Post producers don’t have it easy. With an ever-increasing number of platforms for distribution and target languages to cater to, getting one’s content to the global market can be challenging to say the least. To top it all, given the current competitive landscape, producers are always under pressure to reduce costs and meet tight deadlines!
Having been in the Creative Services business for two decades, we’ve all seen it before — Post Coordinators and Supervisors getting burnt out working late nights, often juggling multiple projects. Too many places to be, too many balls in the air, to the breaking point where they need a change. You can see it in their eyes. What adds to the stress is dealing with multiple vendors to get various kinds of post finishing work done — from Color Grading to Master QC to Localization.
Localization is not the least of these challenges. Different platforms specify different deliverables, including Access Services like Closed Captions (CC) and Audio Description (AD); along with As-Broadcast Scripts (ABS) and Combined Continuity Spotting Lists (CCSL). Each of these deliverables requires specialized teams and tools to execute. Needless to say, they also have a significant impact on the budget — usually at least tens of thousands of dollars (much more for a major release).
It is therefore extremely critical to plan post deliverables well in advance to ensure that you are in complete control of turnaround time (TAT), expected spend and potential cost saving opportunities. Let’s look at a few ways of streamlining the process of creating Access Services deliverables. To do this, we need to understand the various factors at play.
First of all, we need to consider the amount of effort involved in creating these deliverables. There is typically a lot of overlap, as deliverables like As-Broadcast Scripts and Combined Continuity Spotting Lists are often required for creating Closed Captions and Audio Description. This means that it is cheaper to combine the creation of all these deliverables instead of getting them done separately. For example, an ABS may be $10/min to create and a CC file may be $7/min to create, but you can get both done together for $11/min. A CCSL is $18/min, but CC+ABS+CCSL would be $26/min instead of $35/min individually.
The second factor to think about is security. Given that pre-release content is extremely vulnerable to piracy, the days of getting an extra DVD with visible timecode for Closed Captions should be over. Even the days of sending a non-studio-approved link just to create the deliverables should be over. Why? Because it is extremely easy (and free!) to create a folder in CLEAR™ Media ERP’s Production Cloud for this purpose. There is no additional cost to send and receive videos or post deliverable files if you already have Production Cloud set up for a show. It doesn’t even matter if the Access Services deliverables are being created by Prime Focus Technologies (creator of One CLEAR) or any other vendor. You can keep your pre-release content completely safe, leveraging the software’s advanced security features which include multi-factor authentication, Okta integration, bulk watermarking, burnt-in watermarks for downloads, secure script & document distribution and more.
In fact, if you choose to work with us to create your Access Services deliverables, we are happy to set up a secure space in a free Production Cloud account for you to send and receive the files. We’re also fully equipped to deliver end-to-end post services like Master QC (across all latest formats), Color Grading, Compliance Editing, Digital Packaging & Delivery and more. Our proven global delivery model, supported by CLEAR, enables us to deliver the highest quality services within faster TAT at the lowest cost.
With Production Cloud, you get one beautifully organized and secure location to store all of your Access Services deliverables. There’s also a good chance that the studio you are delivering to has their own Production Cloud or CLEAR account, in which case they can simply copy and paste the files into their internal MAM system, and you can consider it ‘delivered’. Your team can finally sit back and focus on what matters the most — creating incredible content!
