From Set to Cloud: The Disappearance of Boundaries

At the 2026 edition of SATIS+ in Montpellier, one of France’s leading events for broadcast, production and post-production professionals, a panel titled “Du Plateau au Cloud : La disparition des frontières” explored how cloud technologies, automation and artificial intelligence are reshaping audiovisual production workflows. Moderated by Stephan Faudeux (Génération Numérique), the discussion brought together Dominique Buovac (Studio TF1), Maarten Verwaest (Limecraft), Pierre-Marie Boyé (Les Tontons Truqueurs) and Julie Goossens (CNC).

🎬 Replay of the panel discussion via moovee.tech (🇫🇷): https://www.moovee.tech/content/du-plateau-au-cloud-la-disparition-des-frontieres

Drawing on real-world productions including Studios de Marseille and France Télévisions‘ Un Si Grand Soleil, the panel examined the convergence of production and post-production, the growing importance of metadata and Camera-to-Cloud workflows, the opportunities and limitations of virtual production, the role of AI in editorial workflows, and the need to balance innovation with data sovereignty and sustainability. Below is a summary of the panel discussion.

💡 Case Study: Un si grand soleil

Stephan: Production and post-production used to be separate phases. Are we now entering an era of “live post-production”?

Dominique: On daily dramas, post-production is no longer something that starts after the shoot. Editorial, production and post-production teams are constantly talking to each other. Every production week we meet with directors, assistant directors and script supervisors to agree how the material will be shot and delivered. That close collaboration allows us to anticipate issues instead of solving them afterwards.

Maarten: I wouldn’t say post-production has become real-time. What has disappeared is the waiting. Editors can begin working almost immediately because proxies, metadata and transcripts arrive while filming continues. The objective isn’t to eliminate human intervention but to remove repetitive technical work so editors can focus on storytelling.

Stephan: How important is metadata captured on set?

Maarten Verwaest: Metadata is far more than technical information. The most valuable metadata is editorial: script supervisor notes, selected takes, naming conventions and production reports. That’s what allows us to automate pre-cut preparation. Automation doesn’t replace editors; it prepares their work. If metadata is captured correctly, synchronisation, dailies, transcription and rough assemblies happen automatically.
If the workflow isn’t properly organised, nothing catastrophic happens. Productions simply fall back to manual processes. If cameras and sound aren’t synchronised, automatic syncing won’t work. If naming conventions aren’t respected, people have to organise material manually. The media is still there, but productivity gains disappear.

Stephan: Camera-to-Cloud sounds attractive, but what happens when connectivity is poor?
Dominique: Cloud production is becoming increasingly realistic. Some international productions already perform ingest, dailies, editing and even grading entirely inside cloud infrastructure. Editors simply connect remotely.
At the same time, we’re asking ourselves difficult questions. Storage costs continue to rise. Infrastructure pricing changes constantly. And perhaps most importantly, what happens when all your production assets live on infrastructure you don’t control?

Maarten: Camera-to-Cloud should never depend on perfect bandwidth. That’s exactly why we developed proxy-based workflows. You don’t need to transfer original camera files immediately. Lightweight proxies are enough for logging, transcription, editing and collaboration. The full-resolution media can arrive later. Bandwidth should never dictate the pace of production. Proxy workflows separate immediate editorial collaboration from high-resolution media management, making productions far more resilient.

Stephan: Is data sovereignty becoming a strategic issue?
Julie: Absolutely. When evaluating projects we increasingly look at where infrastructure is located, especially for developments involving AI. European hosting and responsible cloud strategies are viewed positively.
Environmental impact is also becoming increasingly important. Storage is a significant contributor to the carbon footprint of productions. Efficient proxy workflows, sensible archive strategies and sustainable infrastructure all contribute positively during project evaluation.

Stephan: How has virtual production changed the way productions are organised?
Pierre-Marie: Virtual production changes everything because visual effects move into pre-production. If you want to shoot on LED volumes, environments have to exist before cameras start rolling. For Un Si Grand Soleil we create digital environments weeks or months in advance. That requires much closer collaboration between production, editorial, VFX and art departments. Our LED workflows are particularly effective for driving scenes and environments with complex reflections. Instead of spending hours filming cars on location, we can shoot multiple sequences in one studio day. The challenge isn’t creating technology anymore. It’s changing production habits.

Stephan: Are LED stages ready to replace traditional VFX?
Pierre-Marie: Not yet. LED walls are excellent for specific applications, but they still have technical limitations. We deal with moiré, limited camera movement, relatively small volumes and the compromises required by real-time rendering. Green screen still provides greater flexibility because everything can be refined afterwards. LED production is another creative tool, not a universal replacement. New technologies such as Gaussian Splatting and generative AI may change that by dramatically accelerating the creation of realistic environments from real-world imagery.

Stephan: How does the CNC support these new production workflows?
Julie: Our objective is to strengthen the competitiveness, innovation and sustainability of the French technical industry. We support investment in LED infrastructure, tracking systems, servers, software development, VFX supervision, technical jobs and the creation of reusable digital assets.

Virtual production remains a growing but still specialised area. We see a stable number of projects every year, and adoption continues to increase as producers become more familiar with the technology and begin integrating it much earlier during development.

Stephan: Where does artificial intelligence create the greatest value today?
Maarten: Almost everywhere, but ideally users don’t notice. The best technology is invisible. Professionals don’t want unpredictable systems. They want reliable tools that consistently produce the same result. AI helps transcribe dialogue, recognise images, search footage and prepare metadata. But AI is not the most important part of the workflow. AI doesn’t know which take the director preferred. It doesn’t understand dramatic intention. It doesn’t decide how a story should be told. Its role is simply to compress the waiting time, allowing journalists, editors and directors to spend more time doing what matters: telling stories.

Stephan: How is generative AI changing visual effects?
Dominique: The progress over the last year has been extraordinary. We recently needed to create large-scale destruction for a sequence. Using traditional methods, that might have required several artists working for weeks. We experimented with generative AI instead. Initially we had to generate hundreds of variations before finding the right result. A year later, the same task produced usable imagery almost immediately. Today we use AI regularly for environment generation, although we deliberately avoid generating recognisable actors because of legal constraints. AI has become an extraordinary productivity tool, but artistic supervision remains essential.

Stephan: How important is workflow automation in practice?
Maarten: Limecraft is essentially a production asset management platform designed specifically for production rather than archive. The platform automates ingest, audio synchronisation, lookup tables, naming conventions, proxy generation, file transfer and editorial preparation before delivering material into systems such as Avid. The most successful deployments are the ones where users almost forget the platform exists. Everything happens automatically in the background, while production teams continue using the tools they already know.

Dominique: That’s exactly what makes the system valuable for us. Instead of assistants manually importing media, copying script information and assembling rough timelines, the workflow becomes automated from end to end.
The only prerequisite is discipline on set. If files aren’t named correctly, automation stops. That’s why script supervisors and sound teams remain absolutely critical. Good automation starts with good production practice. One advantage is that automation is never mandatory. If necessary, productions can switch back to manual workflows at any time without disrupting the production.

Stephan: Does virtual production also change budgets?
Pierre-Marie: Very much so. As more work moves into pre-production, traditional distinctions between production and post-production budgets become blurred. Creating digital environments, capturing LED background plates or generating virtual assets all happen before principal photography, yet they directly support post-production. Those discussions are becoming increasingly common because the work no longer fits neatly into traditional production categories.

Dominique: Exactly. On large productions, a single set can represent several hundred thousand euros of investment. Those decisions involve writers, production designers, technical teams and post-production from the earliest stages. Technology is simply encouraging departments that once worked sequentially to work together much earlier.

Stephan: What remains the biggest challenge?
Dominique: Communication. Our greatest strength is that production and post-production work side by side. We speak continuously before and during production. That shared understanding allows us to adapt quickly as technology evolves.

Pierre-Marie: Technology is advancing incredibly fast, particularly with AI. The real challenge is not whether these tools work, but how we integrate them into creative processes while maintaining artistic control.

Maarten: The objective is not a fully automated chain from camera to screen. The objective is to eliminate unnecessary manual work while preserving creative decision-making. Technology should become invisible. Storytelling must remain 100% human.