When a huge blockbuster film is about to come out in theaters, the trailer you see online is only a small sample of the complete media. Actually, what you see in the trailer is just the highlight of all the media material, as behind the scenes a whole range of other versions, international editions, HD stills, scenes, behind-the-scenes shots, B-roll footage, press releases, press material, poster materials, and, in a few cases, critics get the whole movie delivered as a screener.

The main concern is handling all that material across studios, distributors, publicists, and entertainment platforms without leaking the content to the public. And most commonly, this material is handled by people in different countries and time zones, all aiming for the same deadline when the embargo is lifted.

Embargo, The Silent Deadline

For journalists who cover entertainment, an embargo can turn a Tuesday at the office into a war-room scenario. Studios may send out films early via digital copies (like screeners, etc.), allowing them to take a peek. Still, your piece cannot be published until a certain deadline and time. The same restriction is imposed upon trailers and first-look pictures

There can’t be one reason, such as the potential leak of such a trailer, ruining a surprise, giving up an important character, or even destroying an expensive advertising campaign. A leaked screener can be much worse, particularly if it includes unfinished visual effects, post-credit scenes, or plot elements the studio is deliberately hiding at this time.

The Motion Picture Association’s Content Security Best Practices document illustrates the degree to which the industry is treating the matter by outlining security requirements for various stages like production, post-production, marketing, and distribution.

Reasons Email is Not Adequate

Send along a high-definition feature film or a bunch of gigabytes of B-roll, and you’d immediately realize that email is not the way to go.

These days, entertainment-related files are simply too hefty and not fit for normal attachments. Even materials for publicity that seem rather low in number can accumulate into large quantities if an outlet is bombarded with dozens of photos, various video formats, and supporting documents for several upcoming releases.

This is why the film industry and PR agents must rely on mechanisms that cater to the delivery of vast volumes of files. The preferred way of working would be for the right people to view only the relevant assets, without having to deal with a lot of confusing email attachments or the hassle of physical drives between team members.

Sure, the publicity team in Los Angeles, who have to deliver the media assets to the editor in New York, to critics in London, or to media people who work with totally different schedules, will rely on an infrastructure that does not fail regardless of the place of their audience.

Security Has to Follow the File

It’s not just a matter of moving the file that is a challenge. It’s about keeping track of what happens after it has been shared.

With a secure media sharing solution, businesses can limit who can see, control who gets what, and even revoke access on embargo ends or when projects change. But besides that, it needs robust file protection, since they often contain the fruits of many months or even years of expensive creative work.

As for handling this kind of exchange, enterprise cloud storage can provide secure storage for large volumes of confidential media with full control. 

There is a different facet as well: data regulation or compliance. If media content includes the recording of interviews, the name of the interviewee, details of the contributor, any other personal data, then a company’s responsibility towards ensuring privacy can come in. 

Provenance Is Part of the Story Too 

Preventing leaks is only a part of security. Media organizations are getting interested in the origins of their digital assets and the possibility of any alterations to them.

Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), which works worldwide, created technical standards to store content provenance information in a way that it can be verified. They have Content Credentials, which are supposed to keep the provenance history intact when the media passes through different stages of editing and publishing.

Such a system would be valuable mainly at a period when promotional images, clips, and digitized works will change their owners many times before arriving at the audience.

The Infrastructure Behind the Curtain

For viewers, a movie trailer premiere or a first-look review might seem like just one event: the video is posted, the article is released, and the conversation begins.

Actually, there is a perfectly orchestrated series of upload permissions, encrypted transfers, embargo instructions, and access controls. Publicists send out only necessary materials to the relevant outlets; editors get their copies from there, critics receive their screeners, and marketing teams schedule the world time for the product launch to match perfectly.

It is quite a hidden system that usually draws no attention. And that’s the way it should be, probably. When it runs smoothly, no one notices it. The trailer is released at the right time, the review is published at midnight, the press junket coverage goes live, and the film fans see the next big movie moment.

So, every refined film story has the other side to the story, which is essentially an enormous digital operation of logistics that ensures that only the correct media is delivered to the correct individuals at the right time without any leaks or premature releases.