CHALLENGE – XPLR.NASH stored, shared and edited media via physical hard drives and Google Drive, which proved to be a clunky, inefficient use of resources for their small team, especially once the team grew to include another editor.

CHALLENGE – Erin Pennington at XPLR.NASH wanted to implement cloud-based technology and remote editing into its workflows for a while, but hadn’t discovered the most efficient, streamlined product to make it happen.

WHY SUITE? – XPLR.NASH sought a cloud-based workflow that optimized this technology specifically for post production creatives. Suite does just that. By implementing Suite, the XPLR.NASH team is working more efficiently during the edit and shaving hours per week from their workflows, even given their close proximity.

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“Suite is bringing huge advancements to the non-Hollywood side of post production. We've seen Suite knock out every annoyance from the editing process. It is absolutely wild how much that impacts our boutique video production business. Even if our other editor had to move halfway across the country, our business model would stay exactly the same.”

— Erin Pennington, Creative Director & Editor, XPLR.NASH

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When Erin Pennington and Stuart Deming film around their hometown of Nashville, Tennessee,   for XPLR.NASH, a digital-first travel channel featured on YouTube and other social media platforms, strangers often approach the two and greet them enthusiastically. “Can I shake your hand?” they’ll say. Teachers—yes, more than one—have reached out to acknowledge they reference XPLR videos in the classroom to help students better understand and appreciate Tennessee’s rich history. There have even been out-of-towners looking for a new place to live who have shared stories, on multiple occasions, of moving to Nashville based on what they saw on the XPLR.NASH channels.

“We’ve heard stories like these from close to a hundred people,” says Pennington, the channel’s videographer, creative director, and main editor, on a call from his home outside of Nashville.

Pennington and Deming are the dynamic duo better known as XPLR.NASH, putting Tennessee on the map by creating a video library that showcases its finest attractions, most delicious restaurants, must-see natural spaces, and other “bucket list” activities. Utilizing Suite’s cloud-based post production workflows, the team is able to capture, store, edit, and produce content more easily and, in turn, more frequently, for its growing viewership.

While cloud-first processes are often touted as a way to collaborate with faraway remote creatives more easily, Pennington and his team exemplify the benefits of cloud-based processes for localized teams. XPLR.NASH flips the idea of remote efficiency by implementing it close to home. Here’s the story of one small shop in the Music City using cloud-based technology to put the spotlight on its local community, one viral video at a time.

XPLR’s beginnings of community building

When Pennington and Deming first met, it was a chance rendezvous organized via social media. Deming, the channel’s on-camera host, worked as an expert tour guide around the Nashville area. He sought to bring his taste (and knowledge) of the city to a bigger audience. Pennington, a video professional with years of experience in live broadcast, was seeking a career change and a way to re-instill the creative fervor he's had since he was young. “I wanted to use video to tell stories about brands,” Pennington reflects. “I didn’t know exactly what the focus [of this content] would be. When I met Stuart, he had this vision of showing off Nashville using video. We put our heads together to do something we hadn’t seen before: To highlight our city, to show people the best way to experience this city.”

The pair humbly launched their first video, “A Brief History of Nashville,” on YouTube in 2018 and have since grown their portfolio to include multiple social media platforms and a podcast published on a near-daily basis, coined “The Nashville Daily.” Now, the pair hopes to expand to the entire state of Tennessee and beyond.

Whether it’s a review of the best Nashville Hot Chicken sandwiches, a lesser-known trek to a hidden waterfall or a spotlight piece about a local business in a small town away from the big city, XPLR.NASH takes a personal approach crafting their videos. “We prefer to be out filming and engaging with business owners directly,” says Pennington. “We'll spend an hour talking to someone we just met to get to know their brand, where they come from, how they started and who they are as a person. Is it always the most efficient thing to do? Absolutely not. But it's crucial… because we’re creating content meant to help people experience their communities.”

Editing headaches in the Music City

Through XPLR.NASH, Pennington and Deming are bringing the Music City to life. But their vision for a robust content plan was, at first, limited. “I had a ton of pain points,” laments Pennington. At this time, XPLR was increasing its content frequency and Pennington hired a second editor; at one point, he tried outsourcing to a team in the Philippines. “We ended up spending more time on the re-edits than if we had just done it ourselves,” he expounds.

All the while, Pennington had his eyes turned to emerging cloud-based technologies. He understood that remote editing was becoming more available to post production teams but hadn’t yet found the best way to integrate it into his creative workflows. It felt like when he was younger and the first iPods were being released. “All of a sudden, you could download music onto your device wirelessly. I just couldn't comprehend how, exactly, that was happening. Just like this new era of mobile editing: I didn’t know exactly what it would look like, but knew that I needed it.”

Prior to using Suite, Pennington and his editor would drive 30 minutes there-and-back across Nashville to pass hard drives between each other. They would carry backpacks full of drives home from their various shoots and, without an on-prem server or other internal storage infrastructure, XPLR’s two editors were storing and sharing files over Google Drive, babysitting downloads and uploads, and wasting precious editing time through this “arduous process.”

Cloud workflows on a local scale

However, these headaches aren’t specific to XPLR.NASH—these are some of the most prevalent issues for post production professionals today. Despite these widespread annoyances, some teams still find themselves caught in the “old way of doing things,” as Pennington puts it, hesitant to lean into the new technology. Pennington acknowledges that a habit of using physical media (hard drives, shipping media, etc.) or the time and effort that an individual or team might have spent building up their computer systems could be the biggest hindrances.

“A lot of people are attached to [the idea of] having backups on backups. They also may think that their systems are more powerful because they've spent... five years or whatever building up their computer. I can understand why somebody may be hesitant, but the speeds that Suite puts out are blazing fast. And you can still have those physical backups when working in the cloud, if you want. If they don't want it to adopt [cloud-based workflows], they just really must love sitting around watching files render because, with Suite, that’s no longer part of the process.”

XPLR.NASH is one of the earliest adopters of Suite and, in that time, has reaped the benefits. “Suite is bringing huge advancements to the non-Hollywood side of post production. We've seen Suite knock out every annoyance from the editing process. It is absolutely wild how much that impacts our boutique video production business. Even if our other editor had to move halfway across the country, our business model would stay exactly the same.”

Conclusion & case study highlights:

Suite works behind the scenes to streamline cloud workflows for creative teams, and there are many moving parts that make Suite’s virtual workstations work smoothly with zero-latency playback. Erin Pennington at XPLR.NASH was seeking a cloud-based solution that packaged and optimized the different aspects of cloud tech specifically for post production creatives. Suite does just that. Now, by implementing Suite, Pennington is working more efficiently with team, shaving hours per week from their workflows, even given their close proximity.

For a boutique post production business, every minute matters during the workday. Moreover, everyday can be a workday when you’re self-employed. Suite empowers XPLR.NASH to produce content without hinderance, enabling the  team to meet the demands of its channels and stay on-track highlighting the greatest hits of Tennessee.

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