Nearly 20 productions a year – how Den Nationale Scene brought images, video and its press room together in one place
One of Norway's oldest permanent theatres documents every production from the first read-through to opening night: images, films and programmes. With Mediaflow, all of it lives in one place, and journalists and critics can fetch the images they need entirely on their own.
My working day is more seamless now. There is one place to look and one place to share from.
Den Nationale Scene in Bergen is one of Norway's four national theatres and the largest theatre in Western Norway. In a normal year it stages around 18 premieres of varying scale, alongside guided tours and fringe events. Every production generates poster images, rehearsal photos, footage from the rehearsal period, official production stills and a trailer. On top of that comes a large historical archive and ongoing documentation of the renovation of the theatre's grand 1909 building.
The material is then used by far more people than the theatre's own staff. The press and critics need production stills ahead of opening night, set and costume designers want images for their portfolios, actors want to share in their own channels, and school groups and public bodies get in touch to borrow pictures. For the communications team, the job is to keep a large media library in order while making it easy to share with the outside world.
The challenge
Images everywhere, and no single home
Before Mediaflow, the theatre's images were in many places at once. Even though there was an image bank, files were shared via Dropbox and WeTransfer, downloaded onto individual computers and stored on the theatre's own server.
–It was chaos, quite simply. We stored a bit here and a bit there: on the server, on our own machines and in the old system, says Guro Redalen.
When a journalist needed an image, the first task was to find it. If it was not already in the press room of the time, it had to be sent via a file transfer service or as an email attachment. The theatre needed a solution that could gather everything in one place that was secure and fit for long-term archiving, yet simple enough for everyone to use. One key requirement was being able to share material outside the organisation without the recipient needing a licence of their own just to view the images.
The solution
One flow from first rehearsal to opening night
Today Mediaflow is present in every production from the start. It begins with the poster image, uploaded in the formats needed for the various channels. When read-throughs begin, so does the documentation for social media and newsletters, often with footage from rehearsals. A week before opening night, the official production stills and the trailer are shot, and everything is gathered in a carefully planned folder structure.
The theatre has its own in-house photographer who both shoots stills and films, and Guro Redalen is the link between him and the artistic team. When the director, set designer or costume designer needs to approve images from a rehearsal, it happens directly in Mediaflow's web links.
–The feature where you can answer yes or no to each image and leave a comment is brilliant. Before, the director had to take a screenshot of every single picture and write instructions like 'could you move that lamp a little', says Guro Redalen.
A press room where journalists help themselves
The backbone of the theatre's external communication is the press room, a Mediaflow portal embedded on the theatre's own website. Ahead of every premiere, Guro Redalen adds the approved production stills there, with photographer credits and the names of the actors pictured. Critics, newsrooms and partners then fetch what they need, in the resolution they need, without asking for help.
–For me, the press room means I no longer have to spend the whole evening after a premiere sending out photos. I can point people to the press room and get on with a normal working day, says Guro Redalen.
Sharing by link has also replaced heavy attachments. If someone outside the press room needs an image, a link goes out and the recipient downloads it themselves. According to Guro Redalen, nobody she has sent a link to has had trouble understanding how it works, even though technical confidence at the other end varies widely.
When a production has finished its run, the material is archived directly within the folder structure, in the press room too. Previously, images had to be downloaded from one system and uploaded again to another.
Video on the website without the detours
The theatre's trailers and films are embedded on the website, built in WordPress, directly from Mediaflow. The same film that sits in the image bank is shown on the web, rather than being uploaded separately. The films are subtitled using Mediaflow's automatic transcription, and Guro Redalen has noticed that support for Norwegian has improved markedly over the years the theatre has been a customer.
–To begin with, it wasn't very good with Norwegian dialects. But it has really come on. New things happen all the time, and what you report gets acted on, says Guro Redalen.
Photo: Sebastian Dalseide, Andreas Roksvaag, David Zadig, Thor Brødreskift
The result
A tool you don't think about until it's gone
Five people work in the platform at Den Nationale Scene: the communications officer, the photographer, the people producing graphic material and the person who produces adverts. Guro Redalen herself is logged in on practically every working day, whether she is filling the press room ahead of a premiere, publishing video on the website, building a social media post or helping a colleague pick the right image for an advert.
Colleagues describe the platform as easy to use, which, according to Guro Redalen, sets it apart from other systems the organisation has moved to, where a lot of time is often spent hunting for things. How dependent the theatre has become on Mediaflow was clearest during a service disruption this summer.
–That's when we realised how much we actually work in Mediaflow. There was a bit of a panic, and then just: well, that shows how used we've become to simply going in there, says Guro Redalen.
The goal was to gather everything in one place, make it easy to share outside the organisation and put an end to shuttling files back and forth. That goal has been reached, Guro Redalen concludes. The next step is a clear-out of the archive, since the photographer is prone to uploading the entire memory card, and raw video footage takes up space that should go to the material that is actually worth preserving.
About Den Nationale Scene
- What: Theatre, one of Norway's four national theatres
- Where: Bergen
- History: One of Norway's oldest permanent theatres, with roots in Det norske Theater from 1850
- The building: Opened in 1909, Art Nouveau, designed by Einar Oscar Schou. Currently under renovation.
- Output: Around 18 premieres a year, plus guided tours and fringe events
- Mediaflow usage: Image bank, Video Manager, press room via portal, WordPress integration
- Website: dns.no
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