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Designer, photographer, PicTrax app founder, lover of good coffee and real experiences
The quest for the perfect film and television production location is a challenge for several reasons. Every scene, every frame must be meticulously crafted to tell a compelling story, relevant to a time period, culture and circumstance. And while transporting a film cast, crew and equipment around the world to incredible locations sounds amazing, it is generally not viable for the increasingly speedily canned productions to sate the demands of burgeoning over-the-top (OTT) media services globally.
This pursuit of the perfect suite of locations often falls into the hands of location scouts, professionals with a keen eye for detail and an insatiable thirst for the perfect scene.
PicTrax has the capacity to reshape the landscape of location scouting.
Case study: A film touches on the struggles of a couple who ducks away from a desert exploration tour to have a romantic moment. The male lead lass and twists an ankle and while his partner is trying to assist him back to the tour bus, the bus leaves. The couple must survive several days in the scorching heat while trying to access food, water, shelter and protection from wild dogs.
Location: The broad, featureless and unmapped desert area holds numerous sites where key scenes are to be played out. The location scout map pins many locations in a 200 klm range, where incredible scenes could create cinematic glory. The collection of these destinations can be viewed in isolation, for review by the director and other key personnel. This custom mapping capability allows increased planning and navigation for all cast and crew. Tap on the navigation icon, and although in this case directions will very likely be unavailable due to the lack of roads in this example, the user will clearly see their current location in relation to the selected destination.
1. Private Map-Pinned Locations: Any image uploaded to the PicTrax public forum needs to be a publicly accessible destination. Many film shoot locations may be private dwellings, offices and buildings that are not publicly accessible. Location scouts can upload images to their private profiles and create private collections, where these mapped destinations will never be discovered by the general public. Multiple potential filming-location private collections can be created – offering the ultimate in organisation by clearly showing the entire filming area and showing each location in proximity to the next.
2. Unleashing Creativity: Location scouting is not just about finding a place; it’s about envisioning the scene, understanding its potential, and letting creativity flow. PicTrax enables scouts to create digitally mapped storyboards by pinning locations, creating and rearranging destination sequences in collections, and adding notes, including contact details and access parameters. Location scouts can explore the full potential of a location, paving the way for innovative and visually stunning cinematic experiences.
3. Streamlining Collaboration: In the collaborative realm of film production, communication is key. An upcoming feature will allow collaboration, by allowing location scouts to share their private location collections with directors, producers, and fellow crew members. Real-time updates will ensure everyone is on the same page, fostering seamless teamwork and eliminating misunderstandings.
4. Cost-Effective Scouting: Time is money in the film industry. PicTrax significantly reduces the time spent on physical location visits by offering detailed digital insights. Scouts can request that people on-site submit location pins, narrowing down options before making on-site visits. This cost-effective approach saves both time and resources, allowing production teams to focus their efforts on the most promising locations.
5. Enhanced Decision-Making: With PicTrax, location scouts can make data-driven decisions. Mapping of all considered locations, whether they have an address or not, empowers scouts to evaluate locations in relation to travel time, convenience and accessibility, ensuring that the chosen setting aligns perfectly with the production’s vision.
6. Publicity: Secrecy often shrouds upcoming film projects. PicTrax offers private mapping features, allowing location scouts to pin and assess potential sites discreetly. However after production has wrapped up, a collection of publicly accessible film shoot locations can be published publicly, allowing fans to visit the scenes they have come to love, and exposing the film to an audience interested in the destination.
In the dynamic world of filmmaking, where each location contributes to the narrative tapestry, PicTrax stands as a beacon of innovation. By transforming location scouting into a precise, creative, and collaborative endeavour, PicTrax empowers professionals to discover the extraordinary, one pin at a time.
PicTrax – Share the Adventure.
#LocationScouting #FilmLocations #PicTraxPins #FilmProduction #CinematicExploration #CreativeScouting #FilmmakingMagic #PreciseFilming #Storyboarding #FilmIndustryInsights #OnLocation #DigitalScouting #InnovativeFilmmaking #VisualStorytelling #FilmScouts #LocationInsider #CinematicWonders #FilmCraftsmanship #ProductionExcellence #CreativeCollaboration
Learn the PicTrax basics, upload images, create and share collections, navigate to destinations and more.
Here you’ll find the answers to several frequently asked questions, designed to help you learn more about PicTrax and how to get the most from it. This section will grow as more questions are added, so if you don’t see an answer to a question you have, ask us in in our contact form at the bottom of this page and we will do our best to answer you.
Upload images to PicTrax from your mobile device:
1/ Tap on the ‘upload’ icon (plus button). You will find this button in the centre of the bottom navigation bar. PicTrax should open your mobile phone or tablet’s gallery.
NOTE: PicTrax may open your phone’s file structure. If that occurs, simply navigate to your device’s image gallery and album or sub folder.
2/ Tap on the image you wish to upload.
NOTE: We suggest ‘favouriting’ or ‘liking’ images in your gallery or saving to a specific folder for easy location. This helps save time later.
3/ If the selected image contains GPS metadata, the image will automatically be pinned to the capture location. If the GPS metadata is missing or incorrect, you can search for a landmark close to the capture location, and navigate to where you were standing by standard pinch zoom control. When the capture location has been found, tap the map to pin the location.
4/ Fill in the required info fields, or you may choose to change the image.
5/ When the upload form is complete, hit ‘Save’ and your image will be uploaded to the private or public location as chosen.
NOTE: Navigating away from this window during the upload process may cause the upload to break.
6/ You will then be taken to your image’s ‘detail view’ where you may check the image, mapped location and info for accuracy, edit the information, make public (or private) or delete the image, or leave it as is.
Make money from PicTrax in three easy steps:
When your credits reach (AUD)$20 you can cash it in from the redeem your earnings page.
What can you do to increase your earnings further?
Encourage friends and family to follow you in PicTrax and like your pix. Each time a unique user likes one of your pix, your earnings grow. During promo events, the Like Action Value will increase. It will be particularly beneficial to gain as many likes as you can during bonus promo events!
Absolutely not! At PicTrax, we are ‘Team You’. The platform was built to assist people in the following ways;
PicTrax has no interest in claiming ownership of user uploaded images, however one or more user images may be seen in on screen video and screenshots taken for promotional purposes.
At PicTrax, we have taken steps to protect your rights by:
If you would like to crop, enhance or otherwise edit an image prior to uploading to PicTrax, it is worth noting that some image editing apps will erase the GPS metadata.
We consistently use Snapseed for image enhancement prior to upload as this app retains the GPS metadata AND saves enhanced pix to a created Snapseed gallery folder/album, which allows for easy retrieval in the upload process.
There may be many other image editing apps that retain GPS metadata – please test on one image before committing to any specific image editing app.
Your personal information will not be retained by PicTrax so therefore it cannot be sold to a third party.
PicTrax does serve advertising. In some instances the advertising platform may match your device ID and match it with ad content that it considers relevant to your profile in their existing records.
PicTrax may use your email address to;
PicTrax may also use your email address to;
You will of course be able to unsubscribe from these emails.
If you are attempting to upload content in a low or intermittent data environment, the upload may break, showing a partial upload. If this occurs, please delete the image and try again at a later date, in a stronger data environment.
If the uploading device is disrupted through; going into ‘sleep mode’, moving away from the upload screen during upload, accepting a call during upload, the image may fail to upload correctly.
If this does occur, please open the image to detail view and use the elipsis menu in the top right of the image pane to delete the image, and attempt upload at another time.
Yes, in both iOS and Android devices, you will have the ability to apply a ‘heart’ to, or ‘favourite’ an image.
This will place the image in a ‘favourites’ folder which will be much easier to access than scrolling through years’ of photos to find the one you wish to upload.
Using the Snapseed app to enhance your images is a great way to separate your enhanced pix from the rest as Snapseed can save the enhanced pix to a Snapseed folder or album.
Manually moving images to a new folder for upload is another way to separate the images you wish to upload to PicTrax.
Many professional photographers have beautiful images they may wish to share on the PicTrax app.
In order to upload these images to PicTrax, the user must be able to get the images onto their mobile phone or tablet. Here are a few methods we can endorse:
Google Drive and or Dropbox: Upload images to Google Drive or Dropbox from your desktop and download to your phone’s gallery using the Google Drive or Dropbox app.
Direct connection: Connect your phone to your computer via USB or Bluetooth and transfer files to your device’s image gallery files.
Digital SLR WiFi: Many modern cameras, such as Canon, have apps that allow WiFi connection to the camera for remote camera control and image transfer. Check to see if such a method exists for your Digital SLR camera make and model.
Note: We advise saving images to a new folder/album created to receive these images or it may be difficult to locate them within your phone’s image collection.
Users may only delete any images that they themselves have uploaded.
You will find all images you have uploaded in your profile page. Your images can also be found in the main view by filtering on ‘my pix’. Pics that have been uploaded by the logged in user will be distinguishable by a small white dot in the bottom right of the thumbnail.
To delete any of your images, open any ‘owned’ image to ‘detail view’. To access detail view, tap on any image thumbnail in your profile’s ‘All’, ‘Public’ or ‘Private’ image tabs. Users may delete that image by hitting the on-image vertical ellipses icon (…) and selecting ‘delete’ from the resulting drop down menu. The ellipsis menu will be found in the top right corner of any image uploaded by the logged in user when seen in detail view.
NOTE: This will immediately and permanently delete images from the PicTrax platform and cannot be undone.
Users may make an image public or private at any time after upload, or during the upload process.
You will final all images you have uploaded in your profile page. Your images can also be found in the main view by filtering on ‘my pix’. Pics that have been uploaded by the logged in user will be distinguished by a small white dot in the bottom right of the thumbnail.
To change the public/private status of any of your images, open any ‘owned’ image in ‘detail view’. To access detail view, tap on any image thumbnail in your profile’s ‘All’, ‘Public’ or ‘Private’ image tabs. Tap on the on-image vertical ellipses icon (…) and select the correct status from the resulting drop down menu. The ellipsis menu will be found in the top right corner of any image uploaded by the logged in user when seen in detail view.
NOTE: No further action need be taken – the image will now be accessible in the public or private domain as stipulated.
Save an image to one or more collections from detail view
1/ After tapping the on-map thumbnail of an iamge you want to collect, you will be taken to ‘detail view’.
2/ Tap on the ‘collect’ (bookmark) icon in the under-image tool bar.
3/ Name your collection or select and existing collection and hit ‘done’. You have now added the image to your collection.
You can edit your profile details by hitting the settings ‘gear’ icon. This icon can be found in the top right corner of your profile page.
Here you can:
NOTE: Changing username may not be permitted if the username has been taken by another user.
Your image’s GPS meta data may be incorrect due to a number of factors such as;
NOTE: PicTrax advises users to routinely check their images info to make sure the image placement is accurate while in the field to ensure images captured will be placed correctly when uploading to PicTrax.
If your image is not automatically pinned on the the map on upload , it generally means your image’s GPS meta data may be missing or the uploading device’s privacy settings may prevent pinning. This can happen due to a number of factors such as;
Inappropriate content
If your image was reported for inappropriate content, your image will be reviewed by PicTrax admin staff and either removed from the platform if the image fails to meet PicTrax’s acceptable publishing standards, or made private, if deemed to be inappropriate for public viewing.
NOTE: No user action is required and no correspondence will be entered into after PicTrax admin action has been taken.
Breach of copyright
If your image was reported for breach of copyright, PicTrax admin staff will investigate the matter.
NOTE: To protect users from ‘internet trolls’, repeated and unfounded reporting may result in the reporting user’s account being deleted.
NOTE: PicTrax admin staff may contact both the user and the reporter to determine the most likely image copyright ownership status. Once PicTrax – through any investigative method deemed appropriate or necessary within Australian law – has determined the most likely owner, the image in question will be removed from the non-owner’s account and no further correspondence will be entered into.
Inaccurate location
If your image was reported for inaccurate location, your image may be made private to ensure other PicTrax users are not directed to wrong locations.
NOTE: No user action is required and no correspondence will be entered into after PicTrax admin action has been taken.
NOTE: No user action is required and no correspondence will be entered into after PicTrax admin action has been taken.
Poor quality or composition
If your image was reported for poor quality or composition, your image may be made private so that you may continue to enjoy your image while maintaining an enjoyable in-app experience for other PicTrax users.
NOTE: No user action is required and no correspondence will be entered into after PicTrax admin action has been taken.
NOTE: PicTrax users, through the acceptance of PicTrax Terms of Service, have agreed to abide by PicTrax acceptable use parameters and multiple breaches or numerous nuisance reporting as well as multiple breaches of PicTrax usage guidelines may see that users’ profile deleted from the platform and potentially banned from PicTrax with no further correspondence being entered into.
PicTrax needs the GPS location data (automatically stored in many digital images taken on mobile phones and or cameras) in order to plot the image on the global map so that others may discover the location for themselves, or so that you can plot your private journeys on a global map.
This is the true purpose of PicTrax and images that are not of destination specific subject matter may be removed from the platform.
What data does PicTrax collect from digital images?
PicTrax will access and use the following info from images you upload to the platform to help other users be able to find the location and replicate the image’s capture conditions. These include:
There are several reasons an image may be removed from PicTrax after upload. These can include;
1/ Lack of copyright
2/ Inappropriate or explicit content
3/ Poor composition
4/ Non destination specific subject matter
Note: This platform differs from Instagram in its destination specific nature. For this reason, uploaded pictures of people, food, animals or objects that are not destination specific and do not add to the travel and photographic exploration experience for other users may be deleted from the platform.
