USE CASES

1.  Build your skills. Practice shooting with professional lighting (select from different lighting presets), using high-end cameras and lenses. Professional photo models are posing for you, practice directing them by voice or via text chat.

2.  Create commercials: Shoot professional photos and videos for selling on stock sites.

3.  Easily and quickly shoot any promotional pictures and videos: models can wear a t-shirt with your logo (printed in 10 minutes by your request); models can draw your logo or custom text on a message board in real time; models can say something about your company when you shoot video; you can shoot models against a green background to replace it later with your own background picture or video (chroma keying).

4. For novice photographers: create a professional-looking portfolio.

5.  Feel the difference between high-end Canon and Nikon cameras, equipped with the best lenses. This will promote your further professional growth.

TECHNICAL 

1.  Set camera settings via tethering (aperture, ISO, white balance, etc) or use automatic settings

2.  Create your custom presets for camera settings to use them next time.

3.  Perform a photo shoot from a web browser on any computer or mobile device (Apple and Android devices support is pending).

4. Store the resulting files on our server to download or edit them later

CONTRIBUTOR PRIORITY LEVELS WHEN ACCESSING THE FREE "LITE" STUDIOS

As you can see in our perk descriptions, every contributor has his own priority level. 

1. Priority Level 1 means, whenever you stand in a queue, you immediately become the first in the queue, unless other Level 1 users are already standing there.

Level 1 also allows you to schedule your future photo shoots in the Lite Studios, by selecting from available dates and hours.

2. Priority Level 2 means, whenever you stand in a queue, you will immediately become the first in the queue, unless other Level 2 users are already standing in the queue, and unless any Level 1 user decides to stand there. In this case you will be standing immediately after them.

3. Priority Level 3 means that whenever you stand in a queue, you will immediately become the first in the queue, unless other Level 3 users are already standing in the queue, and unless any Level 2 or Level 1 user decides to stand there. In this case you will be standing immediately after them.

NO FLAKE MODELS, NO MODELS BEING LATE

Many photographers are familiar with a situation when they schedule a photo shoot with a model, but the model is being late or even flakes (no call, no show). Preparing the studio and sitting and waiting for a model that never shows... Ugh, what may be worse?

In the online studio studio all models will always be available as scheduled and schedule of every model will be publicly viewable on site.

REFERRAL PROGRAM

Help us by spreading the word via email and social media. After the campaign is funded we'll refund your contribution in accordance with credits you earned referring people.

In short: if you successfully refer a friend to contribute to the campaign, then we will refund you $50. If you refer one more friend – we will refund you another $50. And so on.

If the amount of credits you earned has covered the sum of your pre-ordered package (so you get a complete refund), any further referral $ will be credited to your account. After the studio goes live, you can spend these $ for getting the PRO studio access. And don’t forget, as a contributor, you also have up to 70% Pro discount, as well as you have a priority access to the free Lite Studios.

Please note that contributors cannot receive referral credit for referring themselves. Of two contributors, only one can be the 'referrer' and receive campaign credit for the other's contribution.  Refunds will be made and credits applied once the campaign is over.

How to participate in the referral program:
It’s simple. Log in to your Indiegogo account . Be sure to use the same account you used when you contributed your Remote Studio Package. Then, look below our main video at the top of this page for buttons to share and copy your unique URL. Start sharing!

Need more information?  We have created detailed instructions here.

WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE

Software:
1.  We have already developed the program code to control Pan-Tilt heads and vertical/horizontal motorized sliders from computer.
2. We have the tethering code to remotely set camera settings, obtain a live-view from the camera, release camera shutter, download files, etc. For both Canon and Nikon.
3. We have a streaming server and browser client to perform a low-latency streaming of the camera's live view to your browser through the web, and control the camera. It is reliable and proven to work with a very low latency even if you're in USA or Australia when the studio is in Europe.

Hardware:
1. We have already tested third-party pan-tilt heads for this system. They work fine, they are reliable and not expensive.
2. We performed some testing for vertical/horizontal sliding of the entire system (will be mounted on vertical and horizontal rails). Not ideal yet, but OK.
3. All devices (motors, lighting) are interfaced with Raspberry Pi via Arduino (single-board microcontroller, intended to make building interactive objects or environments more accessible).

Human:
1. We very well know how to manage the development of the technical part of the project, as we have experience in managing software development and microcontroller/robotic development.
2. At the same time, being modeling agents we have the full understanding of working with photo models.
3. Finally, we have top class photo models ready to work for affordable rates. This will allow us to keep prices stated above for the Pro studio, and even provide free access to the Lite studio. See more information about this below, in the Q&A section.

WHAT WE NEED

Software:
1. We need to implement a web interface to flawlessly control the local code mentioned above (both positioning and tethering) via the web.
2. We need to build the website: designing the layout, managing user accounts, managing access permissions to different studios, queuing and scheduling access to free studios, priority access for contributors, etc. This is possibly the most trivial part, but at the same time the most boring and expensive stage of the software part of the project.

Hardware:
As said above, we still need some working over the horizontal/vertical sliding system. 

Other:
We need a photo studio itself including:

1.  Placement - we are going to acquire ownership of the estate property to get rid of rental fees, because this will significantly reduce the price of the service for end users. Therefore it will also be more profitable to us, so this is a win-win solution.
2.  Equipment for the studios.

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

1.  How many photo studios are planned?

At first, we will start with four photo studios located in the adjacent rooms of the same building. If we’ll see the service is demanded, we will increase the number of studios, as we don’t feel lack of photo models.

2.  The life cycle of the shutter of a camera is limited. How often will you replace cameras in a studio? This might be costly.

While testing our business model, we revealed that the most active and tireless photographers take about 10 shots per minute during a 30-minutes photo session. The production cost of one shot in terms of the resource of a shutter is calculated as $0.016 per shot (the average market price of Canon 5D Mk3, $2400, divided by the life cycle of a shutter claimed by the company - 150,000 actuations). For Nikon D800 costs are even lower. Therefore, in terms of camera’s resources the cost of production of one hour of the most intensive shooting is 10*60*0.016=$9.6. This sum pays off by additional paid services. Also, we carry on negotiations with potential sponsors - photo equipment vendors interested in supporting the project if it proves to be demanded.

3.  Professional models working in two free photo studios and two low-cost ones – sounds good, but how you are going to pay them? What is the source of the funds?

We are the founders of the TopModelGroup.com portal, model agents recruiting and training models. Among other countries, we also work in several developing economies where hourly rates are much lower (several and even dozens of times) than in US, Europe and other developed countries. Such countries are Moldova, Ukraine, Byelorussia, which is geographically located in Europe, but are actually developing economies with average monthly salary about $400.

After finishing training and before signing an international contract (that means earning real money), our every model must complete a 6-month probation. During this period they get a salary typical to the country they live in. At the same time, they are already top-class models passed through our hard training and possessing stunning looks. Due to the same reason we don’t have to overpay to such specialists as make up artists and hair stylists. Our first photo studio will be opened in one of such countries, and further in other countries too.

4.  Ok, hiring even the best models is not expensive for you. But what about rental fees for a photo studio? They are still high. How can you keep prices low and even more – offer free services as well?

We plan to acquire ownership of the photo studio, because this will allow us to get rid of monthly rental fees and therefore minimize prices for end users. Thanks God, real estate costs are low in the countries we are talking about comparing with USA or Europe.

Free studios are funded by paid studios.

5.  What if you won’t receive backing in full?

All promised bonuses for our backers will remain valid. Partial funding means we will embody our idea step by step. Instead of four studios, we will stop on just two (one Lite and one Pro). The entire process may slow down, but we'll complete it anyway.

6.  What if you will see more backing than you ask?

In that case we will equip more photo studios, not just four, in proportion to received funding in order to supply the demand and grant our bonuses to all contributors faster.