Brightwater Studio replaced four tools with one portal for video review

Brightwater Studio is a 40-person video production company in Melbourne. They make brand films, campaign spots and a steady stream of social cut-downs for clients across Australia.

The challenge

Video review is hard to do by email. Clients watched a cut, then wrote notes like "around the middle, the bit with the dog, can it be shorter?" Editors spent time working out which moment a note meant before they could act on it.

Delivery was spread across four tools: one for sharing cuts, one for large file transfer, a shared drive for finals and email for everything in between. Each had its own login and its own idea of which version was current.

Clients felt the cost too. They were asked to create accounts in tools they'd use for one project, and they often watched an older cut by mistake because the newest one was in a different place.

• Feedback on video arrived without timestamps
• Four tools for review and delivery, each with its own login
• Revision rounds multiplied because notes were unclear

What they changed

Brightwater moved review and delivery into Ferrybox. Clients watch each cut in the portal and comment on a specific frame; comments appear as markers on the timeline, so editors jump straight to the moment in question.

Each cut is a version in a stack, and clients can compare versions side by side. When a cut is approved, the master files are delivered from Dropbox through the portal, without expiring links.

The team gets approvals and new comments in Slack, and call recordings from Zoom are attached to the project timeline so decisions made on calls aren't lost.

The switch happened project by project. New productions started in Ferrybox straight away, and ongoing ones moved over at the start of their next review round, so no client had to change tools in the middle of a cut.

The results

Brightwater retired four tools and now runs client review and delivery through one portal. Revision rounds dropped by 52%, because notes are specific enough to act on the first time.

Every cut now gets frame-accurate notes, and editors spend their time editing rather than interpreting.

Review rounds also became easier to plan. Because clients leave all their notes on a cut in one sitting, each round has a clear start and end, and the edit schedule holds. Producers can tell a client with confidence when the next cut will arrive, and editors no longer lose an afternoon to a late note that changes the brief. Clients like it too: they have one link for everything to do with their project – every cut, every note and every final file – and it's always up to date.

For Brightwater, the clearest sign it worked is that nobody on the team misses the old tools.