Film & TV App & AI Development
Productions are temporary, fast-moving organisations, and most software is not built for that. We build apps, portals and AI tools that crew can pick up on day one — on set, offline, and against a schedule that will not move.
Building for teams across healthcare, logistics, motorsport and manufacturing
Productions are temporary organisations, and software has to cope with that
A production spins up, runs hard for a few weeks or months, and then disbands. The unit that assembles on day one may never work together in that combination again. That single fact causes most of the software problems we get called about.
Nobody is going to be trained. A runner on the check-in desk, a stills photographer, a publicist and a client executive all need to use the same system, on their first day, on their own phone, with someone standing behind them waiting. Anything that needs a manual is quietly replaced by a spreadsheet and a group chat by the end of the first week — which is exactly the situation most productions are trying to get out of.
The rest of the constraints are just as practical:
- Connectivity is unreliable. Stages, warehouses, backlots and location units are precisely where mobile signal is worst. An app that stops working when the bars disappear stops working when it matters.
- People are holding a phone, not sitting at a laptop. Interfaces designed for a desk fail at a check-in table in the rain.
- Approval chains cross organisations. Production, agency, talent, talent's representation and the client all touch the same assets, with very different rights to see them and to say yes.
- Assets are confidential right up until they are not. Unreleased stills and footage leak, and the leak is usually a forwarded file rather than a breached server.
- The schedule does not move. Software that is late is software that missed the shoot.
None of this is exotic. It is ordinary software engineering applied to an unusual operating environment, and getting it wrong is obvious within a day. What it rules out is the generic business tool with a long onboarding, and what it rewards is a small, specific app that does one job on a phone and syncs when it can.
What we build for productions and media businesses
Nine things we are asked for most often in this sector. Each links to how we build it.
Work we have shipped in film, TV and media
Four projects, all live case studies: an on-set check-in app, an image rights platform, a live streaming social app and an AI video editor.
Check-me-in
A React Native QR-code check-in app that replaced Excel visitor logs at film shoots, and works offline.
Image Approvals
A web app and SaaS portal where film and TV productions manage talent photo kill rights and export contact sheets.
Gapped Online
A motorsport social app with dual-camera live streaming, recording and community video.
SpeakCut
An Android app where an AI director reads your transcript and plans the edit, cards included.
Where AI is genuinely useful in a production workflow
Two places it earns its keep, from work we have actually built — and one place it does not.
Transcript-driven editing
SpeakCut, an Android app we built, is the clearest example we can show you. You record one take. The app transcribes it, an AI director reads that transcript alongside sampled frames from the footage, and it plans the edit — where to cut, where to punch in, where a generated explainer card would help. An image model draws the cards and the phone renders the video.
The interesting part is not the automation. It is that the plan is shown to you before anything renders, and you can overrule it. That is the right shape for creative work: the AI takes the mechanical passes — trimming dead air, matching cuts to a script, producing the graphics — and the judgement calls stay with a person.
The same pattern transfers to social cut-downs, promo edits and internal review copies, which is usually where a production's editing time actually goes.
Finding things in a media library
The second job AI does well here is making a pile of footage searchable. Speech-to-text across rushes, automatic tagging of what appears on screen, and a natural-language search over the result turns "find the shot of the red car outside the warehouse" into a query rather than an afternoon.
The same machinery summarises rushes for a producer who does not have three hours, drafts metadata for an archive that has none, and flags near-duplicate assets before somebody approves the same still twice. It is unglamorous work, and it is where the hours are.
What it will not do is decide whether a take is any good. We build these as assistants to an editor, archivist or publicist, with a person approving anything that leaves the building. If you want to scope that honestly, start with AI integration into an existing product or our LLM and ChatGPT development work.
Rapid results with Velocity Sprints
Pay for output, not hours.
Our Velocity Sprints process accelerates your app development. Each deliverable is scoped, tracked and quality-checked in Output Units — a unit of finished work rather than time spent. You see progress daily, and Escape Hatch Friday™ means you are never locked into a sprint that stopped making sense on Tuesday.
Discovery & scoping
Focused workshops define the essential features of your MVP. You'll leave with clarity on scope, timeline and budget, without delays.
Sprint-based builds
Our UK developers work in short, high-speed sprints to deliver working prototypes quickly. You'll see progress fast, with daily updates.
Launch & validate — fast
Get your MVP live in weeks, not months. Test with real users, gather feedback and pivot rapidly, so your idea starts delivering value sooner.
What Our Clients Say
Scorchsoft helped us take our idea for an app and make it a reality. Everything from the planning meeting to decide what we really needed to the project management and execution was great. It was delivered on time - early in fact - and on budget. Highly recommend.
Rebecca PalserDragonfly IntelligenceScorchsoft is a brilliant company with fantastic knowledge of the mobile app industry. From the project management to the development team, they have been the perfect candidate for our project, and we can't thank them enough!
Lance ChorltonGapped OnlineWe're really pleased with the work Scorchsoft has done in developing our web portal! They have been accurate with timelines and budget, delivering a solid product that allows us to monitor and manage patients remotely while they use our novel medical device at-home. The "plan - design - build" approach has worked well and saved us time in the long-run by catching requirements and issues early.
Daniel GreenSensTrainI'm really pleased with how my app came out, it was exactly what I was looking for. The team at Scorchsoft are great at what they do and made the whole process as simple and easy as possible. Being someone who is not very tech savvy the set up and back end operations were done in a great easy to use manner even for myself which makes using my app stress free. Thanks to all the team!
Ruben CarrollMosaic MasterpiecesThe new Flourish Education website has already removed a lot of manual processes, freeing up both schools, candidates and internal employees time. We are delighted with the look and feel which is clean, professional and more engaging. We are also pleased with the decision to have an HD video background on the homepage, and building immediate trust with our clients by giving them a taste of what it looks like in the Flourish Education offices.
James HancocksMarketing Manager, Flourish Education I can't believe how quickly we started to see results with this project. Scorchsoft provided us with graphic-designed mockups of how the app would look once built, and we were able to sell the product for use by our first customer before the product was finished. Since launching in March, we have secured a major television network as a client who now uses Image Approvals to manage the talent approval process for their productions.
Aimee SpinksMD, ImageApprovals.com
Got a production problem that a spreadsheet is currently solving badly?
Tell us what happens on set, in the approvals inbox or in the edit, and we will tell you whether software is worth building for it — and roughly what it would take.
Film, TV and media development questions
What production companies, post houses and media businesses usually ask us first.
Yes. Check-me-in is a QR-code visitor check-in app we built for use at film shoots and photo sessions, and the Image Approvals platform is a web app and portal used by film and TV productions to manage talent photo approvals. Both are written up as case studies on this site, and both replaced a spreadsheet.
It has to, so we design for it. Check-me-in records visitor entries on the device when there is no connection and syncs them when there is one, which is why it works in stages, warehouses and on location. Offline-first is a design decision made at the start of a build, not a feature bolted on later.
That is exactly what we built the Image Approvals platform to do. Photographers, production staff and talent each get their own account, images are watermarked with the viewer's name and ID, approvals are recorded per image, and approved shots export as a PDF contact sheet. See our document generation and portal development pages for how those pieces are built.
Yes, and on a project with several organisations involved it is usually the first requirement we nail down. Permissions are set by role so each account only sees the assets and actions it should, and where a client already has an identity system we can hook into it with single sign-on so nobody manages another password.
We do. Gapped Online is a social app we built for the motorsport community with dual-camera live streaming, in-app recording and user-generated video. It is not a broadcast playout system, but if you need streaming, recording or video sharing inside a mobile or web product, that is the work.
No, and we would not sell it that way. In SpeakCut the AI plans the edit and you approve or overrule the plan before anything renders. AI is reliably good at the mechanical passes — transcription, tagging, rough assembly, metadata, summarising rushes — and unreliable at deciding whether a take is any good. Keep a person on the creative call.
It depends entirely on scope, so we start by scoping it rather than guessing. Our usual route for a hard date is to agree the smallest version that is genuinely useful and build that first — see rapid MVP development and prototype planning. If the dates do not work, we will say so before you commit.
Cost follows scope, integrations and how many organisations need their own view of the data. We quote per project after a scoping conversation, and our guide to app development costs explains what moves the number. For a figure against your own requirements, request a quote.
Need help building your ideas?
Tell us where you're headed and we'll come back with our thoughts, a realistic plan and a rough cost estimate. Scorchsoft is a UK-based team of app, portal and AI developers, working in-house from Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter.