How TELUS Studios Reclaimed 40%
of Creative Time with Strawberry Skies
- •Slashed active cloud storage by 62% to optimize tech spend.
- •Automated 2,000 annual projects through scalable API integrations.
- •Empowered a 90% remote workforce using secure proxy workflows.
- •Reclaimed 40% of creative time by streamlining asset sourcing through centralized management.
TELUS Studios, the in-house creative engine powering TELUS Communications, manages nearly 2,000 projects annually. They had a legacy of discrete storage and asset management tools, which resulted in fragmented files and project content. As a result, teams were spending up to 40% of their time navigating folder trees and asset management systems to locate their content. With 90% of the team working remotely, the combination of cloud and on-premise systems added an extra layer of complexity.
Storage spanned disparate systems and accessing archives was cumbersome. Strawberry Skies provided an integrated solution that unified projects across both cloud and on-premise storage. Its intuitive visual search allowed teams to efficiently access project content across all storage tiers, reducing the need for extensive primary storage while maximizing the value of the archive. As a result, editors gained seamless access to both live and archived projects and overall efficiency increased. We spoke to the TELUS Studios team to learn more.
About TELUS Studios: Delivering High-Volume, High-Quality Content
Located in Vancouver, TELUS Studios operates as a compact, highly skilled creative team within TELUS Communications. Their portfolio covers broadcast TV, corporate video, digital campaigns, audio production, and graphic design. The team consists of 30–35 professionals, combining core staff with project-based contributors, delivering around 2,000 projects per year, across design and video each year. Post-pandemic, nearly everyone works remotely, collaborating through LucidLink storage.
The Challenge: Fragmented Storage, Limited Project Structure
Prior to implementing Strawberry Skies, TELUS Studios managed content across two main environments: LucidLink for current projects and an on-premise storage system for the archive. Accessing archived content remotely required workarounds, often involving manual intervention or remote desktop connections. Retrieving assets, especially older footage, became a recurring bottleneck.
Challenges included:
- •Limited searchability: LucidLink functioned well as raw storage, but it lacked asset management and made file discovery inefficient.
- •File duplication: Moving archived footage into active projects created redundant copies and inflated cloud storage, reaching 40TB at its peak.
- •No standardized project folders: Editors used varying folder structures, complicating future access and project reopening.
- •Inefficient freelancer access: Granting contractors access to on-premises archives involved security trade-offs and extra administrative effort.
“Up to 40% of team time was spent simply tracking down previously completed work.“
Andrew Cortese
Post-Production Lead at TELUS Studios
The Solution: Integration and Automation with Strawberry Skies
In April 2024, TELUS Studios adopted Strawberry Skies, delivered by Projective in partnership with Annex Pro. The solution complemented the existing LucidLink platform by adding layered asset and project management capabilities and unifying access to both current and archived content.
Key benefits included:
- •Centralized asset management: Editors can efficiently locate, preview, and access project assets—eliminating the need for complex searches or manual server navigation.
- •Automated project setup: Strawberry automatically creates a standardized project workspace for each of the nearly 2000 projects TELUS Studios delivers annually. This eliminates the manual, error-prone task of creating project folders.
- •Integration with resource management systems: Strawberry’s API integrates seamlessly with Monday.com. When a project’s status is updated, Strawberry automatically creates the corresponding project workspace, streamlining the entire workflow from resource planning to post-production.
- •Unified content access: Strawberry provides a single interface for managing projects across both cloud (Lucid Link) and on-premise storage, giving teams a unified view of all current and archived content.
- •Smart storage tiering and automated backup: Dynamic management between cloud and on-premise storage with Strawberry Multisite has reduced the expensive primary storage requirement substantially, from 40TB to 15TB.
Ronald Knol
Senior Technology Consultant at TELUS Studios
“One of the biggest wins has been the ability to reuse decades’ worth of assets, which is much cheaper than reshooting“. Strawberry’s proxy workflows provide full, immediate visibility into their archive, eliminating the need to create duplicate content.
The Results: Dramatic Time Savings, Better Access, and Streamlined Workflows
The collaboration with Projective has delivered some clear results for TELUS Studios:
- •30–40% reduction in time spent on unarchiving and sourcing assets: Editors no longer waste time on lengthy searches or delays, thanks to streamlined access to all project assets.
- •62% reduction in cloud storage usage: Active cloud storage dropped from 40TB to 15TB, resulting in significant cost savings.
- •Consistent project organization for nearly 2,000 annual projects: Each file follows an established, predictable structure, ensuring easier collaboration and continuity.
- •Improved remote accessibility: Editors can access any needed project, regardless of location, eliminating access barriers for the 90% remote workforce.
TELUS Studios also appreciates the rock-solid reliability of the platform. As Andrew put it: “I know some of our editors are abusing the Strawberry client by not logging out or leaving projects open sometimes for months, but the platform’s back-end ensures projects continue to mount properly and assets remain in the correct location.”
Seamless Implementation and Trust
Rolling out new technology at this scale can be challenging, but Projective ensured a seamless transition that minimized downtime and allowed the TELUS Studios team to keep their focus on creative output.
Perhaps most importantly, TELUS Studios felt truly heard. Projective treated the team as collaborators, not just clients, taking the time to understand specific challenges and adapting the platform when needs arose.
Ronald indicated that “It was one of the smoothest tech transitions we’ve ever experienced—and we’ve changed technology platforms four times in the last 12 years. Projective clearly valued our input at every stage. We are in this partnership for the long run.”
When asked what advice the TELUS Studios team would give to creative teams looking to modernize their workflows, they recommended clearly communicating the long-term benefits to users and presenting the change as an enhancement to existing workflows rather than a total overhaul. Demonstrating how new solutions directly address persistent pain points, like finding old assets or reopening projects, was key to their team’s adoption and overall success.
What’s Next?
Looking ahead, the Studios team are looking to implement Strawberry 7‘s latest enhancements. With new AI-powered transcription and Media Intelligence capabilities, producers can use natural language to instantly locate B-roll or archived footage, even when it’s not tagged. Because transcripts can be automatically generated and made searchable, this creates a growing library of valuable metadata. For creative users, this means finding the right content becomes faster and more intuitive, adding more value with every project.
The TELUS Studios & Projective story proves what’s possible when trust, close collaboration, and awesome technology come together to unlock new levels of creativity and efficiency.
Interested in what streamlined asset management could look like for your creative teams?
Connect with us to see how Strawberry Skies could support your post-production operations.
Published: 7 April 2026