What Have We Learned About Remote Working With Video — Part 1

Remote working: the challenges for video production

In 2019, remote working was a foreign concept. We were all happily working side-by-side in our workplaces: brainstorming ideas in the boardroom, solving problems at team meetings and enjoying chats with colleagues at the water cooler. 

But in 2020 the world changed. The coronavirus pandemic swept across the globe and we suddenly had to embrace working from home. 

Home offices were makeshift at first, with some people working on laptops balanced on their laps as they sat on their beds. But as the impact of the virus worsened, we’ve all had to look at longer term solutions. 

In many cases, getting a suitable chair, desk and eye-level monitor was the easy part. Reimagining work processes that previously involved face-to-face collaboration and access to technical experts was trickier.

Video production is a classic example. So when remote working and video production have to go hand-in-hand, what does everyone need?

• Phase 1: it’s all about getting up and running.
• Phase 2: it’s all about sharing, collaborating and distributing faster and easier.

One option is virtual workstations but they require business-grade bandwidth to work and very few remote workers have that at home.

So the ideal solution is a cloud-native Video Content-as-a-Service platform.

Big team / dispersed collaborators

In the office it was easy enough to drop in on the editor to review something, call IT if you needed a file reformatted, or bump into the client services director to ask for an opinion. That’s all changed. 

What hasn’t changed are deadlines and it has become increasingly difficult to share and collaborate on content. That’s why working on a cloud platform with proxies (generally 1% the size of an original piece of content) is the key to collaborating on video remotely — it streamlines the process of sharing, reviewing, annotating, searching and approving video content.

Technology needs to be an enabler — and uncomplicated

Working with video has traditionally been managed by editors, camera operators and engineers. But it doesn’t need to be. 

Just as the UI of a smartphone can mask incredible computer power, the UI of video processing platform like Overcast can mask a lot of tech. 

If you need your content to distribute on the web, mobile, social, in-store screens, broadcast TVs (it doesn’t matter what) then it should be as easy as pushing a button and automating all the tech processes. And it is!

Fast and efficient Review and Approvals

Reviewing and approving content was often the slowest part of the video lifecycle. Whether it is new content being created, or archive being reworked, getting senior eyeballs on the content can slow the process to a snail’s pace. 

The concern in relation to remote working is whether that review and approvals process would be even slower. But not so — depending on the platform you choose.

Some companies use Slack and Teams, which are fine for Word docs but are not designed for video — because when you really want to make changes you need to be able to draw on the screen or log the timecode. 

This is all automated on Overcast — and you can also audit when the reviewer has screened the content.  

In the second part of this blog post, we’ll look at how to make metadata work for you, how to increase speed to market, and the importance of security in a remote working landscape.

So tune in then and in the meantime enjoy not having to commute to work!