4 Things You Need to Manage Your Production Stills

Whether you are a publicist or a producer, working on a large or small production, you are going to have stills — and you (or someone on your team) will need to manage them. Here are our recommendations for the tools to use and the best practices to follow to make your job easier, simpler, and more cost-effective.

1. Follow Correct File Naming and Folder Structure Best Practices

Having correct file naming protocols and folder structures in place makes stills infinitely easier to manage. Individual stills can be instantly identified and located from just their filename, reducing your chances of accidentally deleting, losing, or creating unnecessary duplicate files.

That is why we created a quick guide to correct file naming and folder structuring protocols. Consistent conventions reduce confusion, save time, and keep the production on schedule. You can also find detailed guidance in our photography delivery specs — a resource you can pass on to your photographers at the start of production so they use the correct naming conventions from the very first day of shooting.

2. Download Adobe Bridge

Adobe Bridge is an excellent piece of desktop software for managing images. It is what many photo labs and asset management companies base their own stills and approvals software on — with one significant bonus: as of 2020, it is free.

Key things you can do with production stills in Bridge:

• View any image file type
• Apply custom labels and star ratings to images
• Caption images
• Easily save low-resolution JPG copies of RAW files
• Change image metadata
• Create custom contact sheets of your images
• Navigate and create or delete folders just like your regular file explorer

Bridge has several million users worldwide, from casual users making use of the basic functions through to professional power users for whom Bridge is an integral part of their everyday workflow. If you are part of a producing or publicity team that regularly needs to handle stills from multiple productions, it is a valuable tool to have in your arsenal.

3. Use ImageApprovals for Managing Talent Approvals

Once you have your images neatly organised and have both RAW and JPG copies ready, it is time to handle the talent approvals process. Do not waste weeks of your valuable time doing this manually, or spend unnecessarily on all-in-one software filled with features you simply do not need.

ImageApprovals is designed to do one thing well: manage talent approvals of stills. Our goal is to set the new standard for how talent approvals are managed, reducing the time you spend on the process by a significant margin. The workflow is straightforward:

1. Upload your images, tag your actors, and set their kill percentages.
2. The platform ensures talent cannot exceed their contracted allowance — with separate allocations for solo and group images set individually per actor.
3. If you wish, make your own kills and selects for a more curated set of approvals.
4. Once complete, download reports in the form of spreadsheets or contact sheets.

To see the platform in action, request a free demo or get in touch to discuss your production’s requirements.

4. Back Up Your Images

Once your photographer has delivered a neatly organised drive and your talent have completed their approvals, there is one final step: ensuring you have a robust backup of your images. There are multiple cost-effective approaches depending on your budget, your required level of risk mitigation, and where you need to access your data from.

A good rule of thumb is to work to the 3-2-1 strategy:

• 3 — keep at least three copies of your data
• 2 — ensure your copies are kept on at least two different mediums or device types (for example, an external hard drive and a cloud backup)
• 1 — keep at least one copy offsite

A combination of cloud and local storage is generally the most resilient approach for production stills.

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If you are an independent publicist, publicity firm, production company, or photographer working with stills for film and TV, these four steps will help you work in a way that reduces your workload, provides a better all-round experience, and keeps costs low.

Struggling with any aspect of your stills management? Read our guide to streamlining talent approvals for more detailed best practices, or contact us if you need help managing talent approvals — one of our team will get in touch.