F*#k Files: They’re Wrecking Media Workflows.

For decades, media workflows have been built around files. But files are the wrong abstraction.

I once worked with a post house where the entire production stopped because one person - I won’t name him - didn’t show up to work. He wasn’t just an employee; he was the catalog. He knew where every file was buried on the SAN, every path, every folder. Without him, nobody could find anything. That’s the absurdity of file-based workflows.

Every editor, engineer, and producer knows the frustration of managing files. A file has a path (where it lives) and a format (how it’s packaged). It sounds simple. But in practice, file-based workflows create limitations, complexity, and waste. They’re brittle, costly to scale, and poorly suited to the collaborative, global, and real-time nature of today’s production demands.

The irony? Other industries including banking, e-commerce and more, solved these same problems years ago by adopting web-based technologies. Why is media production still stuck moving files?

Files: The Legacy We’ve Inherited

At their core, files are about persistence - bytes stored somewhere so they can be retrieved later. Files solve a basic need: saving and organizing data. But in today’s media workflows, files introduce two fundamental problems:

1. Location Dependency A file lives in one place, on a disk or a server. Move it, and you break its path. Workflows become tightly coupled to specific infrastructure—on-prem SANs, remote servers, or cloud buckets—making global scaling painfully difficult.
2. Form Addiction A file’s format - MXF, MOV, MP4 - has long dictated how it’s used. Software demands specific formats, and workflows grind to a halt when those formats don’t align. Changing the form, like creating proxies from full-resolution files, adds costly steps like transcoding and duplication. But here’s the truth: file formats don’t need to be relevant.

Files are static. They don’t adapt. And this rigidity creates endless workarounds (downloading, proxy generation, version tracking, archive management) that waste time, resources, and money.

The Web: A Different Way of Thinking

The web doesn’t think in files; it thinks in resources. Every piece of content, a webpage, an image, a video, is addressed by a URL and accessed via HTTP. This model is dynamic, flexible, and scalable.

Consider how we stream video today:

• You don’t download a file to watch Netflix. You request just the pieces you need, when you need them.
• Content adapts to your connection in real time (adaptive bitrate streaming) without you ever knowing it.
• Millions can watch the same content simultaneously because the web scales effortlessly.
• Viewers don’t need to select a specific version of a movie for phone or SmartTV - the form is hidden

These principles - dynamic access, seamless adaptability, and global scalability - are exactly what the media industry needs.

This approach also aligns closely with the MovieLabs 2030 Vision. MovieLabs envisions a future where media is ingested into the cloud, workflows are software-defined, and content is globally accessible. But achieving that vision requires us to rethink media workflows from the ground up. Files (the digital equivalent of paper) don’t scale. Web-native principles do.

Imagine production workflows working the same way:

• Editors wouldn’t download files; they’d access just the frames they need, on demand.
• Software wouldn’t care about the format. Media would be a resource—not a static file.
• Scaling collaboration—hundreds of editors, thousands of requests—would be trivial.

This isn’t a hypothetical idea. The tools already exist: HTTP2 and HTTP3 allow for parallel requests and low-latency access. Cloud infrastructure, like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, scales infinitely.

The only thing holding media back is the legacy of file-based thinking.

Breaking Free from Files

Transitioning from files to web-based workflows requires a shift in thinking. But the benefits are enormous:

• Eliminate Waste: No more redundant downloads, proxy generation, or duplicate files.
• Unlock Global Collaboration: Media becomes instantly accessible, anywhere.
• Scale Without Complexity: Web-native workflows scale naturally because they inherit the technologies powering the global web.
• Adapt to Innovate: AI-driven tools, automation, and real-time processing thrive in dynamic, resource-based environments.

A Vision for the Future

The media industry has already made one leap—from analog tape to digital files. But in digitizing workflows, we brought analog constraints with us. Files are the digital equivalent of folders and paper: a useful metaphor for the past, but wholly unnecessary in a cloud-native future.

By rethinking workflows with web-native principles—dynamic access, scalability, adaptability—we can remove decades of complexity and unlock the full potential of cloud-based media production.

The tools exist. The web works. The only question is:

How long will we let files hold us hostage?

Still here? A few observations to leave you with:

1. Proliferation of File Formats There are hundreds of file formats in media production. Each one requires engineers to spend countless hours coding compatibility and fixing workflows. How many do we really need? Just one: a simple archival format for persistence.
2. Opportunity Cost Files are costing the media industry billions. Every day, workflows grind under the weight of redundant downloads, transcoding, and version management. How are we still tolerating this epic inefficiency?
3. The Web Scales. Files Don’t. The web serves billions of people with trillions of transactions every day. Meanwhile, media workflows are still struggling to scale file transfers across a global team.