Case study: Humane

“Working with Image Approvals was an absolute pleasure. From our initial call to final delivery, there was never a moment where we didn’t feel like we were in extremely capable hands. Their app for approving or killing photos is incredibly straightforward. Not one of our six actors ever reached out to ask for clarity on how to use it. As an ex-stills photographer herself (and a darn good one!), Aimee knows what it takes to deliver top quality stills to your distribution partners. This was our first time working with Image Approvals, but it won’t be the last!”

— Michael Sparaga, Producer · 5-star Google review

Cleared is not the same as finished

Humane is a 2023 Canadian horror directed by Caitlin Cronenberg, presented by XYZ Films and Elevation Pictures. A key art shoot and six days of filming produced 4,253 stills, and six cast members held approval rights.

Most approvals work stops when the cast finish. On Humane that was roughly halfway. The frames going out to press still had to be graded to match the finished film, several actors had specific retouching requests attached to their approvals, and the distributor wanted a caption sheet covering every image submitted. A cleared image that looks nothing like the film it is promoting has not really been delivered.

First, making the shoot visible

The photographer delivered the 4,253 stills to the production as RAW files, which the production team had no way to open or work through without specialist software. We produced high-resolution JPGs from all of them, so the production could actually see what it had.

Then we curated, because handing six actors four thousand frames guarantees a slow review. The set came down to 783 unit images covering the production (full scene coverage from several angles, all key cast, and the behind-the-scenes material worth keeping) plus 830 gallery images suitable for key art.

Six actors then worked through their sets and approved 1,075 images, a 67% approval rate.

Not one of the six actors contacted the production for help using the platform.

It’s the detail Michael Sparaga picked out in his review, and the one producers tend to care about most: every support question an actor asks costs the production office time it doesn’t have.

Grading 281 frames to match the film

The producers marked 281 selects from the approved set as their primary press and marketing package. Those went to our editorial team for colour grading to match the look of the finished film, plus the specific retouching individual cast had asked for.

All of it was applied at the RAW level, non-destructively. Every exported JPG carries the approved edits, and any external graphics team can still wind the file back to the original out-of-camera frame if a campaign needs something different later. Bake the grade in and that option is gone for good.

The edited selects were back with the production within two working days of approvals locking.

Fourteen working days, start to finish

Date	Milestone
25 August 2023	Original images received
31 August 2023	All images organised and online, ready for cast to approve
13 September 2023	Approvals complete and locked in; 281 selects edited and colour graded
14 September 2023	Project complete; all images returned to client

Everything went back sorted into Killed, Approved and Approved Selects folders, with kill and select reports and the distributor’s caption sheet listing each image’s name, thumbnail, caption, usage notes and photographer.

Fourteen working days covered organisation, RAW conversion, curation, six sets of approvals, retouching, colour grading, captioning and reporting.

If your stills have to sit next to the film

Press images get judged against the trailer. If the grade is off, the stills look like a different production, and no amount of correct paperwork fixes that impression.

We can grade approved selects to match your final grade and handle the retouching your cast have asked for, as part of the same workflow that clears them. See what our editorial team does, or tell us about your delivery.