Keys to improve content creation and collaboration

Workflow issues and technical bottlenecks are current concerns in the production world, but what can be done to solve them? Skip Levens, director of product marketing, media and entertainment, Quantum, breaks down its main challenges and explains how content producers and creatives can address these challenges.

The industria broadcast current is in a fantastic form in regards to the technological innovation and the creativity of its members. Television programs can remain on the air for 24 hours without a single interruption. Many shows manage to do this for years while still being attractive to viewers and advertisers. It is an environment of high pressure, with increasingly strict budget constraints and ever-increasing creative demands. All of this pressure reaches even greater heights during key global events like the COVID-19 pandemic, which completely disrupted existing production workflows.

Despite everything, global video consumption and demand for engaging, high-resolution content increased last year by more than 60%. He video has become the new normal and in the most effective medium to entertain, educate and interact with the public, thanks to fantastic series to be devoured in marathons, immersive films and animated films available through numerous OTT streaming services.

All this takes its toll. With the demand for new content, tighter budgets and larger global teams, producers are forced to rethink the way you create and offer content. Now, the focus is on how to build more flexible and reliable workflows allowing production teams to maintain control of raw content ingestion workflows and quickly access long-term files from anywhere, anytime. Speeding up production and allowing teams to think more creatively are others. fundamental factors that must be studied carefully. Content producers don't have it easy!

But luckily there are ways to facilitate content and collaboration by following these simple steps.

Production requirements are changing

First things first, all creatives involved in production work need to get used to the fact that workflow requirements are changing. for the better. For years, the need to have tighter budgets and to know perfectly what content viewers demand (in general, having less, but doing more) has been on the table. The good news is that both technology and the most cutting-edge solutions help us achieve these goals.

He video has become the new normal and in the middle more effective to entertain, train and interact with the public.

The pandemic also serves as a reminder that our industry must prepare for flexible work models, more efficient remote collaboration, and, ultimately, being able produce content and manage a project from anywhere. Each member of the production team must be able to work with the content and collaborate with their colleagues (regardless of where they are) during the editing phases. Broadcasters, post-production companies, corporate audiovisual divisions, and animation and visual effects studios need power ingest content quickly while having constant access to all assets in each phase of the production and asset management processes. In parallel, organizations will also be able to preserve contents for future use and protect them from possible damage or loss, as well as to be able to access them easily to create new content, use it in retrospectives, etc.

It is not so easy to create collaborative teams

It is no secret that the media industry is moving at a dizzying pace. Producing high-quality material on time is never the task of a single person, but requires the collaboration of several departments. Considering the number of people involved from start to finish, it is clear that it is difficult to create a streamlined workflow.

Creating new teams, completing new projects, organizing live events or collaborating in production can be demanding if the production environment is not agile enough. It is essential that production environments allow constantly evolve. They must also be able to adapt to the growing number of team members, who may be located in different locations around the world and use various operating platforms and applications. And above all, the production environment must be adaptable; that is, it must be ready to configure quickly and efficiently to meet the team's production and collaboration needs.

Disjointed Workflows Can Be Costly

As the demand for content generation increases, so does the pressure on production teams. Teams across the industry are focused on completing projects and moving on to the next task. As a result, workflows can become disjointed, meaning potentially valuable, raw content can be easily lost or difficult to manage. This Lack of integration can pose serious problems to productivity general of a team, since time is wasted unnecessarily looking for what they need. To help address this problem, companies should adopt a active focus when it comes to controlling the dispersion of content.

He principal challenge for production companies is to decide how and where store your content and project files, which never stop growing.

Companies must ensure they have a clear view of content throughout your organization; Its operations must be in an environment of connected and shared storage, as well as having a file system with data movers incorporated to capture content on a single platform. This approach will not only allow businesses to have clear visibility across the entire workflow, but will also make it easier to search and content management.

Keep constantly growing files up to date

When it comes to storing content, it is easy to fall into bad habits. There is often a tendency to move files from shared storage to offline systems thinking that “I'll remember where I put them,” especially when dealing with large content and project files. However, this quick “fix” often creates even more problems for production teams. Moving files to offline systems eliminates the ability to quickly and easily access content for new workflows or to reuse in other projects.

Therefore, the main challenge for production companies is to decide how and where to store your content and project files, which do not stop growing. To accommodate large volumes of content and project files, a single workflow storage platform Connect all locations and storage types where assets are needed with a single click. To ensure a seamless flow of content through storage, from NVMe o SSD until HDD, Love o cloud, the chosen platform must allow the continuous access to content and allow the consolidation of raw and finished content on a single platform.

Choosing the right storage platform

In addition to all these challenges, there is an additional challenge: choose the storage platform appropriate. As content production increases, systems must be able to keep pace; Otherwise, companies simply will not be able to meet the demand. However, it is not a simple task. Many production companies struggle to choose the right storage platform to scale up or down their workload or accommodate their specific workflow needs. There is no single solution that is capable of successfully addressing all storage-related issues.

When selecting a storage platform, organizations They must anticipate future demands and ask the right questions to ensure that the solution they choose evolves and adapts to constantly changing requirements. Never underestimate the value of a storage platform ready for media to grow and prosper.

When selecting a storage platform, organizations must anticipate future demands and consider the right questions

As the media industry evolves, so do the challenges you face. The creative vision and quality of the content will be what defines a brand and its commitment to the audience. As media workflows are constantly changing, organizations must take appropriate steps to ensure the existence of efficient and streamlined workflows. With modern storage and workflow solutions, when it comes to content production, everything is possible.