TIFF 2020: Postlab and Remote Collaboration
When Ontario more or less went into lockdown back in March of 2020, the TIFF video team had to quickly adapt and find a way to work remotely. That workflow would evolve over the coming months and by the time we were preparing for the festival we had pretty much everything under control.
However, the festival is a very different beast, and with a number of the deliverables we were presented with a new host of challenges to solve. Perhaps the biggest one was in relation to our TIFF Tribute Awards highlight reels. Up until this point our video producers were more or less working on individual projects, with very little collaboration needed beyond feedback (which was provided through Frame.io - another great service that has been absolutely critical to our COVID workflow). But the TIFF Tribute reels were much different. We would be highlighting whole careers, looking through large filmographies, which meant having to cull material from hours and hours of feature films. And because we were working on such a tight timeline, we knew we were going to need extra support. But with all of us spread out across the GTA, and with so many moving pieces, I knew we were going to need a better solution than the one we currently had.
Enter Postlab.
I had been hearing things about Postlab for a while from other Final Cut Pro X editors on Twitter, and when looking for a file delivery solution someone from the team reached out about their Postlab Drive service. I had also used the Hedge service many times in the past (and was a huge fan), so I knew it was coming from a team that knew what they were doing. So when it came time for me to try and figure out the best workflow for myself and an assistant editor to collaborate on the Tribute reels, I thought it might be a good opportunity to try it out.
The Postlab Interface
So what exactly is Postlab? In short, it’s a tool that can be used by editors in collaborative workflows to share projects/libraries, as well as media. One of the things people love about Avid is the way it allows for collaboration through its bin system, and its bin locking system. Unfortunately, for those of us using NLEs like Final Cut Pro X these features are not native to the application. Postlab works in a similar fashion: you check out projects/libraries when you work on them - effectively locking out collaborators from making changes. You make your changes, upload the updated version, checking your project back in, and now your collaborators are free to check that project out themselves. In a way it’s version management for editors, combined with the ability to jump back to any version of a project in a manner similar to Apple’s Time Machine service.
It’s all pretty magical.
For our needs, we didn’t have multiple editors working on the actual edits, but we did have an assistant editor helping to go through the hours of film material to help pull moments to be included in the reels. Having never used the service before, I I wasn’t exactly sure what the best workflow would be. So, I took to Twitter and just asked. Within a couple hours someone from the Postlab team set-up a chat with me and we discussed the best workflow for our needs, and the best approach to implementing it. This level of customer service for someone who hadn’t even committed to using the software yet (I was still using the free trial) really impressed me.
With this information in hand, I set about prepping the libraries. I made a library for the assistant editor, and put the copies of the films he would need to review in that library. I then made a second library for myself, and put the films I needed to review in that. I uploaded them both to Postlab and we both set to work. Because of the large file sizes, and because we wanted to keep things simple we didn’t take advantage of Postlab Drive and the media management tools; we simply would point the libraries to our own local copies of the films. It worked perfectly.
At the end of each day we would then upload our libraries back to Postlab, and add an update of what had changed. Postlab actually forces you to put something here, which may seem annoying at first, but ultimately is incredibly useful down the line when looking back through the various versions.
Postlab forces you to fill in notes when you upload. You’ll be glad you did later.
Once the assistant editor had finished going through his films, I simply opened up his library, and copied the contents to my own; effectively merging the two. My library now became the canonical library from which all my work would continue.
At this point, we more or less stopped using the collaborative features, as I was working on my own for the actual edits. However I continued to use Postlab because I liked that it was essentially acting as a backup/versioning tool for all of my edits. If I ever needed to return to an earlier version of an edit I could grab it from the cloud in seconds. That piece of mind was really nice. So much so in fact, that I continued to use Postlab for the other reels, even when they didn’t require me to collaborate with the assistant.
There were some kinks along the way. Because it needs to connect to the cloud, and do various checks and refreshes Postlab can feel a little slow at times. Not to the point of driving you crazy, but it was noticeable friction that I hope can be optimized in the future.
The word “Fatal” is not one you ever want to see during production. Luckily everything was fine.
I also ran into some issues with some errors that didn’t quite make sense. It gave the impression that something had gone wrong and my media or project was lost, but the good news was everything seemed to be fine. I reached out to the Postlab team and they immediately started troubleshooting with me. Still not entirely sure what went wrong, but since nothing was lost I didn’t stress too much about it.
But then there was the bigger, scarier bug, when I booted up Postlab and suddenly my entire project had disappeared. It was as if I had never downloaded it to my harddrive. The good news was I was able to recover it, and again, Postlab was keen to help sort out what might have gone wrong. I’m still not entirely sure what did go wrong (and this serves as an excellent reminder to backup your projects, even if you’re saving to the cloud) but despite a few moments of panic, nothing was lost.
While I never really took full advantage of what Postlab has to offer, I was thoroughly impressed by what I did experience. It’s a very slick tool, that doesn’t require a background in sysadmin/I.T. to get up and running. As more and more of us move to remote workflows, apps like Postlab are likely to become more common place, and I’m incredibly impressed by what the service has to offer. The price is actually quite reasonable, though perhaps a little on the high side for some depending on how many seats you’d need. The customer service is outstanding, and the integration with modern NLEs is second to none (I was using the service prior to the recent Final Cut Pro media management updates, but my understanding is that they work together flawlessly). While it may not bring Final Cut Pro X quite to the level of Avid’s media management and bin-locking it’s darn close. Let me put it this way: if it were up to me, I’d put our entire team on Postlab tomorrow.
I also want to give a shout out to Isaac, Paul, and everyone at Postlab/Hedge for helping me out with this project and building a workflow that suited our needs.
Normally I’d post a link here to watch the final reels that we edited, but due to licensing restrictions you will unfortunately have to wait for the time being. Be sure to check back again soon to see the final product.
I also want to note that the license for Postlab was paid for out of pocket and not provided to us, and that Postlab and its parent company Hedge are in no way associated with TIFF, nor did they have any say in the content of this review. This review reflects my own personal experience with the software and does not reflect the views/opinions of TIFF.