Organizing remote edit teams with shared proxy workflows

When the documentary about a climate startup landed in my inbox, I knew the footage would be heavy. Eight cameras, 22 TB of media, and a director who lived in Berlin while I cut from Lahore. Shipping drives back and forth was not an option, so we leaned on a shared proxy workflow that kept everyone in sync and let reviews happen overnight.

Start with clean camera reports and consistent folders

We used Frame.io's transfer app to upload originals directly from the DIT station. During ingest I generated matching proxy folders labeled by scene, setup, and camera. The naming structure looked like this:

project_root/
  originals/
    INT_HQ_DAY_C01/
    INT_HQ_DAY_C02/
  proxies/
    INT_HQ_DAY_C01/
    INT_HQ_DAY_C02/

The structure mirrored our Resolve bins so reconforms were as simple as pointing the timeline back to the camera source.

Sync timecodes and upload overnight

We batch-synced audio in Resolve, generated H.264 proxies at 1080p, and uploaded through Frame.io while the crew slept. By the time Europe woke up the director had a new timeline to review in Premiere and could drop notes directly on the picture.

1. Sync by timecode and waveform.
2. Render individual clips as proxy media.
3. Upload with matching folder structure.
4. Share review links tied to the same file names.

Version control keeps surprises away

Each morning we pulled comments into Resolve, addressed selects, and pushed a fresh timeline to the shared project library. Git tracked LUTs, title assets, and project files so we could roll back if something went sideways. When it came time to conform, we swapped the proxy drive for the camera originals and hit render. The final deliverables matched the director's notes exactly, even though we never sat in the same room.