Case study: The Nest

“I used Image Approvals during post production of The Nest. I was looking for a streamlined process that would make it as easy and fast as possible for cast to check and kill or approve their stills and that’s exactly what I got. Within 5 days of sending links to cast all the approvals were complete and my total hands-on time was under 2 hours.”

— Clare Kerr, Producer, Lambert Studios

A small set can still stop a delivery

The Nest is an independent BBC One drama from Studio Lambert. It had 699 images across five episodes and a day of gallery photography, with six actors holding approval rights.

Seven hundred images is nothing. It is a rounding error next to the twenty-thousand-image deliveries we usually write about. And it was still enough to hold up a broadcast, because volume was never the problem here.

The problem was that the show had wrapped, the photographer had moved on, and the team no longer had access to any image management software. Six actors needed to clear their stills, the show was due to air the following month, and nobody left on the production could open, sort or distribute the set. Limited time, limited budget, no in-house expertise, and a broadcast date that wasn’t moving.

Under two hours of the producer’s time

Studio Lambert took the full-service package. They sent their selected stills on a secure download link, and everything after that was ours: tagging cast, resizing, uploading to the platform.

Then the part that decided the outcome. We built accounts for all six actors and sent Welcome Packs through for production to forward on, each with credentials and a short guide, so the production office never had to explain the process to anyone. Clare Kerr got a producer’s account so she could watch progress without contacting six actors to ask how they were getting on.

Her total hands-on time across the whole project was under two hours. All six actors finished within five days of receiving their links, and none of them needed support.

Seventeen working days from a website enquiry

• Monday 3 February: Initial enquiry received via our website
• Friday 14 February: Paperwork completed and images received
• Monday 17 February: All images tagged and uploaded; actor access granted
• Tuesday 25 February: Approvals process completed

Eleven of those days were paperwork and getting the images to us. Once the files landed, the whole thing took eight.

When approvals closed, production pulled reports in contact sheet and spreadsheet form, giving them a full audit trail of every decision, which is what a broadcaster expects to see if a cleared image is ever questioned.

If the photographer has already gone

It is a more common position than productions expect. The shoot finishes, the photographer moves to the next job, and a few weeks later somebody needs the stills cleared and discovers nobody left on the team can open a RAW file or work out what has been shot.

The set does not have to be large to leave you stuck. If that is where you are, send us what you have and we’ll take it from there, or read what our photo lab handles.