ASK & DISCUSS
INDEXOpinions on Pre Production Apps
11 years, 10 months ago - Dean Uzzell
So for the past 10 months now as an independent film maker i have been working on creating a Pre Production app for the iPhone, a few days ago it got accepted onto the app store. It is an app that contains all the key documents needed for pre production work, including: Proposal, shot lists, cast, crew, equipment, locations etc etc. With the ability to share the project with crew members. We are adding new features every two weeks and soon will support Celtx. I am posting to let you know about this app and if you do buy then if you could leave feedback etc. In order to find out what you like or would add to improve the app.
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/prepro/id734126943?mt=8
https://twitter.com/PreproApp
https://www.facebook.com/PreproApp
Cheers,
Dean Uzzell
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11 years, 10 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin
Apps in general, don't really use them. Keeping all the documents in one hard-to-update format isn't necessarily an advancement. Different people care about different things. Camera department kit list etc means nothing to the AD's and the catering numbers by day mean nothing to the Gaffer, etc. Nobody should get the budget, contracts are commercially sensitive, etc.
You hire professionals to do their jobs, and part of doing their jobs is that they get on and do what needs to be done without oversharing. If you get things right, it's not important to know what each person is doing, just that they are doing it right. Part of managing a project well is to get the right information to the right people at the right time in order for them to do what they need - and no more. This is why call sheets are issued nightly as the next day's shots are still undecided and there may be all kinds of changes based on each days work. And if there's any kind of overhead to use the tool, it'll be dumped. It has to make things quicker, easier and crucially more precise than the alternatives currently available.
There have been a few production apps, but they're generally really poorly focussed. If you can find a niche where you focus on servicing one department perfectly will beat servicing them all partly. If you're aiming at PM's (the people who're carrying the big weight of preproduction) then you need to service them fully - safe places and facilities/templates/storage for contracts (in various versions), budgets (in various versions), schedules, contact sheets, daily dining numbers, etc. If you're targeting AD's then get all the call sheets/movement order templates automated where possible, etc. If you can make call sheets easy the AD's will love you for it, if you make them fiddly the app will be bypassed in a heartbeat. 14h days leave people in shreds and following the easiest path. If you can make the easiest path (better that Excel for budgeting, budget running, budget reporting, better than whatever for call sheets, etc) you'll get a lot of takers. If it isn't, I doubt you will.
My 2p btw based on general market - haven't looked at your app as I'm Android!