How one small video production business uses Mylio’s next-gen features to stay ahead of the competition
Marcos de Fortuny, the co-owner of Spain’s Widescope Productions, talks about how he discovered Mylio—and how the app super-charged his business.
Interview by Eric Perrett
What’s unique about Widescope Productions?
We’re a Spanish film and video production services firm that works with foreign clients who want to produce commercials or still shoots in Spain. We’re an end-to-end shop and can facilitate just about any aspect of the production, from budgets and location scouting, to equipment to transport, to casting and crew.
Sounds like it requires a lot of management.
Absolutely. Today, what makes us stand out from our competitors is that all three partners run the jobs; one of us is always available to turn around budgets and provide location reference photos within hours. We have offices in Barcelona and Malaga and a great team of eight full-time staffers, plus an army of subcontractors, who give clients unlimited support—weekends, after midnight, whatever. There are a lot of moving parts and things to keep track of.
What about the business has been challenging?
We manage well over 300,000 images—photos of locations, photos of shoots, etc. It took me two years of research and trying things that didn’t work before I finally discovered Mylio. I tried ThumbPlus, but didn’t like it. Then I tried Aperture and wound up with three different Aperture databases, which was a mess. Then Apple Photos, Google Photos, and Dropbox, but none had the volume and syncing features I was looking for.
What attracted you to Mylio?
One thing was the ability to sync our photo libraries in real time. Before Mylio, our photos just sat in databases: I had one, and my office manager had another—and they were never in sync. It’s the most amazing thing: Mylio allowed us to sync across multiple devices in various locations and do so with a good visual interface. I haven’t seen this done correctly anywhere else.
How has Mylio helped Widescope’s business?
Actually, one of the things that differentiates us from the competition is Mylio—it makes us faster and more efficient. To be honest, I’ve kept Mylio a secret until now because it’s been an advantage over our competitors. As I mentioned, the syncing is important, but so is Mylio’s ability to handle huge volumes of pictures. In my industry, having a visual database that can sync over 300,000 photos between devices is unique.
How do you actually use Mylio in your workflow?
One of the first things a client will do is send us a concept or a script and ask for help finding a location. That’s where our Mylio database comes in: We have photos of locations all over the country, and can turn them around for client review, from wherever we are, almost immediately. Four people work with our Mylio database, which we sync between six devices in two cities, Barcelona and Malaga.
If a client is looking for something specific that we don’t have in the database—a certain kind of house, for instance—then our scouter will go take pictures. I can see new photos as soon as they’re imported. Each client has a web site to track their project; we put the photos on the site for their review, then once the project is finished, they all go into the Mylio database, and get synced between offices. Our clients think one person manages this, but any of us can add things or make changes.
Once you’ve loaded images into Mylio, how do you use them?
First, we keyword them. This is very important—everything from a particular scouting trip has a keyword code, as well as a keyword for the client, and keywords describing the location: road, house, pool, etc. Keywords are everything! When this is done, the rest is easy: If a client wants to shoot in a house, I just type in ‘house’ along with any other details, and I get everything right away. We can then immediately use them as a reference on the next project.
Have any tips for other small businesses using Mylio?
Keep your images in a folder structure, then you can have sub-folders within the root folders. We didn’t do that first. But now I might have 50 folders, and can quickly see what’s in any of them; I can search a parent folder and subfolders as well.
Also: Add your keywords when you import! If everything is classified properly it makes things easy to search and filter. Today, if I need to find a road for an upcoming shoot, I can search on ‘roads;’ I can also filter by ‘roads, Malaga,’ or ‘roads, Route 66,’ etc. Then I’m all set.
.. Read More »“It took me two years of research and trying things that didn’t work before I finally found Mylio.” https://t.co/3Hs5viXCPc
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