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 video.
Folder structure
In the style guide, for video category production type positions, you can define the external post folder structure, similarly as with photo.
Within the defined folder structure, Creative Force will automatically create standardized sub-folders to support video task management.
On the vendor’s side, the task folder will be named with this template convention ProductCode_ProductionType (yyyy.MM.dd_HH.mm.ss). The vendor should download this folder in order to receive all files needed to execute the video edit.
In this task folder, the vendor will always find the following files:
Source video files organized by style guide position name folders
Color reference files (if available)
Instruction note files (if available)
Read-me text file with expected file naming convention
Transfer completed log file
File mapping
Naming_Convention.txt is a helper file that provides the expected result file name in the download folder. You will need to make sure the file name follows the naming convention and Creative Force will use the name to map the files to the corresponding positions.
When exporting the edited video file(s), the vendor should copy and paste the provided naming convention(s) to deliver the expected file(s) back to the studio through Creative Force.
Once the vendor has exported the edited video file(s) with the provided file name(s), then they transfer the files back to Creative Force via FTP.
To understand where this naming convention comes from, we can look at an example. With this style guide, the first position has a preset that requires two assets one main and one variant, and the second position has no preset and requires one asset file.
The preset is as follow and please note the preset variant code:
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. The preset variant code and file format can be defined in the preset settings. If you don’t have a preset, then the naming convention is TaskID_positionname.ext. Ext here can be either .MOV or .MP4
Note:
If position name contains special character which cannot be used in the file name and folder name (example: ",<,>,:,*,?,\,/|) then Creative Force will replace these characters with single underscore (_).
Rejections
To be able to send rejections to your vendor, please make sure that you have your Clean-up set up as ‘Archived’.
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
Other than with non-video files, when skipping the External Post step for a video and the vendor has already uploaded one of the required outputs, CF will not move this video into our system but instead take the original transmit Video files and move those into the next step of the Workflow.