Let’s try out a few workflow tips and tricks for using this popular video review and collaboration software.

If there’s one part of the post-production process that every video editor absolutely loves, it’s the review and feedback phase. Because who doesn’t love hearing all the reasons your hard work needs to be changed—it’s the best!

All kidding aside, editing media together is hard enough. The task usually becomes exponentially harder for every additional person involved in the process. However, thanks to new advancements in video review and collaboration software, new solutions are available that help to smooth this process out.

One of the best video review and collaboration tools is Frame.io, which has become standard for many video editors and production agencies. Yet, even with these advanced tools and plenty of features, there are still some general rules and guidelines you should follow for giving and receiving feedback.

So let’s explore all the best tips and tricks for streamlining your review process with Frame.io.

Make an Account (and Familiarize Yourself with the App)

As you should with any new program or app, it’s best to take a little time to click around and explore before diving into your first project. For Frame.io, it’s straightforward to get started.

All you need to do is create an account, download the app, and make an account, and you’re pretty much ready to begin. That being said, if you haven’t used a video review and collaboration platform before, there are some elements that might seem new or tricky.

However, if you watch the video above and spend even just a little bit of time clicking around in the app, you should learn the basics pretty quickly, regardless if you’re an active video editor adding it to your workflow or just a client using the app for reviews.

Now, moving on to actual tips for working with the collaboration and review tools within Frame.io. (Which itself is now included in the Adobe Creative Cloud thanks to Adobe’s acquisition of Frame.io — so if you’re using Premiere Pro, you should probably at least consider adding Frame.io to your workflow for free.)

Once a video file has been uploaded, edited, and shared with a client or team, you’ll have an easy-to-use interface for providing timestamp-specific feedback. You can watch the video and make real-time notes that can be passed back to the editing team.

Still, as easy as it is to use, it’s just as easy to over-use. For some editors, the more notes, the better (and the more specific is always true at that). However, things can become quickly convoluted if you add more than one point per comment.

Adding more notes with shorter pieces of information that we can clearly understand and easily fix will always be preferable over fewer notes that go over tons of different details.

Here’s a perfectly good example:

3:01 — let’s end this shot early here at this point.

Versus a perfect bad example:

3:01 — I like this shot a lot but maybe let’s try to bring in another angle quicker? Also, some cool logo animation would be great before this. It’d also be great to have the music sound more dramatic at times.

Be Specific and Provide Examples

Elaborating on the above, the best feedback any client or team member can leave is feedback that is specific and to the point. It’s also hugely helpful to provide examples whenever possible. (Us editors are visual learners, so seeing something the way you envision is always better than just trying to describe it.)

Here are some more good and bad examples.

Here’s the good:

0:15 — can we start the video with title cards like these from It’s Always Sunny…?

Versus the bad:

0:15 — this intro feels very stale and corporate; what’s something we can do to make it simple and funny?

Don’t Be Afraid to Break Things Up

Another good way to look at things in regards to feedback is to treat every piece of information you have as its own thought. Even if they feel connected to you overall, to a video editor, they always represent individual tasks. Much of these feedback tips genuinely come down to this—we’ll always take more short, active, and direct sentences over less long, open-ended, and rambling emails.

So, if you find yourself writing out longer notes that are longer than one short sentence, consider breaking those up into separate sections.

For example, here’s a longer lousy note:

4:55 — Overall, this was great, but it felt like it went too long? We also want to add our YouTube ending screen template at the very end. Also, we need to get cuts for our social media channels as well.

Versus several good notes:

4:35 — Let’s cut here to end this last scene earlier.

4:36 — After a fade-out, we can add our YouTube ending screen template, which you can download with [this link].

4:37 — Great work. We’ll also need cuts for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, following the guidelines we sent over. 

Consolidate Feedback as Much as Possible

Finally, as any editor friend will tell you, contradictory revision requests are the bane of their existence. The best way to ensure that your editors (or post-production companies) aren’t doing unnecessary or redundant work is to always consolidate all of your feedback before sending over revision requests.

Even if you’re the first point of contact for a project, if you feel like your manager or partner might want to review a video draft as well, be sure to send it their way too before you send your own feedback.

And truth be told, Frame.io is a great platform for handling multiple cooks as it allows multiple users to review the same videos, see all the other notes, and add new ones.

Even if these notes become quite numerous, having them all there and all clearly lined up and explained on a timeline will make the revision edits that much easier.

This, at the end of the day, is what video review apps like Frame.io are all about.

For more video editing tools, tips and tricks, check out these additional articles as well.