Video Edition across and between

Teams

TechCrunch by Ryan Lawler Yesterday

Over the years, the content creators have benefited from more powerful video editing software, but as the tools for editing have improved, the way content creators manage those edits hasn’t kept pace. These days, videos are produced and edited by widely distributed teams that mostly use email and spreadsheets to keep track of all the different assets and revisions that are being worked on.

First Cut Pro, which is launching at TechCrunch Disrupt today, seeks to change all that. It provides editing teams with a cloud-based tool for collaborating and monitoring all the different changes that are made to videos during the post-production process.The tool allows for editors to submit video files, which can then be watched directly through the platform. Different stakeholders can then make comments or feedback directly within the platform, which will pause the video being watched and time-stamp where revisions should be made. That’s a big step forward from how the process is normally done today — which includes lots of pausing videos, going into spreadsheets and manually making notes of timestamps and revisions.

Users can respond to feedback inline on the platform, or they can respond from email notifications that are sent whenever changes or comments have been made to a project. It allows stakeholders to manage multiple projects and revisions at once, and integrates directly into the editing environment.

First Cut Pro supports the ability to export markers into .CSV files for spreadsheets, .XML metadata files for Adobe Premier, After Effects and Apple’s Final Cut Pro, as well as .txt files for importing into AVID Media Composer. That said, videos aren’t stored in the cloud — they’re stored locally on the viewer’s computer or on network attached storage. That means that high-quality versions of the videos can be viewed instantly.

The platform has a SaaS-based licensing model for users, with variable pricing based on the number of collaborators and projects that are being worked on at once. Pricing starts free for individual accounts with up to five collaborators. If you need more than that, freelancer accounts start at $39 a month and go up to $119 a month for power users with up to 20 collaborators and 7 projects. Above that, and it can work on enterprise pricing plans.

Question & Answer

Q: How big of a problem is this?

A: Between movies, TV, and ads, there’s probably $30 billion spent on post-production. There’s probably 20,000 ad agencies. Just in advertising, it’s pretty sizable. Video is literally ubiquitous.

Q: How do you get the client to log in?

A: Our goal was to make it extremely easy to use. However if you do want to have an ongoing relationship, client gets notified when changes are made.

Q: What were customers using before this?

A: Typically they use emails and phone calls. One client used spreadsheets. You keep content on servers and we’ll work with that.

Q: How do you capture customers?

A: Today it’s very freelancer-focused. They work with different clients and use this tool, getting those clients to also use them.