything) until the last minute. People who safeguard the brand visually and narratively must be all involved.
Another category of individual to consider is the “domain expert.” Companies often have individuals who really get the “heart” of the product and understand the customer’s desires. They might be in sales or even in product development. Getting those “domain experts” on your side can be vital to getting the final deliverable right.
A common decision-making framework is known as the DACI model. Each letter presents a key participant in the production and review process:
Driver: This individual doesn’t have sign-off authority, but they are responsible for moving the project forward.
Approver: You might have more than one approver. Usually, there is a chain of authority that needs to sign off. But overall, it is best to try to avoid having too many cooks in the kitchen.
Contributors: These individual contributors bring their talents to the table and help get the various aspects of the project done.
Informed: By keeping key people across the organization in the loop, you’ll avoid hearing “why wasn’t I consulted.”
MediaSilo delivers an environment for the members of a DACI team to collaborate. For instance, versioning helps to identify which export of a video a particular note applied to. And then, you can see how it was addressed in a subsequent revision.
Collaborate on the concept
When the stroke of genius hits you, and you draft that fantastic concept, view it as a rough draft. Sometimes, it’s hard not to be precious about a concept that works together on every level. So make sure your script and storyboard make the rounds to everyone who could kill it later. Help people to feel like they are a part of the process and that they are heard. This step will set you up for a successful review and approval process once the cameras have stopped rolling.
Work through legal and clearance issues
Keep in mind that your client may need to have their legal counsel provide input before and after you film your spot. Music and location clearances need to be in place to protect the company. And they will want to make sure that nothing in the piece could create unnecessary legal risk. It is key that the concept not rely on an element that might get struck down by a company’s internal legal team.
Gather broad internal feedback
When reviewing elements and deliverables, I like the saying, “Show your work early and often.” It can be scary to send out incomplete work, but platforms like MediaSilo provide a great way to get feedback at critical stages without slowing down the creative process. This way, the agency and client can feel like they have a handle on the process, and you can ensure buy-in along the way. Even then, it can still be tough to know who needs to see what at which stage. But getting early work in front of people can head off headaches. It also builds trust because it demonstrates a level of vulnerability. And your creative team will instantly know when you need to make course corrections.
This step is also where the presentation features of MediaSilo can make a big difference. When the work is presented online or in person, all distractions must be eliminated. It’s a key moment to control the messaging and ensure the work gets presented in the best light possible.
Handling creative differences
Inevitably, creative differences arise. These are the “curveballs” we’re talking about. It’s the director’s job to work through the client’s feedback and figure out ways to make them happy while still realizing the creative vision. This moment is where it can be really helpful to gain feedback from various sources so that there is a balance to offset the feedback from one influential individual. One executive may have a strong objection to a particular element, but if other voices like it, those voices can help soften the blow. As daunting as it may seem, gaining feedback from as many voices as necessary is ultimately helpful to get the deliverable across the finish line.
Avoiding defensiveness is key when hearing feedback. The temptation to defend the work is always present, but it is more effective to take notes, and give a little time to try to get to the core of the objection. When you are in the moment and receiving pushback, your stress level rises, and it is hard to think clearly and respond well. Sleeping on feedback is honestly one of the best methods for processing it. Take some time to process it, gain input from other voices, and allow for creative solutions to present themselves after a night of sleep.
Curveball feedback can yield even better work than originally planned. Sometimes, that feedback reveals a weakness in the spot, even if the person giving the feedback could have been more precise in articulating the exact problem. When people try to explain what they feel in their gut, there is often a significant disconnect, but there is still something real there. An experienced storyteller can digest that feedback and uncover the real reason a piece isn’t working. That insight can yield new creative solutions that fix those underlying problems.
Focus groups can help
Once your commercial is “finished,” a helpful step can be to get feedback from people outside of the process. Sometimes, we are so “head down” in the work that we miss obvious things. So, feedback from internal focus groups or even beta testers of software products can point out things that we would miss. It’s important to hold this feedback loosely, but it can also be illuminating.
When feedback from focus groups is obtained, it is important to consider their similarity to your main audience. For instance, sometimes, the hardest core fans of a particular product do not represent the majority of the customers of that product.
Final sign off
When it is time for the finished piece to make rounds, ensure everyone gets included again. The two critical junctures for broad approval are the storyboards and the final sign-off before shipping. Hopefully, the rounds of internal feedback have helped finesse the deliverable to perfection. However, it is still worth asking, “Has everyone who needs to see it had eyes on the final version?”
Conclusion
Keeping everybody in the loop can be challenging with the best of plans. That’s why it’s critical to have tools like MediaSilo that reduce the friction and help keep everyone in sync. See those curveballs coming, and the team will hit them out of the park. And that’s the kind of teamwork that leads to repeat clients, happy teams, and creatively fulfilling work for all involved
MediaSilo allows for easy management of your media files, seamless collaboration for critical feedback, and out-of-the-box synchronization with your timeline for efficient changes. See how MediaSilo is powering modern post-production workflows with a 14-day free trial.
Reuben Evans is a director, an award-winning screenwriter, and a member of the Producers Guild of America. As the former executive producer at Faithlife TV, he produced and directed numerous documentaries and commercials. Reuben’s tools of choice are RED Cameras, Final Cut Pro, and DaVinci Resolve.
