We're a content and marketing agency in the south of England. This page walks through how a video goes from shoot day to a client's feed, where the work gets stuck, and what we'd want Timeliner to take over.
The team
Everyone is remote apart from the shoot crew. The editing team works from Vietnam and the Philippines, so most handoffs happen overnight in UK time.
UK
Founder. Shoots, colour grades and gives final approval.
Vietnam
Operations manager. Allocates edits, reviews every version, chases clients.
Philippines
Head editor. Sets the quality bar and second checks anything unsure.
Philippines and Vietnam
Turn graded cuts into finished reels, ads and long form.
Vietnam
Cut raw footage to script in DaVinci. One also posts for clients.
UK
Cover shoot days in the north and south alongside Lloyd.
The workflow today
Every step below is real. The gold dashed lines are where nothing moves until somebody types a message to somebody else.
We film talking to camera, b-roll and drone for one client, usually 10 to 20 videos in a day.
Cards copied, proxies made by our own script
Masters go on the editing drive, proxies go to the client's folder on Google Drive, and a DaVinci project is set up.
Cutter told in Slack that the footage is ready
A cutter lays each script out in DaVinci, then Lloyd colour grades the cut.
Uyen messages the editor with the job and the Notion row
The editor builds the video from the client's edit guide in Notion and ticks an eleven point quality check on the row.
Editor uploads to Frame.io, then tells Uyen it's up
Uyen reviews in two batches a day and leaves frame accurate notes. Ryan checks anything she's unsure of.
Uyen sends the client a review link on WhatsApp or email
The client watches and comments, or replies on WhatsApp with a voice note, or says nothing for a week.
Uyen follows up by hand until there's an answer
The revision loop. Steps 4 to 6 repeat for every round of changes, with the same messages each time. Our average is 2.4 rounds per video, and about a third of videos go to a third round.
Approved by the client, the editor is told to export the master
The final file goes into the client's Exports folder on Google Drive and the Notion row is moved on.
Posting team told the video is ready to schedule
For clients on a posting package we write the caption and schedule it on Instagram and Facebook.
The problem
The work itself is fine. The problem is that every handoff depends on someone remembering to send a message, and nobody can see the whole picture at once.
She tells editors what to start, editors tell her when they're done, and she tells the client. If she's off for a day the pipeline stops.
There's no reminder when a client hasn't opened a link. Uyen works out who's overdue from memory and sends each nudge herself.
We track editor rounds closely, but we have no numbers on how long each client takes to review, who's always late, or who asks for the most changes.
Some clients comment on Frame.io, some send WhatsApp voice notes, some reply to an email. Notes get missed and that turns into an extra round.
The job is in Notion, the review is in Frame.io and the file is in Drive. The Notion status is moved by hand, so it's often a step behind.
Frame.io's API won't accept a token on our account, so we run nightly scripts against the web app just to copy version numbers and approvals into Notion.
Onboarding
So you know what onboarding involves. Each tool below holds part of the job today.
| Tool | What it holds | Size today |
|---|---|---|
| Notion | The edit list: one row per video with script, client, editor, status, round count and a quality checklist. Plus an edit guide per client. | 1,800 rows, 14 statuses |
| Frame.io | Review copies, version history (V1, V2, V3) and every comment. One project per client. | 39 projects, 750+ approved edits |
| Google Drive | Raw proxies per shoot, final exports per client, brand assets. The client's copy of record. | Shared drive, one folder per client |
| Slack and WhatsApp | Every handoff message. Slack for the team, WhatsApp for clients. | One channel per person, one group per client |
The statuses a video moves through in Notion today, every one changed by hand:
What we need
If Timeliner can do these, it replaces most of the messages on this page.
Assign an edit and the editor is notified with the brief, the footage and the client's edit guide in one place.
When a new version goes up, the reviewer is notified and the status moves forward without a message.
Most of our clients are tradespeople and small business owners who'll only ever open a link on their phone.
If a client hasn't opened or approved a link after a set time, they get a nudge, and Uyen only steps in when it's really late.
Time to first view, time to approval and rounds per video, by client and by editor, so we can see who's holding things up.
The final export goes to the client's Drive folder automatically, and the job is marked delivered.
Notion, Google Drive and Slack at least, with an API or webhooks we can actually sign in to, and a clean way to export our data if we ever need to.
If it helps your team set things up, we can share a sample Notion row, a client's Frame.io project and our Drive folder layout on a call.