Warner Bros. Belgium – Creating Efficiency through Platform Integration

Maarten Verwaest
March 11, 2025

Warner Bros. Belgium, one of the largest producers in Belgium, set up a new production workflow based on DzjinTonik, LockitScript, and Limecraft to manage very large production volumes. This case focuses on “Thuis”, one of Belgium’s most famous sitcoms, but it can be used as a model for any fast-paced post-production workflows in continuing drama.

Key Take Aways

  • 3 multicam studios
  • Shooting 3 hours and 300GB of raw footage per day
  • Processed by 1/2 edit assistant using a highly automated workflow
  • Delivered to Avid MediaComposer for post-production in the shortest possible timeframe
  • An entire crew of over 50 people gets instant access to shots and cuts in a single workspace

Behind the scene shot of Thuis, Belgium's most famous sitcom produced by Warner Bros. The ingest workflow is entirely automated by integrating LImecraft, DzjinTonik and LockitScript

Producing a daily drama requires handling vast amounts of footage efficiently, ensuring smooth collaboration between teams, and optimising post-production workflows. For their newest scripted production, Warner Bros. Belgium faced the challenge of accelerating the workflow, while maintaining high production quality.

By integrating DzjinTonik for production planning, LockitScript for automated shot logging and metadata management, and Limecraft for cloud-based collaboration and review, the team built an end-to-end solution, thereby enabling efficiency through platform integration.

This new approach resulted in significant efficiency gains, reducing the need for manual metadata input, enabling seamless transfers of production data to post-production, and streamlining the review process. Editors can now focus on creative storytelling rather than administrative tasks, and directors can review footage in real-time, ensuring faster feedback loops.

With Limecraft handling extensive production cycles without performance issues, Warner Bros. Belgium has created a sustainable, scalable workflow that sets a new standard for post-production efficiency. This case study explores the challenges, the solutions implemented, and the tangible results that continue to shape the future of Thuis and high-volume television production in Belgium.

Introduction: More Efficiency in Post-Production

Production of daily drama remains a complex and demanding process, requiring seamless coordination between different teams, efficient workflows, and the ability to handle massive amounts of data. Processing data coming from multiple multi-cam studios demands automation. But automation comes at a cost, i.e. small errors on the input can cause major impact on the output. It requires confidence in technology, and a more than usual appetite for operational excellence, for a crew to successfully implement a highly automated process.

For Warner Bros. Belgium’s Thuishuis division, which produces the popular TV series Thuis, optimising the post-production workflow was critical to improve operational efficiency and staying competitive in an ever-evolving industry. They engaged with Limecraft, because Limecraft has extensive experience in hosting continuing drama shows, including Lisa, Un si Grand Soleil, Plus Belle la Vie, etc.

“Operational efficiency is more important than ever, and we are constantly searching for the most modern technology that enables us to produce as efficiently as possible“, says Talle Leyssens (CTO at Warner Bros. Belgium)

To meet the challenges mentioned above, Warner Bros. Belgium deeply integrated Limecraft, DzjinTonik, and LockitScript at the core of their production process, creating a single platform for production, post-production and marketing to enhance collaboration, reduce manual work, and ensures a seamless transition from set to post-production and beyond. The result has been a fundamental shift in how the team operates, allowing them to work faster and more effectively while maintaining the high production standards that their audience expect.

The Challenge: Managing Complexity in a High-Volume Workflow

Producing a long-running scripted drama like Thuis comes with unique challenges. Each day, the production generates very large amounts of raw footage or rushes, all of which need to be organised, synced, reviewed, and edited efficiently.

Conventionally, much of this work is manual, requiring post-production teams to spend valuable hours on tasks such as metadata entry, audio synchronisation, and sorting through footage. The pressure to reduce costs and improve efficiency has only intensified in recent years. With budgets tightening, the technical crew of Warner Bros were looking for ways to automate routine tasks without sacrificing quality. At the same time, the need for better collaboration across departments—from directors and editors to social media teams—meant that a more integrated approach was necessary.

Choosing the Right Tools: Why Limecraft, DzjinTonik, and LockitScript?

Faced with these challenges, Warner Bros. Belgium doubled down on Limecraft, now integrating DzjinTonik via LockitScript to build a more intelligent ingest workflow, thereby enabling unprecedented automation downstream.

Schematic Workflow of the integration of Dzjintonik, LockitScript, Limecraft, and Avid for automating ingest to post-production

These tools offer key benefits that perfectly align with their goals:

  • Limecraft provided a cloud-based platform that streamlined post-production workflows, allowing for better metadata management, seamless collaboration, and integrated review processes. By leveraging Limecraft’s automation capabilities, the team could significantly reduce the amount of time spent on manual metadata entry and footage organisation.
  • DzjinTonik assumes a crucial position in managing production planning data which is then efficiently transferred into the post-production process via LockitScript. The unique combination of tools enabled seamless handover of metadata from the script to the editing suite, ensuring that all relevant information is available at every stage of production.
  • LockitScript further enhanced efficiency by automating time-consuming tasks such as shot logging, scene synchronisation, and keeping track of good takes, bad takes, and bloopers. This information allows editors to jumpstart their edit, and focus creative storytelling rather than technical administration.

The Transformation: What Warner Bros. Belgium Has Achieved

The impact of this integrated approach has been profound. One of the most significant efficiency gains has been the ability to manage post-production with a leaner team. Previously, multiple people were required to handle metadata input, organise footage, and prepare edits. Now, a single assistant editor oversees the entire pre-editing process, reducing overhead and freeing up valuable resources.

Another major benefit has been the ability to streamline the review process. Directors and other key stakeholders can now review footage directly in Limecraft, adding comments and notes that are instantly accessible in Avid. This eliminates the need for time-consuming back-and-forth exchanges and ensures that the editing team has all the necessary feedback at their fingertips.

Perhaps most impressively, Limecraft demonstrates unparalleled system performance. The team initially planned to create a new workspace every ten weeks to prevent data overload. However, after months of continuous use, it became clear that Limecraft flawlessly handle extended production cycles without any performance issues. This scalability has allowed the team to consolidate their workflow, reducing complexity and improving efficiency even further.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Post-Production Efficiency

The integration of Limecraft, DzjinTonik, and LockitScript has set a new standard for efficiency at Warner Bros. Belgium and production of continuing drama in general. The improvements in metadata management, review processes, and automation have not only saved time but have also enhanced the overall quality of production.

As the industry continues to evolve, the need for cutting-edge workflow automation will only grow. Warner Bros. Belgium has demonstrated that embracing technology directly creates significant efficiency gains without compromising creative integrity. Moving forward, further innovations in areas such as AI-driven automation and deeper integrations between production and post-production tools could unlock even greater potential for streamlining the creative process.

By staying ahead of the curve and continually refining their workflow, Warner Bros. Belgium ensures that Thuis remains a leading example of how technology can help transforming television production. The journey of innovation is far from over, but one thing is clear: smart, integrated workflows are the future of efficient, high-quality content production.