When the AE Knows More Than the Post Sup

In unscripted post, everyone’s used to stepping outside their lane.

But when the Post Supervisor doesn’t know the current Avid flavor, or how assistant editor workflows actually function, someone else picks up the slack. And it’s always the AE.

What People Usually Get Wrong

There’s this unspoken assumption: once you’ve supervised one show, you’re good for any show. That might’ve worked back in the day. It doesn’t work now.

Because Avid isn’t the same Avid. Media Composer versions change fast. Nexis management has leveled up. AMA, media creation settings, project architecture all evolve with every update. And yet, a lot of Sups are still processing projects like it’s 2016.

The result? They spec systems and timelines that look right on paper but fall apart in practice. Drive setups don’t match ingestion volume. AE tasks stack up with no time budget. Renders choke on DNxHD 45 proxies in a system built for 36. Media folders balloon. Sync drifts. Nobody can find stringouts.

Then the AE gets pulled. "Fix this bin." "Rebuild that group." "Can you just check the media drive?" Because “checking the media drive” is apparently an assistant editor’s full-time job now.

What We Actually Built or Changed

We stopped waiting for Sups to catch up. Instead, we built a system that made them current without asking them to become tech leads. Here’s what it looked like on our last two shows:

‣ Defined the Actual Role Lines

Before the show kicked off, we mapped the assistant editor workflow from ingest to export and wrote it up as a one-pager. Just a single sheet that showed who does what, when, and on what system version. Then we gave that to the Post Sup and the AE together. This wasn’t about hierarchy, it was about alignment. From day one, the AE didn’t have to guess whether they were running point on relinking, turnovers, or exports. And the Post Sup had something most of them don’t get: updated expectations.

‣ Provided Version-Specific Avid Builds

This was key. We didn’t just say “Use the latest.” We gave them the exact builds to run, all tested and consistent. Same AMA settings. Same bin locking. Same shared project behavior. So the AE didn’t have to troubleshoot why their assistant station grouped differently than the editor’s.

We also pinned one AE (not all of them) to be the version owner. This AE worked with us before the show started to validate the build. That way, if a bug cropped up or a setting drifted, one person owned the fix. Everyone else worked. No swarm.

‣ Offloaded Technical Oversight from the AE

We introduced weekly post check-ins. The Post Sup got a briefing: sync rate, grouped footage health, number of episodes in lock range. All surfaced by the AE but structured by us with a simple shared tracker. Sups stopped asking, “How’s everything going?” And AEs stopped answering, “Fine,” when it wasn’t.

What Changed (Emotionally + Operationally)

For the AE team, the biggest shift was that they got to focus. Instead of living in constant fix mode, they were building clean systems up front, then managing through consistency, not crisis.

The level of burnout dropped noticeably, even mid-season. No more 14-hour days because a bad AMA pattern tanked an episode. No more relinking hell at Online because the SUP thought “consolidate” meant “save it all.”

For the Sups, the change was freeing. Once they could lean on a repeatable post pipeline, they had headspace to manage what they’re actually paid to manage: schedules, approvals, talent, and delivery. They weren’t opening bins trying to verify if the music cue was temp or approved.

And for the EPs and post execs, the chaos curve flattened. No more passive-aggressive emails about why the drive was full. Editorial timelines sped up because nothing downstream got blocked by technical catchup.

We also saw an unexpected benefit: the AE-to-Sup pipeline got clearer. Once we shifted the Post Sups out of technical triage mode, the AEs could actually learn from them—observe how they handle networks, notes, and delivery—instead of just cleaning up behind them.

Some Sups will read this and feel defensive. That’s not the point.

Staying current shouldn’t require you to be an Avid engineer. But if you don’t know what AMA means in 2024—or you still think DNxHD 36 is “the standard”—you’re not managing, you’re delegating into a void.

Assistant editors deserve supervisors who understand the systems they’re living in. And supervisors deserve pipelines that don’t depend on an AE pulling triple-duty just to make week 10 deliverables happen.

We didn’t fix everything. But the right tools, paired with clear role lines and current builds, bought us efficiency. And in unscripted post, time, and clarity, is the one thing you can’t fake.