LogIt makes managing film footage a breeze

James Heyward (left) and Andy Salek say their footage finder cuts post-production costs. Picture / Fotopress

It's a scenario that frustrates many film crews: knowing they've got a shot but struggling to find it amid screeds of footage.

The way Auckland production company Making Movies has tackled this fix has rewarded them with a nice little business on the side.

Its web-based tape and shot logging system "LogIt" makes navigating hundreds of hours of footage a whole lot less demanding.

Users log all shots into a centralised, online database where they can be quickly identified and retrieved, eliminating hours spent wading through boxes of tape rolls at the end of a production.

And because it works online, the shots can be accessed from any location in the world.

Making Movies, run by James Heyward and Andy Salek, specialises in making documentaries for the international market - particularly of adventure activities, and corporate programming and commercials.

LogIt grew out of their need to better manage the hundreds of hours of footage they gathered for each project, and to retrieve shots from previous productions they wanted to use.

"At the time we were making projects on Mt Everest and we were getting calls from people wanting to buy stock footage from us. We were calling back to our office, asking people to search the shelves for it."

Heyward, who has spent the last 20 years making films, was unversed in software coding, but went to database school to learn to build the application. He later worked with a software developer on the project, which took about four years.

The ability to archive and reuse footage in the future was one of the real benefits of LogIt, he said.

"Why shoot the Sky Tower again if you know you've done it three times before?"

This has seen the company set up a stock footage catalogue which creates a passive income as people view and buy selected footage online.

Although initially developed for inhouse use, they have found a ready market for LogIt, which they are promoting under the name of their subsidiary company Media Crab.

Eight local production houses are using it, and three overseas.

Heyward estimates the system offers users 10-15 per cent cost savings in post-production.

The company has tried to price it within the reach of even the smallest productions, with seven licence-based options ranging from $25 a month to $70,000 a year.

Although it is offering free trials, selling to production companies, many with low budgets, has been harder than expected, so the company is selling the product more broadly.

It believes Government and corporate customers managing large media libraries will be a bigger market than production houses in the future.

Promoting LogIt offshore will be a focus in the next six months, particularly in the US and the UK.

LogIt has had its first major industry test case on NZ Idol.

One of the ways it benefits the production crew at South Pacific Pictures is to quickly locate audition takes of a contestant who makes it through to the finals, allowing a faster turnaround for the show.

LogIt has also been used in the production of Eating Media Lunch.

Business partners Heyward and Salek employ five staff in their business. So far the company has invested $300,000 to develop LogIt. The next phase is to seek venture capital, which is what its part-time residency in the Ice House for eight months has helped with. The pair hope to see Media Crab turn over $1 million in the next year, and to have a number of offshore vendors.