by Mike Buhrow,
Senior Editor, TeamWorks Media
When I began editing back in 1990, I never thought a computer would be such a great assistant. To me, the inevitable change that occurs in the business of media creation is always the most exciting and one of the easiest aspects of the overall industry to accept.
By change, I mean advancements in technology and its role in assisting the overall process. By allowing us to automate menial tasks automation opens up large amounts of time to utilize our creative abilities.
I have seen rooms filled with film, one-inch tapes, three-quarter-inch tapes, betaSP tapes, DigiBeta tapes, DVCam tapes, DAT tapes, and so on. By now, some people reading this are thinking of all the other formats of tapes and file formats we have had to keep track of, log, organize, store and sometimes just remember what was on them. Now we can set up procedures with automation to make all the different forms of media that anyone would want to see.
We had a client where we had to create multiple high-resolution media files for 14 unique presentations on stadium video boards, webM files for playback in a museum, H.264 files for the client to use as they wish, as well as MP4 files for social media that people will watch on their phones, computers and tablets. Now we can set up exports of all these formats easily using our EditShare automation. Then we can maintain properly named folders that are searchable by anyone, anytime, and anywhere as long as they have a computer and access to the internet.
Some may look at automation as a way to take away jobs from people who are employed to perform some of these tasks. Others may look at automation as a way to create more jobs and allow more time for people to create media.
In my opinion, we should embrace these advancements when they present themselves because they will continue to make the end result of our work better. And if you don’t know if you have automation capabilities in your infrastructure or if you don’t think it is something you can learn by yourself, ask your equipment supplier to help you get going. The return on investment will be incredible and you will see great change in the end result.
Mike Buhrow is the Senior Editor at TeamWorks Media and is an AsaPro Contributor. Click here to see all of Mike’s articles.