The Real Cloud Strategy in Post: Flexibility, Not Absolutes

By Chris Fournelle, Director, Content and Marketing Production at Signiant

There is this dream in our industry that eventually everything in post will live in the cloud; apps, storage, workflows, the whole pipeline. A clean, centralized model where local infrastructure becomes obsolete.

It’s a compelling idea, and in certain corners of the industry, it’s already happening. But for the vast majority of post teams we work with, things are more layered, more distributed, and more hybrid.

Why Hybrid Is the Norm (and the Now)

In reality, content today lives in a lot of different places — on-prem storage, cloud buckets, private archives, and third-party systems. Creative teams are spread out across cities and time zones. Every partner brings their own infrastructure, tools and preferences to the table.

Choosing the right storage isn’t about forcing everything into a single platform — it’s about what works best for your business. Real-world production teams make decisions based on a mix of performance needs, cost, and what they know works. Hybrid isn’t a compromise — it’s the natural result of practical choices shaped by the economics and specialization of post-production.

It’s Not About Where — It’s About Access The bigger question isn’t “Is it on-prem or in the cloud?” It’s “Can I get what I need, when I need it?”

That’s why storage independence is such a big deal right now. If you’re working across multiple systems (and almost everyone is), you need a way to see and interact with files without having to constantly move them around. The more often you copy, sync, or duplicate content just to make it accessible, the more time you lose. And the more risk you introduce. And for highly sensitive productions, minimizing touchpoints is a key part of protecting both the content and the business.

What’s helpful are tools that let you connect the dots, giving you visibility and access across all your storage without treating one location as the default. That saves time, keeps security tighter, and simplifies the mess that naturally comes with post.

The trick is doing it across disparate locations and systems.

Practical Lessons from the Field

Having spent years in post myself, I remember trying to get assets across disconnected systems. Maybe it’s buried in an archive. Maybe it’s Amazon Glacier. Maybe it’s on someone’s external drive. Maybe it’s been sitting untouched in a production MAM for six months. You waste creative time just trying to find the thing.

When teams have a way to see where their assets are, preview them, and move them only when necessary, it changes the rules. You don’t just go faster, you buy back time to make better creative or technical decisions. Time to fix something and try something new, and even the time to deliver a better version of the work.

Some platforms tackle this head-on, offering features like on-demand proxies and deep metadata searches across connected storage. That’s especially helpful in the early stages of post, before the final work gets handed off to a MAM or archived. It gives teams the breathing room to stay creative while keeping things organized and doesn’t mess up an archive.

Chaos Is Part of the Job

Let’s be honest: post-production can be organized chaos. Even the most stringent can, at times, be overwhelmed by the amount of materials to keep track of. Every project has a different team, a different setup, and a different mix of tools. Clients, vendors, freelancers, editorial, VFX, audio — everyone’s working in parallel and often in different places. The job isn’t to eliminate that chaos, it’s to manage it better.

That means using tools that are flexible enough to handle the variability. Something that IT teams can configure and secure, but also intuitive enough for editors, producers, and assistants to use without a manual. That’s not always easy to find, but when you do, it makes everything run smoother. And frankly, it’s what makes creative collaboration sustainable at scale.

Why Storage-Agnostic Matters

Post professionals and business owners want the freedom to use what works best for them whether that’s for performance, security, or budget reasons. The goal isn’t to standardize everything — it’s to make everything work together.

That’s why storage-agnostic tools are so important. They let teams evolve over time instead of starting from scratch every few years. They don’t force you into a particular ecosystem. And they give you room to experiment and scale without disrupting the flow of work.

The point isn’t to make your workflow conform to the tool. It’s to use tools that meet you where you are.

What’s Next

There’s no doubt cloud is a big part of the post. From rendering to remote review to distribution, teams embrace cloud workflows where it makes sense. But that doesn’t mean on-prem is going away. For a lot of high-performance, latency-sensitive work, it’s still the best option.

So, the real shift is about connectivity and about tools that can bridge all these environments so content can move (or not move) in a smarter, more intentional way.

That’s what hybrid is really about. Not compromise and not “cloud later.” But building something flexible enough to keep up with how post actually gets done.

Most teams I know aren’t chasing an all-cloud future or clinging to old models. They’re focused on staying adaptable, making smart decisions about infrastructure, and keeping their attention where it belongs — on the work.