Creative Force's External Post-Production framework, in conjunction with a pre-configured FTP server, allows automated movement of files between editors and your production data. With video-type productions enabled for your studio, you can expect the same reliable transfers for your video retouching work.
➕ Add On: Working with video files requires your studio to have the video extension add-on enabled. If you are interested in using them in your studio, please contact your CSM.
Overview
Sending files and receiving them back from FTP-vendors is an automatic process; however, Creative Force will need the user’s input to map the files back correctly for productions involving video files.
In this article, we will cover a general overview of what you need to know as a Studio using the FTP method for your external post-production specifcially when working with video-type productions.
If you are looking for information on setting up a new post-production vendor, see our related article on setup here.
For information that is not specific to videos, see our dedicated article on Transfer Settings here.
Folder Structure
In the Style Guide, under the 'External Post' tab, you can define the external post folder structure. This can be separately defined per Photography Position.
Within the defined folder structure, Creative Force will automatically create standardized sub-folders within that defined path to support video task management.
Task Folder
On the vendor’s side, the task folder will be automatically named with the following template convention:
ProductCode_ProductionType (yyyy.MM.dd_HH.mm.ss)
The vendor should download this folder to receive all the necessary files to execute the edits.
Inside the root task folder, the following associated files can be found:
Task File | Function |
Source Video files | All the relevant video files that were provided from the previous Workflow Step to be edited. |
Naming Convention file (.txt) | A list of the expected file names to be returned in the download folder. |
Read-Me (.txt) | A read-me file containing general instructions for the vendor. |
Transfer Log | The transfer log contains a list of all uploaded files, including their directories on the FTP server. |
Color Reference files | Any color reference files that are associated with the Production. |
Instruction files (.html) | Any instructions and markup that were set to be shared with External Post at a previous Workflow step. |
📝 Note: Within the task folder, the source video files will be sub-filed into Folders by Style Guide position.
File Return
Naming_Convention.txt is a helper file that provides a list of the expected file names to be returned in the download folder.
Vendors will need to make sure the file name follows the naming convention when returning files in the Download path. Then, Creative Force will use the name to map the files to the corresponding positions.
To understand where this naming convention comes from, we can look at an example.
Example
With this Style Guide, the first position has a preset that requires two assets– one main and one variant.
The second position has no preset and requires one asset file.
For the Preset mapped to the first position, we see the following details are associated:
Specifcially, note the Preset Variant Codes are 'main,' and 'variant-1.'
When the task is sent to the FTP vendor, the Naming_convention.txt will be sent with it. In this text file, the vendor will see the instructions to name the files.
Essentially, the naming convention is:
TaskID_positionname_presetvariantcode.fileformat
If you don’t have a preset, then the naming convention is:
TaskID_positionname.ext
.ext refers to the file extension (either .MOV or .MP4)
📝 Note: If the position name contains special characters that cannot be used in the file name or folder name, then Creative Force will replace these characters with a single underscore '_'
example forbidden characters: ",<,>,:,*,?,\,/|
Rejections
To be able to send rejections to your vendor, please make sure that you have your Clean-up set up as ‘Archived' in the post-production vendor settings.
After you reject a task, your vendor will see a ‘Rejected’ folder in their download folder.
In this folder, your vendor will see the following files:
Rejected video files
Rejection note files
Transfer completed log file
At this step, your vendor does not need to change the filename; they just need to edit the videos according to your instructions and upload them again.
Bypassing External Post
As opposed to with image-type asset productions, when bypassing the External Post step for a video (if the vendor has already uploaded one of the required return files)
Creative Force will not move this video into our system, but instead take the originally transferred video files and move those files to the next Workflow step.