Case Study: PBS achieves streamlined, email-free post-production workflows with Airtable

How Secrets of a Chef uses Airtable for post-production

PBS’s post-production team for Secrets of a Chef, led by Post-Production Supervisor Matt Levie, needed to turn 2–4 hours of footage into each 30-minute episode across a 12-episode season while coordinating six editors and producer notes. Their prior Excel- and email-based workflow was error-prone, hard to update, and didn’t provide a clear, screen-friendly way to manage dozens of recipes and shots—so they adopted Airtable.

Levie imported the spreadsheet into Airtable, split it into linked Recipes and Shows tables, and added status fields, edit histories, and a comment-driven workflow so producers and editors can record and track changes in one shared base. Airtable replaced clunky email routing and oversized spreadsheets with a single source of truth, improved accountability and visibility into edits, and reduced administrative overhead so the team can focus on creative post-production.

PBS

Matt Levie

Post-Production Supervisor