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Higher Education Company Consolidating Frame IO and Lucid Link
Company Situation
This company operates within the higher education sector, specifically focusing on media production for online executive and professional development courses. The team is relatively small but growing, having recently transitioned from outsourcing course creation to building an internal media production unit. Their content production involves collaborations with freelance editors spread across multiple locations. The company supports a mix of original filming projects, asset archiving, and reusing existing media to create diverse course content in partnership with various stakeholders.
Existing Workflow
The team currently manages their media assets through a cloud-based shared drive system where raw footage, project files, and exports are stored in organized folders. Editors upload and download files from these drives, which function as virtual workspaces. For review and collaboration, they are in transition from using Frame IO to other solutions. Their workflow relies heavily on fast internet connections to enable remote editing and file sharing. Additionally, they maintain a stock footage and template asset library (e.g., animations, intros/outros) for course production.
Issues with the Existing Workflow
Key pain points include:
Security and compliance hurdles: As part of a large, established institution, the company must adhere to stringent IT security protocols, including the need for Single Sign-On (SSO) and completion of detailed security approval forms (TPSA). Previous vendors like Lucid Link could not meet these requirements, causing workflow disruptions.
Fragmented toolsets: Using multiple platforms (Lucid Link for remote editing and Frame IO for review) adds complexity and cost.
Risk of data loss: Reliance on local drives or freelance editors’ machines poses a risk if files are lost due to hardware failure or personnel turnover.
Asset discoverability: Searching and reusing past footage or media assets is cumbersome without advanced search capabilities.
Cost inefficiencies: Maintaining multiple monthly subscriptions for different tools adds to overhead.
How Shade Would Change Their Workflow
Shade offers a unified cloud-based storage and collaboration platform that functions as a virtual drive accessible to all editors and stakeholders. It supports secure, compliant access with SSO and can fulfill institutional IT security protocols, streamlining approvals. Shade integrates asset management and review functionalities, potentially replacing multiple tools like Frame IO and Lucid Link with one platform. Its AI-powered search enables natural language queries to quickly locate footage or media assets, improving reuse and repurposing efforts. By centralizing their workflows on Shade, the company can reduce the risk of data loss, simplify collaboration, and lower software subscription costs.
Benefits
- Meets stringent IT security and compliance requirements, including SSO support and TPSA form completion
- Consolidates remote editing and review workflows into a single platform, reducing complexity and cost
- Enables cloud-based editing with a virtual drive accessible globally by editors and freelancers
- AI-driven natural language search improves asset discoverability and reuse
- Protects projects and media assets from loss due to local drive failure or personnel changes
- Streamlines media archiving and workflow management for multiple ongoing projects
- Reduces reliance on multiple software subscriptions, lowering operational expenses