Stein B. Kvae and Åse Ytreland on innovating Hollywood: — Some are surprised Drylab is Norwegian
Drylab — a Norwegian production tool for the movie and series industry — is heading for the stars, and looking for investors.
We all know them, and many of us love them: The big series productions — such as Game of Thrones, Vikings, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Orange is the New Black. And that’s not mentioning the movies that also took a long time to both plan for, and film. What movie or series have impressed you the most in the recent year? No matter what your answer is: Making it definitely took a lot of time, energy, money, and dedicated concentration from the production team.
But with all the effort that goes into creating a special experience for the viewers, seeing mistakes (for instance in the setup of a scene, or the characters’ costumes) is of course annoying. Not only for the production team, but also for the viewers who trusted the team with telling them a story. You might not think the details matter all that much — until something throws you out of the narrative you’ve been carefully introduced to. Take a big production such as Game of Thrones: How was the previous meeting between Jon Snow and Tormund Giantsbane — were they friendly, or was there hostility? Missing out on such details can “make or break” a scene for the die-hard fans, or worst case: the mistake can spoil an entire show, if it’s done badly enough.
The Norwegian production tool Drylab is aiming to make these mistakes fewer, possibly eliminating them altogether. COO and Business Development Advisor at Drylab, Åse Ytreland says a particularly famous name recently got to learn about the production tool.
We had our first Hollywood production last summer, with George Clooney’s team. They were checking out different tools for the production of his mini-series Catch 22 — and ended up choosing Drylab. We have since been told that Clooney was very pleased with the experience. This meant a lot to us, as he has the opportunity to pick any production tool he wants. Experience has shown us that first-time users of Drylab end up becoming returning customers. The Drylab tool brings in flexibility, and you don’t want to go back to the old systems once you’ve had the pleasure of using Drylab.
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High-speed quality in the pipeline
In September, Drylab were among the companies attending the Creative Technology Day at Startup Campus. But as a reader (and one presumably with interest in the production of movies and series), you might not have heard of Drylab before. This is because the company has been laying low for several years, but now they are finally ready to make a big step into the public sphere.
One of the first customers was Per Olav Sørensen, who used Drylab for his production of The Heavy Water War (Norwegian: Kampen om Tungtvannet), in 2015. And in all of 2018, Drylab were a part of 20 full productions. So far in 2019, they have been part of 32. One of Norway’s leading producers — and part of the Drylab team, Stein B. Kvae explains the high rate of productions.
Some are surprised Drylab is a Norwegian company, but we are nevertheless definitely providing the production teams with something they need. When each streaming service want to charge their consumers for using their service, they also need to offer the consumers original content. So each production team has to produce a lot — the content has to be unique and original — and this itself means a tremendous pressure onto both quality and speed.
And with so much in the production pipeline, great values are being handled every day. Perhaps not in the direct sense — but the value of skill, effort, and time put together is nevertheless something worth protecting. This is why Drylab has made it possible to download files within the app without being connected to the Internet. Kvae says there is “a military-level security to the protection of the files” — adding that in one production team on Iceland, the cutter would disconnect the Internet every time he was working on the production. Connecting to the internet — even for five minutes — meant he’d have to be granted special permission.
The pressure on having both quality and speed to each production means that the bigger productions may have to switch between directors, says Kvae.
On the production of Game of Thrones, for instance, they use many different directors. So when a new director comes along and they want to consult a former scene, they can go to the Drylab app on their tablet, phone, or computer — and check that particular scene in seconds, what the energy between two people was like, how much of the food was eaten during the scene, and so on.
But as with all needed innovation: Why hasn’t it been done before? Why hasn’t anyone in Hollywood created the Drylab solution already, years ago? Ytreland says that although similar solutions are available, they are not as far ahead as Drylab and don’t offer as many unique features.
So the Drylab tool is already proven to work, and is well respected by filmmakers. The directors love the new flexibility — they can bring their movie or TV series with them anywhere and continue to work on it: In the hotel room, at home during the weekend, on the plane — they can consult any previous take quickly, saving them lots of time — and money. And the director can also work on several projects at the same time, for all we know. It also allows the production company to follow their productions more closely.
Went to L.A., came back for Drylab
But how do you make a production tool the movie/series industry itself can’t live without, once they have tried it? You can of course talk to the production team and discuss what kind of features you can implement in your service — but you can also be part of a production team, and implement anything you’ve been missing when using other tools. Kvae says coming up with new ideas for Drylab doesn’t take much time when you’re already involved in the industry.
In essence, we have developed a tool and tested it on our own productions. We have of course also tested a lot of functionality which we as of now haven’t made available for our customers. Still, these services will be made available if they turn out to provide real value to productions. We started industrialising Drylab for real once we struck a deal with a Swedish company called Filmlance, which (among other productions) made Broen. They are a big company, owned by Disney.
But before Filmlance could make the final decision on whether or not they would be using Drylab, they visited the NAB Show 2018 event in Las Vegas and had a look at every other similar service presented there. They chose Drylab. Kvae says Drylab is continuously looking for ways their service can be truly unique.
When they [Filmlance] came back, they told us they would use Drylab as we had come the farthest in developing the production tool. The premise of having people from the industry at the core of Drylab is important to what we can provide for others in the industry: The idea for this tool came from a Cinematographer and a filmmaker, and initially the motivation was to create better movies. Some of the side-effects of creating a tool like Drylab is of course a better workflow, greater efficiency, and a greater ability to keep all details and costs under control. But the initial motivation was the wish to create better movies.
This motivation is still at the core — but money is also needed, if Drylab is going to really make it abroad. Ytreland thinks Drylab would have a special appeal to many investors once they realise how far along the product already is.
We are hoping to meet some investors who think it would be fun to globalise a product which isn’t just an idea, but a product people actually are using here and now — a product they are happy using. The only thing we really need right now is more financial means, so we can get abroad and tell people about our innovation.
