Monthly Montage: April 2024
Adding LUTs, screening links, nested folders, Inspector Panel 2.0
Addressing the Big Question
Alright, let's get this straight. We know that for the past few months we've been pretty vocal about the new features we've been building & quite frankly, it's been unfair to all of you. You all have been so supportive on our journey so far, yet we haven't let you know when you can expect to start using Sequence.
The truth is, our team has been trying to build the best cloud-based collaborative video editing tool for the past 2 years. We've made a ton of progress but compared to the grand vision we have for the future, things still feel far away.
This feeling tied with a sense of perfectionism creates a clash between wanting to get all of you on the platform now & fearing that the experience isn't up to par just yet. But the thing about startups is that there seldom is a perfect time or a perfect product. If we wait until things feel perfect, it might be too late.
A Path to Public Access
We're still navigating what exactly public access means and the implications of such but roughly speaking, here is what we need to accomplish to make this happen before the end of this year:
Improved stability: as covered in last month's newsletter, stability is a top priority for us in ensuring you have a smooth editing experience
Reliability: aside from stability, ensuring that we are building features that can act as building blocks for future improvements is important as we grow
Managing storage usage: as we onboard more users onto the platform, we're still learning about how much storage the average Sequence user may need & how to cater to different storage needs.
Battle-testing: Battle-testing features to see how they perform plays an important role in anything we release. Through more extensive use and testing, we're able to ensure a things are working as intended. As of right now, we're making a handful of changes to the media asset library to ensure we can continue building on top of it with minimal issues in the future.
Improved metrics: As we scale our user base having better metrics is imperative as it will provide us with key insights into what's working vs. what is not working in Sequence. These metrics will eventually become a strong pulse in what improvements we make to the platform.
We're working hard to get these things done so that anyone can easily sign-up and experience the magic of collaborative video editing but in the meantime, if you are someone who...
is a huge fan of the idea of collaborative video editing
loves testing out early tech
is willing to work through the the inevitable early stage bugs & crashes
will make time to provide meaningful feedback to our team
& is open to completing at least one end-to-end video in Sequence
...reply to this email & we'd love to see how we can get you set-up with an early access trial to test out Sequence.
Aside from getting more users onto the platform for early access, we're also playing around with a few fun ideas on other ways we can start to engage the community of Sequence early supporters 💛
Product Updates
👀 Screenings is officially launched
We've finally fully launched Screenings in Sequence! Screenings enables faster feedback loops during your editing workflow. Consider it like a 'comment-only' link you share on Google Docs for review but instead, for video!
🗂️ Nested folders for improved organization
Organizing your library clips just got easier with new nested folders. Simply right click a folder and select 'New Nested Folder'!
🔎 Inspector panel v.2.0 is finally launched
We teased it in our last newsletter but the newest iteration of the inspector panel is now live in production, offering a decluttered interface for editors.
🏃 Faster project boot-up
After hearing feedback from some of our early users, we've improved how long it takes for your project to fully load up in Sequence. During the hours of 5am - 5pm PST users will experience the fastest project boot-up times.
🧽 Improved playback and scrubbing
We've pushed some improvements to Sequence that will make playback more reliable and scrubbing through your timeline or media, smoother.
🏁 New checkerboard background
A small quality of life upgrade we made to the playback viewer is adding a checkerboard background. This makes it easier to see what in the window is actually part of your video.
From The Studio
At Sequence, we don't make typical feature release videos. Instead, we make product trailers. Product trailers are our way of telling the story behind what a feature is, why we built it, and how to use it!
LUTs product trailer
Hear from our CTO of Video Systems, Brian Williams & Founding Designer, Parker Gibbons as they discuss Sequence's first step towards color management.
Screenings product trailer
Product Engineer, Jacob Elias discusses Screenings. Screenings is a new feature integrated directly into the Sequence NLE to enable faster feedback loops.
Movies We're Obsessed With
We don't just want to make movies, we love watching them too 👀. Our team has a Slack channel called #movies, here's a roundup of some of the films we've been raving over:
Fast and Furious - Luke binge-watched the Fast and Furious movies after watching a Christopher Nolan interview where he mentioned Fast and Furious as one of his favourites
Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) - Luke wasn't the only Fast and Furious fan this month, Jacob also went back in time to watch this classic
Shogun - not a movie but a mini series Brian, Parker, & Luke have been loving
Civil War (2024) - Brian's favourite dystopian film of the month, written and directed by Alex Garland
The Iron Claw (2023) - a movie following the story of brothers as they make history in the highly competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s
American Fiction (2023) - based on the 2001 novel Erasure by Percival Everett
The Northman (2022) - a movie directed by Robert Eggers on conquering your fate.
Videodrome (1983) - a movie about a TV show dedicated to gratuitous torture and punishment
Where We're Headed
As we enter into May, the team is continuing to focus on stability while also digging deeper into improved notifications and the introduction of Titles in Sequence. We're also upping our own storytelling game through working on new video concepts that we can't wait to share with all of you!
That's a wrap for this month's update, we hope to see you in the timeline soon!
Cheers,
Mylene & the cast & crew @ Sequence