Case study: The Outrun
By The ImageApprovals Team ·
- 6,000+ stills
- Curated to ~2,000
- 2 days to cast-ready
- BAFTA-nominated film
Approvals running against a cinema release
We received the stills on 6 September 2024. The Outrun, Brock Media’s drama starring Saoirse Ronan, was in UK cinemas the same month.
That timing sets everything else. The full archive of over 6,000 stills had to become a cleared, organised delivery while the release was happening, ready for release-week press, the awards campaign to follow, and home entertainment after that. There was no version of this job where the images could take their time.
Two days from delivery to cast-ready
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 6 September 2024 | Original images received |
| 8 September 2024 | All images organised and online, ready for cast to approve |
| 19 September 2024 | Cast approvals complete and producer Selects marked |
| 25 September 2024 | All images organised and delivered to post-production team |
Two days to audit, curate, organise and publish a 6,000-image set. That is the tightest front end we have run, and it only works because the audit and the curation happen together rather than in sequence.
The audit cross-checked files from every photographer to confirm nothing was missing, malformed or in the wrong format, before any of it reached an actor. RAW and JPG both had to be structured cleanly, because post-production and the cast needed different things from the same delivery.
Curation then took the set from over 6,000 down to just under 2,000. The production knew perfectly well their cast would not sit through six thousand frames. The judgement was in cutting two thirds of the shoot without narrowing the range of coverage on offer.
Approvals closed on 19 September, 14 working days from receipt. Producers marked their selects the same day, and the organised delivery followed: Killed, Approved and Approved Selects folders across both formats, with full kill reports.
What the images went on to do
The Outrun has since been recognised across the industry:
- BAFTA Awards: nominated for Outstanding British Film of the Year and Best Leading Actress.
- London Critics Circle Film Awards: Saoirse Ronan, winner of Best British/Irish Performer of the Year.
- British Independent Film Awards: nominated for 9 awards including Best British Independent Film, Best Lead Performance and Best Cinematography.
An awards run puts a production’s stills in front of more people, and more discerning people, than the release itself does. The frames cleared that September are the ones that supplied it.
Brock Media keep coming back
The Outrun is one of a number of projects we have handled for Brock Media, and producer Rohina Canerin-Perera rated this one five stars. Each project teaches us more about how they work and what their deliveries need, which is why the turnarounds keep getting shorter. In this business the endorsement that matters most is the next job, and they keep bringing it to us.
If your release date is already fixed and the stills are not cleared yet, that is the conversation to have now rather than in three weeks. Tell us the date, or see how the approvals platform works.