Case Study: WTFN Entertainment edits its production room

WTFN Entertainment needed to transform its production workflow, creating a uniform process across the organisation.

Steve Oemcke, director of content at WTFN Entertainment walked through its journey with Digital Nation and how it reduced editing time plus uplifted its productivity.

Following the implementation of Lumi Digital Production Hubs, the Melbourne-based production company set up a centralised system, creating a standard process for production teams.

The results saw editing time cut back plus overtime costs drop and a better onboarding experience.

WTFN Entertainment’s productions include Bondi Vet, Space Invaders and Paramedics.

Oemcke told Digital Nation, that Covid-19 “amplified some of the challenges” within the business plus realising “we had a very disparate way of organising our programs and a whole range of different systems.”

“What ultimately would happen, is you'd have people come and join your company. They would run a project and they would have their own system by which they would want to run the back end and the connectivity of the project,” Oemcke said. 

“Some people would use Google Docs; others would have another system and you'd have this fairly disparate way of doing things.”

“If you're making multiple shows, you're in my position. We need this helicopter view over everything that's happening. It becomes very difficult when everyone's trying to educate you on the way their system works.”

As an example, Google Docs require various permissions and can lead to questions raised around security.

“The idea of us as a company and the other issue with that system is that then when people finish on your show, what's the security around it?

“What happened, do these people all still have permissions? Is that data still available to them through their Google Docs? It makes it very difficult for us to turn the tap off to people once the freelancers are finished and then take control and security over our IP and our content.” 

"Through freelancers, I have seen Google Docs from other projects on other companies that worked on to go, Hey, look, this is what we did on another show. It’s almost assumed that it's okay to do that, which it's not. That's somebody else's IP.”

Oemcke said the health pandemic meant the “workforce kind of splintered” with the new platform creating “cohesion between all the parts.”

Since using the new solution in 2021, Oemcke said the new platform has led to time saved in the editing room while also providing a bird's-eye view of production.

“I need the helicopter view across anything from five to eight productions that are potentially happening concurrently. This allows me to take that helicopter view, step into any show that I need to. So that's been the benefit to me [and] the benefit has been around security of our data.”

He said, “Anecdotally, it's saving us time in the editing room through the efficiencies that it's creating.” 

Oemcke said while some departments were first resistant to the changes, many more have found the solution efficient. 

“Any new system, there's a reluctance to use it because [and] people are time poor”.   

As the company rolls out its new workflow, Oemcke said WTFN will stay up to date with new features.”

“My view across the next few years is to have everything on Lumi and to have everyone educated in how to use Lumi.

“There's a lot of advancements that these guys are planning to build into the system over the next period of time”.

One feature Oemcke is exploring is a ‘casting’ feature that allows the team to better place and find talent for its productions. 

“It's been great because again, it just means it's another thing that we can do in a centralised way on this platform, rather than having to do something else in another place.

“Across the next few years, it will just be a matter of continuing to expand what we're doing.

“I'm sure that what the platform looks like now will be completely different in three years,” Oemcke said.