During its 60+ year history, the media and entertainment industry has been working tirelessly to perfect production workflow. However, adoption of new technology has been slower than in other industries. Production crews are getting larger and the digitization of media is not gaining momentum as much as it should, slowing pre-and-post production review.
Anyone working in TV or film production knows that when deadlines creep closer, the “days” stretch from typical 12-hour shifts all the way to 48-hour marathon editing sessions. Time is truly money, and delayed production leads to crews scrambling to get raw footage looking slick and ready in time for release.
To improve digital review, several honest questions must be answered. How do you decrease the amount of physical media that ends up changing countless hands? What security decisions ensure that the script or early footage from your next blockbuster doesn’t get leaked before the official release? How do you put in place security parameters but still accommodate large production crews and industry executives? Enter mobile dailies, the concept of uploading, distributing, and reviewing audio-visual media content while on any device.
Let’s Get Digital
Boxes of DVDs are no longer worth lugging around. These days, email link sharing and cloud software like Dax are used much more commonly. Hell, there are literal mobile dailies trailers like the pimped-out RV used for Lone Survivor. All key players involved in the review of rough cuts (DP, Director, Producers, etc.) can easily upload dailies to the web for access outside the office, complete with custom security permissions. In a system so reliant on effective collaboration, we know it’s not always going to be possible to make hasty production decisions and there should not be to an expectation to share notes and suggestions in person. Email threads and SaaS approaches are steps toward progress, but key video production players simply cannot rely on an office-exclusive work format for much longer.
Mobile dailies strive to improve the last remaining communication and content-sharing snags that exist in the media and entertainment industry. I ask that you close your tired eyes and imagine a world where you do not need to sit on the 405 (or in Mediafly’s case, Dan Ryan) for three hours just to go review this week’s work on your desktop. That’s not to oversimplify what film/TV execs do on a daily basis – but dailies review is not something that should be confined exclusively to an office, either.
Future of Hollywood Workflow
Chances are, execs like yourself have a preference for either your smartphone or your tablet when it comes to work-travel. You could certainly rely on email links, DVDs, or dailies software on these devices. But envision working with a trusted partner that specializes in developing mobile enterprise platforms. This organization would provide a mobile-optimized application approach so you would never worry about security, Wi-Fi connectivity, or location again when reviewing dailies. Sound too good to be true? This platform already exists.
We applaud the software solutions that have been developed to help studios, but when it comes to mobile dailies, only one product is truly optimized for device-based production. Mobile dailies are the future of Hollywood workflow. Studio execs can either adopt this mobile platform early to solve problems for cheap, or be kicking themselves down the road when the prices spike. Mobilized dailies will be the next major stepping stone for production review. Working in the media and entertainment industry has never been more exciting than now.
Interested in investing in mobile dailies technology? Have a look at Mediafly’s solution, called ProReview and let us know how it stacks up against other digital platform offerings.
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