In a post covid world, remote editing and collaboration is key.
When we work on projects with remote editors and even editors in other countries, we’re constantly looking for new ways to improve our collaborative workflow. Remote working is the new norm but it presents challenges. Adobe Teams is striving to address them. But syncing projects with other people can be stressful. Is Adobe Teams reliable enough to trust?
So we first heard of Adobe Teams for Premiere Pro back in 2017….the idea was good.. being able to collaborate on the same project with multiple editors and assistants.
BUT as with any new launch of any feature, the horror stories started trickling in.. how it crashes all the time, how it doesn’t work, sequences get over-written. Warning signs flashed in my paranoid editor brain.
Fast forward 5 years.. Adobe has actually made a lot of improvements to Teams. Is it time to put our faith in it? We have a super secret project that we’re starting to work on, this requires multiple groups of editors and producers working in 4 different countries. If Adobe Teams is all it’s cracked up to be then I’m all in.
Here’s your quick video guide to the Adobe Teams functions…
So, Adobe Teams, can I break you?!
Converting to teams project
Taking one of the project files that our AE’s prepped, I opened it in Premiere Pro and converted it to a Teams project. It will prompt you to invite adobe users that you want to collaborate with. Once loaded, it was up and running. Easy as that. You can, of course, create a new Teams project from scratch if you want to. Disclaimer – we are doing this test in-house only but collaborating within a facility is as important as remote collaboration.
Editing and sharing
I made a sequence with an assembly edit and shared the change, and my colleague on another computer received it and my sequence appeared in his project. Very suspicious with how easy it was, we decided to overload it to see what happens.
So I carried on making more edits with Multicam clips and music & effects and adjustments layers with flares and transitions and what not, while my colleague on another computer added in more footage and made his own sequences and added markers with producer notes. Each time we shared changes, it all just appeared so effortlessly. At one point, premiere did crash! before I could share my change. My hopes and dreams seemed dashed. But, when I opened the Teams project up again, whatever I had done was right there in my sequence waiting for me to share it.
So far so good with separate sequences, but what if we both work on the same sequence at the same time? Will one person’s edit be over-written?
Conflict resolution
So my colleague and I both made changes on my test sequence, I shared my change first which saved in the cloud. When my colleague tried to share his change, it came up with a prompt that said that there was a conflict with the sequence, and to choose to keep my edit, his edit or keep both. Great! This all looks promising.
Through our testing, we came across some ways to help make Teams work better for you. Let me share some quick insights.
It’s important to understand what the icons in the timeline mean.
Every time you are ready to share your changes with the Team, you have to hit the Share My Changes button.
To receive changes, hit the Get Latest Changes button. You won’t be able to share your changes until all changes have been received.
When you’re working on a sequence, a white pencil icon will appear
A yellow pencil icon indicates that someone else is working on the sequence.
A white up arrow indicates that you have made changes but haven’t shared it yet.
A red down arrow is a warning for when someone else has worked on the same sequence that you are working on. Which means that when you share your change, the conflict has to be resolved before you can continue working.
It’s important to stay organised especially when you’re working in a shared project. So whenever you share a change, type exactly what you did in the comment box. This is so that later on if you have to sift through various versions on the cloud, it will clearly show what the changes are.
Warning! This will break it…
Each adobe license can actual be used on up to two computers, BUT Teams only works as described with unique adobe licenses. if you open a teams project on two computers sharing the same license, all kinds of crazy things start happening, edits appear without even hitting share. So whatever you do, make sure it’s not the same user license that you are collaborating with.
So.. in conclusion, a definite YES to using Teams to collaborate remotely. This works perfectly. It is now our go to tool for cross country editing and remote collaboration. Do. It.
In the eighties it was “Turbo”, the 90s was “2000”, the naughties was “Nano”…. now it’s “Remote” working. Embrace it!
Some other techniques we use to support this philosophy are JumpDesktop, Adobe Productions & Zoom collaboration. Blogs coming soon!! Resolve also have this covered with their cloud options. We will be exploring this also.
Cue the cheesy stock image!
