Location Scouting Specialists Have An Eye For iView

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The Location Partnership was formed in 1998 and has now grown into a collaboration of around twelve highly experienced Location Managers with an unrivalled knowledge of locations in the UK and throughout the world.

The Location Partnership offers the UK's most comprehensive location library with over half a million images from locations both in the UK and worldwide.

The Location Partnership provide locations for films, TV, commercials, photo shoots, and other events.

For more information see: www.locationpartnership.com

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Location Scouting Specialists Have An Eye For iView

So what’s important about a movie, TV show, commercial or advertisement? Plot, script, performances, production and location, location, location.

The Location Partnership knows exactly how crucial the right setting can be to the commercial, creative and logistical success of a project. Established in 1998, The Location Partnership comprises a group of scouts who spend much of their time traversing the UK and the globe to find the perfect location for the hundreds of requests they receive from filmmakers and photographers every year.

Living Room
© Mathias Kerfante

Our location scouts need to do more than just snap a few quick photos. They need to be competent photographers who are able to capture the interesting angles, lighting, and mood of a location.

The Location Partnership receive all kinds of challenging and creative location requests. “We get requests for everything from a grimy public toilet to an opulent ballroom, a time-warped 1940’s flat to the last word in contemporary minimalist apartments, a glacial ice cave to a petrified desert forest,” says Eddy Pearce, Director of The Location Partnership.

Years of traveling around the UK and beyond have enabled The Location Partnership to develop the UK’s most comprehensive library of locations for filming and photography using iView MediaPro. Carefully cataloged and easy to search, the location library often enables them to meet the requirements of a request with a location already on file. There’s no sense in spending resources rediscovering a location after all.

Recent projects have included finding the rolling wheat fields of the American Midwest in rural Dorset for a trailer for a new ITV program called Invasion Iowa, and having to find various locations for the Carlsberg™ World Cup advert featuring a pub team of English Soccer legends.

Country Field
© The Location Partnership

They also found locations within the Greater London area representing the cartoon town of Springfield for a television advertisement and online viral campaign in which a real-life Simpsons™ title sequence was shot matching each location shot for shot. As Eddy explains, “That one minute long sequence is so iconic, if the locations hadn't been right it just wouldn't have worked. Our location scouts know how to speedily source the perfect location, even for the most demanding of requests.”

The Digital Perspective

Photography has always played a crucial role in The Location Partnership’s business. “Our location scouts need to do more than just snap a few quick photos. They need to be competent photographers who are able to capture the interesting angles, lighting, and mood of a location,” explains Eddy. “Having this advanced grasp of photography enables us to thoroughly inform a client on all aspects of potential locations.

“The advent and uptake of digital photography has revolutionized the way we work. Digital photography eliminated the need to wait for prints to come back from the lab and has enabled our location scouts to email photos to clients while on a shoot, whether in the UK or abroad, and instantly gain feedback or address any questions the client may have. This time saving is most noticeable on when scouting for night shoots where we no longer have to wait until the morning to get our prints developed.”

On a job by job basis [iView MediaPro] saves at least an hour a day... It’s paid for itself many times over.

Instant feedback from clients enables The Location Partnership to discover the perfect location faster, saving money and shortening the turnaround time to complete a job.

Desert Tree
© The Location Partnership

Prior to The location Partnership’s digital conversion, all their photos were mounted on A3 boards and filed. As Eddy explains, “Our office groaned under the weight these files.” Thankfully they have now managed to scan their non-digital images, but they do keep a few image boards around for posterity”.

iView MediaPro Holds the Key

Eddy first came across iView MediaPro in a Digital Photographer Magazine review and quickly realized that iView’s digital asset management solution was exactly what was needed to manage their growing library of digital images.

Eddy explains that he has integrated MediaPro into his daily workflow. “ After I’ve been out shooting locations, I come back to the office with all my shots as hi-res JPEGs. I then import all the images into a MediaPro catalog and store them in a folder named for that particular job. The images are then edited using MediaPro’s label function and sorted into subfolders for each by location. I use this opportunity to add any further metadata that will help us search and locate the images in the future.

MediaPro does everything we need and more. As we become more proficient in using the program, we seem to keep getting more out of it.

“After I’ve used MediaPro to annotate and sort the hi-res images, I burn them onto a disc and add them to our growing library of digital images. I then convert the hi-res JPEGs into lower resolution files which are archived on an external hard-drive and prepared for clients to view according their preference - either burned to disc, emailed or uploaded to the Web. I am able to do all these processes with MediaPro.

“We generally work with the low-res images to speed things up and to keep on top of storage space as it’s not unusual for us to shoot 500 or more images in a single day. MediaPro points us to the original hi-res file. This is a real bonus as there are often times when the original files are needed.

“We’re regularly pulling shots from a number of previous jobs to show our clients. We find it works best to keep a small number of large MediaPro catalogs and create selections and short lists using MediaPro’s Catalog Sets rather than search across multiple catalogs. For the photos that end up in our online library, the batch rename and keywording functions and the ability to integrate MediaPro with other applications are invaluable.

The time saved through using MediaPro has been invaluable for the team at The Location Partnership. “On a job by job basis it saves at least an hour a day,” explains Eddy. “Factoring in the management of our entire library of images, the time saving becomes impossible to estimate, at least a couple of days each month. It’s paid for itself many times over.”

Like any good software, the ease of use and intuitiveness is what makes it so pleasant and efficient to use.

MediaPro’s Clarity Surpasses the Competition

When asked whether The Location Partnership had sampled any other digital asset management solutions before deciding on MediaPro, Eddie told us that while he had dabbled with the competition MediaPro kept coming out on top.

“MediaPro does everything we need and more. As we become more proficient in using the program, we seem to keep getting more out of it. I’ve recently started exploring MediaPro a little more, and started to integrate MediaPro with other applications. Like any good software, the ease of use and intuitiveness is what makes it so pleasant and efficient to use.”