Rethinking Post-Production Workflows Beyond Your Editing Application

Do you think of your content production in terms of a single application? You are missing out on the opportunity to build true collaboration and eliminate silos.

The media and entertainment industry has grown fiercely competitive, driving the need for more engaging and profitable content. As a result, production workflows have undergone a radical transformation, with teams now employing a diverse array of applications to meet the ever-increasing demands of global audiences.

With a growing range of sophisticated applications like Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, BlackMagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve, Avid Pro Tools, and many others, the post-production process has become convoluted. Even if the underlying infrastructure can support all of the applications in use, logical silos inevitably develop. And for every silo, complexity is increased, and delays introduced.

Typically infrastructure changes are designed around the primary creative application, for instance supporting a video editing tool like Media Composer. Solely focusing on a single application might seem sufficient for straightforward video editing, but this approach comes with a number of shortcomings.

• Tool Constraints: No tool can be everything to everyone, so they often lack specific functions. This creates a need for additional applications to complete certain workflows.
• Workflow Silos: Focusing only on an editing app creates isolated workflows, making collaboration and project management cumbersome.
• Inefficient Approvals: Reviews and approvals done outside the creative environment, using disparate tools introduce delays through upload/download cycles. These delays are magnified with every iteration and approval process.
• Administrative Overhead: bringing in new applications means extra technology and workflow steps for the engineering teams to procure, secure and manage. 

Consequently, a single-application focus falls short in providing a comprehensive solution that empowers creative teams to collaborate anytime, anywhere, and to deliver high quality content on time and on budget.

The key to overcoming these challenges is to adopt a broader, integrated workflow that seamlessly connects all creative tools and applications. This includes: 

• Unified Project Management: Use tools that centralize project management across all creative applications. This ensures every team member, whether they’re working on video editing, color grading, audio mixing or graphics, is on the same page.
• Centrally-Managed Storage: Implement best-of-breed storage solutions that cater to the needs of various applications, ensuring easy access and management of media files. Note that centralized storage is necessary but not sufficient on its own. Even if physical silos are eliminated, without a coherent multi-application project platform, logical silos will still exist
• Seamless Collaboration: Opt for platforms that support real-time collaboration, enabling teams to work together irrespective of their geographical locations.

This is where Projective’s post-production collaboration platform, Strawberry, comes into play. It provides a unified framework for all creative projects, eliminating silos, slashing wait times, short-cutting approval delays, and accelerating your delivery of finished content.

Strawberry seamlessly integrates with the Adobe Creative suite, Avid Media Composer and Pro Tools, and more. The platform automates project structure, simplifies workflows, and safeguards your content. Some key features that enable users to work more efficiently without the hassle of switching between creative tools include:

• End-to-end collaboration across all third party applications.
• Project sharing including Avid Media Composer bin locking.
• Automated file management and search capabilities.
• Proxy Preview Creation beyond just video provides visibility across asset types.
• Secure, real-time collaboration with remote teams through Strawberry Skies.
• Adobe Integration: Strawberry’s tight integration with the Adobe Creative Suite enables users to manage projects directly within Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, enhancing productivity and reducing duplication. Download our integration document here.
• Advanced instant search capabilities, including Contextual Search: content inherits project metadata, eliminating the need to tag assets individually.

In addition to these robust capabilities, Strawberry’s user-friendly interface and intuitive design ensure that even the most complex projects can be managed with ease, across all creative tools. By streamlining the creative process and reducing technical obstacles, Strawberry empowers users to focus on what truly matters: creating high-quality, impactful content.