The concept for Lumi came from a simple realisation that most good ideas start from: “surely there’s a better way of doing this”.
Karen Dewey was working as an executive producer on a major reality show, and witnessed first hand how the program was developed and organised through archaic, pen-and-paper methods, including post-it notes on whiteboards, stickers and codes.
Dewey had the idea of completely digitising this whiteboard-based process used to create reality TV and other pieces of media, combining all stages of production and development into the one platform.
After calling her brother Neil, a leading software architect, the pair founded Lumi.
Lumi provides end-to-end cast management and production management software for unscripted television shows and radio productions, allowing all team members to be connected to the whole story across every stage of the production timeline.
This means that any decision made, such as casting, shoot logs and production essentials, can be instantaneously sent to all team members, rather than added as another post-it on the whiteboard.
The Sydney-based company now has 50 employees in New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland and the United Kingdom, and has a growing customer base around the world.
It is used by clients producing reality and variety TV, radio programs, sports documentaries and factuals. These customers include ITV, WTFN, Endemol Shine, Fremantle, Eureka, Nova Radio and AFL House.
Lumi is a finalist in the InnovationAus 2023 Awards for Excellence in the Creative Technology category. You can secure your tickets to the Black-Tie event here.
The company recently won all of ITV UK’s unscripted program slate of more than 20 shows, and is planning to expand into radio sports broadcasting in the US and UK.
Lumi received early-stage funding from Screen Australia, AusIndustry and a number of angel investors.
The startup is now also harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to provide an even better and more efficient product for its clients.
With this technology, clients working on a TV show can ask the platform to find the best stories from yesterday, to summarise gallery transcripts and to organise field note logs in chronological order. They can also create trackers, automatically generate call sheets and send out consent forms to participants.
The Lumi platform is designed to be easily customisable, seamlessly integrate content, teams and workflow and assimilates applicants, cast, crew and production, provide real-time oversight and visibility of the entire project from a macro and micro view.
According to the company, its platform can lead to the elimination of 15 other separate systems and applications that are used for similar purposes. While these are competitors to Lumi, these apps only offer one part of the overall system that the Australian company offers.
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