Videography Company Consolidating Pegasus Drive and SSD

The company operates within the videography and post-production industry. Initially a solo operator, they are preparing to scale their team to about 15 to 20 members. Their workflow involves episodic shooting with high volumes of data, using cameras such as Blackmagic 6K Pros with ProRes file formats, and potentially expanding to newer camera models like the Ronin 4D. The company requires a solution that supports multiple editors and facilitates collaboration across a growing team.

Currently, the company relies heavily on localized storage solutions, including a Pegasus portable drive and SSDs for immediate editing. Their archive strategy involves local NAS or direct drives, with additional cold storage for backup. Editing is done primarily in Final Cut Pro, with some experience using DaVinci Resolve. The company has experimented with cloud-based tools like Frame IO and Blackmagic Cloud, as well as Lucid Link, but has faced challenges with adoption and performance.

- **Hardware Failure:** The Pegasus drive, which cost a significant amount, failed unexpectedly, putting 40 terabytes of data at risk and causing major concern for the team. - **Limited Accessibility:** Localized drives restrict accessibility for multiple editors, complicating collaboration as the team grows. - **Fragmented Tools:** The company currently uses multiple platforms for ingest, coloring, post delivery, and review, which creates inefficiencies and workflow bottlenecks. - **Poor Cloud Experience:** Previous cloud tools like Frame IO were rejected by editors due to usability issues, and the team is cautious about moving away from their current hardware-driven workflow. - **Data Volume Management:** With about a terabyte of data generated per shoot, managing, archiving, and retrieving footage efficiently is a challenge, especially for episodic projects requiring easy reference to past material.

Shade offers an all-in-one cloud-based platform that consolidates the entire post-production workflow—from camera ingest to coloring, post delivery, and review—into a single interface. It functions similarly to Google Drive for uploading, downloading, and file management but includes specialized video review and approval features akin to Frame IO. Shade enables multiple editors to access and collaborate on files without the limitations of localized hardware, ensuring secure, organized, and streamlined archival of all footage. The platform’s granular feedback tools allow team members to leave timestamped notes directly on the video, simplifying communication and speeding up the review process. Shade also integrates with existing editing ecosystems, supporting Final Cut Pro workflows without slowing down timeline performance.