We live in the “age of instant.” As a culture, we have gotten so good at getting information instantly, that news teases are now obsolete. For example, if you see a news tease, you will still get curious about the story, but instead of waiting until 11pm, you will just Google that news tease on your phone. Why wait? You have the same access to the information that the news station has. That expectation of instant delivery follows us to work and it is usually your clients who are expecting it.
This month in Tech Edge, we are going to talk to people living in the “age of instant.” But in this age, how do you get your finished work to your client for review and approval? In 2014, if you are providing video content for anyone for any reason, you are expected to be as quick and convenient as YouTube. Your customers see it as, “If some high school student can get video online, clearly these creative video professionals can do it too!”
Aframe out of Burlington, MA provides review and approval services via a web browser. You can securely upload your content, have your client view it in a web browser, provide feedback directly on the timeline and instantly sends it back to you. This is great for a few reasons. One is you always want your client to watch the work you provided for them without you around. They needn’t worry about hurting your feelings if feedback is not face to face. The other is the shear convenience of the type of transaction. No cars, planes, tapes, hard drives, commutes, subway stops, bike couriers….none of that matters now.
Nick Priest, the Senior Creative Consultant from Mass AV has seen many of his clients switching over to Aframe for review and delivery. When asked about how review and delivery has changed over the past five years, he replied “Technology has really given us a chance to turn around samples, revisions, and finals at lightning speed compared to even just five years ago. We’ve been using Aframe for just over a year and it allows us to quickly and easily toss (as I like to say) clips up to the cloud for clients to view without having to download them. In short, Aframe specifically brings the edit room to the client where ever they are and allows for faster project turn around and delivery. “
Nick follows with “We work with clients in two ways in regards to reviews and approvals. The first is the way you’re supposed to use Aframe. We set our clients up with a free account, give them a crash course (though it’s pretty intuitive to use) and set them on their way. Having the ability to let the client time code their notes as they view the clips is a stroke of genius. No longer do we have to worry about if the client’s 2:46 is our 2:46. We just wrapped a large project for a client that had ten deliverables and with Aframe we were able to keep the feedback, notes, and suggestions all organized and easily accessible for reference throughout the process.
I asked Nick if he feels that review and approval has actually changed and become a more collaborative process, he replied, “Absolutely. Now that clients can provide instantaneous feedback, like I mentioned earlier, we’re bringing the edit room to them. We can now have open ‘digital dialogue’ much like we would have if the client came down to our facility and sat in one of our edit suites. Recently we had a broadcast piece for a client who supplied all of the assets for the piece and a fairly detailed script. After our initial edit we were able to have an open, collaborative dialogue about changes and adjustments so that the next revision we delivered was so close to final we were only waiting on the network for final specs.”
The ripple effect of the web based review and approval doesn’t stop at television and ad agencies. It also reaches across to academia. Ron Starr, the Director of the Media Studios for Northeastern University, says that Aframe has changed life on campus. “Students can seamlessly and easily turn in their work via Aframe, which instructors can view on or off campus. Students can also capitalize on the collaborative environment by sharing works-in-progress with partner classmates.
Ron continues: “Another benefit is Aframe’s ability to designate users and accounts. This helps us avoid legal issues. Most students use copyrighted music (and occasionally video), which is allowed under the Education Exemption for class. Also, students rarely have proper release forms from actors, who assume their work will only be for a class project. Aframe allows us to upload media to designated folders with restricted access, thus avoiding legal pratfalls that can come from the use of public sharing sites such as Vimeo or YouTube.”
Now that review and approval has moved to an instantaneous process, there is no conceivably way make this process faster. What delivery professionals will be battling with is as video resolution gets richer with bigger frame sizes and more pixels, we will need higher bandwidths to deliver it. The only speed bump is download speeds. Where in 2014 we scoff at the idea of sending a bike courier with tape, in 2024, we will be scoffing at sending a tiny proxy file.
Steve McGrath is a Broadcast Sales Engineer for HB Communications. He has worked with NBC, ABC, CBS, NESN, NECN, Fox, ESPN, Pentagon, Powderhouse and many others. You can reach him at [email protected]. Learn more, visit www.HBCommunications.com.
