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CHALLENGE: In 2023, bmp creative was tasked with subtitling winner speeches and highlight moments from the SAG Awards for Netflix to be distributed as quickly as possible on the company's various social media platforms. The challenge wasn’t the project itself though—it was the ask. Hiring bmp for the second consecutive year, Netflix wanted more assets delivered in a shorter amount of time. To make things more interesting, bmp has no central office; and its team for this project was dispersed across eight different states in the US, spanning multiple time zones.

WHY SUITE? BMP chose Suite for the SAG Awards project because it was the only workflow solution on the market that enabled Director of Post Production, Philip Loeb, to centralize files in one place on the cloud, reducing push-pull steps while maximizing his team’s editing efficiency. By uploading media directly to Suite’s cloud-native filesystem during the livestream, Loeb & his team were able to begin working on files instantly from their isolated locations. Centralizing media on Suite’s cloud storage made it possible for bmp’s creative team to hit their goal & produce a total of 25 social-ready videos in just six hours from an entirely remote setting spanning multiple time zones.

“The goal was to simplify—it wouldn't have been possible without Suite.”

— Philip Loeb, Director of Post Production, bmp creative

bmp creative represents a new age of design studio—one that exists without a physical location, editing suites, or offices. Yet the full-service content creation & social media production company has established a notable footprint creating eye-popping, scroll-stopping visuals for some of the biggest brands; we’re talking about MGM, NBC Universal, Google, FOX Sports, Lululemon, New Balance, Lego, Hershey’s & more. And their team completes every creative task from home, or wherever. bmp represents uninhibited creative driven by talent, not proximity.

While this way of working provides its benefits, it also presents unique challenges—especially when a media giant like Netflix is asking for high-volume, lightning-fast turnarounds on social media content. Here’s how bmp’s Director of Post Production, Philip Loeb, leveraged Suite to manage the recent SAG Awards video captioning project.

The old way wasn’t gonna cut it

When Netflix returned to work with bmp on the captioning project for the SAG Awards, it wanted more assets completed in less time. Sound familiar? In this media-driven landscape, it’s nearly expected. Prior to adopting Suite’s cloud storage, however, Loeb’s workflow involved too many steps; ingest to final cut took about 45 minutes. This was just too slow to match the updated requirements from Netflix, so Loeb had to seek out other solutions… “We decided to leverage Suite for this project. It was a big game-changer,” Loeb remarks. “The files weren't massive, so they could move through the pipeline quickly. The advantage was that we were able to centralize everything.”

Adopting Suite to edit on-the-fly

To streamline the workflow, Loeb & his team at bmp opted to integrate Suite’s cloud storage with their work in Adobe Premiere Pro. Uploading, editing, and sharing media directly off of Suite’s cloud-native filesystem removed numerous push-pull steps for the dispersed team of editors. This simplified Loeb’s media management efforts while simultaneously accelerating work. The workflow Loeb & his team devised aimed to simplify the process & establish a remote way of working that feels local. Here, we’ll let Loeb explain how everything flowed easily on Suite:

“We had one person responsible for ingesting media directly into Suite from our high-speed connection. From there, we assigned specific files to subtitlers. However, instead of [our freelancers] exporting drafts, they just saved & closed out of a project; a Quality Controller opened the same file, made corrections & then completed the export."

Centralizing source media in the cloud revolutionized bmp's collaborative efforts. "We eliminated numerous push-pull steps, not having to upload, download, and so forth… and we were able to work completely within Premiere without relinking or remapping," Loeb says. "In aggregate, we probably saved 25% of time on file downloading alone.”

How did bmp’s team enjoy working on Suite?

bmp's post production staff includes a combination of “in-house” staff & freelance collaborators, and one of Loeb’s main tasks is managing every moving part. Introducing a new workflow can often be a source of hesitance in the editing community, but Loeb’s idea to work directly off the cloud was received well, impressing his editors with its simplicity & functionality. “I advocated to get my team on Suite for this project… to get get a more firm touchpoint,” Loeb says. “I wanted to test it in a real scenario, see how it works, try to break it.” Despite working from numerous locations, Loeb’s editors were quick to adopt the Suite’s cloud storage workflow. “The freelancers loved it—they adopted it quickly,” Loeb comments. “They’d come to me, saying things like: This is such a massive game-changer for what we do.  Then I’d notice the wheels spinning, thinking of the possibilities.” Without having to link files & download versions locally before working, bmp maintained full control of new media as it landed into the Suite drive, working directly from the cloud as if everyone were in the same room. It was the aha moment Loeb & his team needed.

The lasting impacts of Suite’s cloud storage

Adopting a cloud-based workflow for the Netflix/SAG Awards project not only helped bmp creative accelerate the project timeline, it improved every aspect of remote post production for their dispersed staff. " Working on Suite, the files are just there," says Loeb. “The goal was to simplify—it wouldn't have been possible without Suite."

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