Audio Media - September 2008 - (Page 42) Unit Of Change UNIT POST PRODUCTION PAUL MAC investigates claims of Apple overload in Soho, London, at a post facility that has dared to be different, and succeeded. he pace of change is accelerating in every aspect of our technological lives, and the content creation business is no exception. Stalwarts go to bed and then wake to find they’re suddenly ragwort. Thus the search for the next best business model is relentless, and most recently the trend has been to agility – growing where there is need and demand, but not risking outlandish capital or the soul of the business on a foundation that can’t be dug up when something else is needed. UNIT has grown up (on several levels) amidst this context, and is now reaping the rewards of foresight, timing, and a very realistic view of the content market. You could call it ‘client compliant’. Audio is certainly a beneficiary of UNIT’s success, but it wasn’t the catalyst. That could easily be summed up in two words: Final Cut. From the outset, UNIT was designed as an Apple-only video post production facility – and that doesn’t just refer to hardware. Apple’s large and impressive suite of professional video tools, for which Final Cut is on point, was chosen as the mainstay of UNIT’s technology stock at a time when the skeptics were still roaming the streets of Soho in herds. Now, of course, it’s a very different story. Luke Colson, Facility Director at UNIT, explained the beginnings of UNIT: “We started from scratch two years ago with an all-Apple workflow. We were six edit suites.” A six-month make-or-break period then followed: “I think the turning point was perhaps a year and a half ago. Whether it was a decent display by Apple at NAB, or whether it was the fact that we had stayed alive after everybody said, ‘a few people have tried and failed’, for six months with our then eight suites, and we were absolutely choc-a-bloc and overflowing. That then led us to acquire a second building and expand,” (including more serious consideration of audio). “From the beginning of this year, literally since we got back after the Christmas break, I noticed an even more remarkable change in that clients, or potential clients, bigger than we could have ever hoped at this stage, were calling me. I was making fewer outbound calls, and dealing with many more inbound enquiries. We were going head to head with T some of the biggest facilities in the country, and better still, were winning work off them for the whole package package… That’s not because we’ve been able to offer it at half price – we’ve basically been able to slightly beat what they were paying… Our rates are reassuringly competitive.” According to Colson, the growth has taken a more recent turn, with a significant increase in the number of prestige clients turning to the UNIT way. I asked where the main growth has been. “I would say that since the beginning of this year, the commercials, the agencies, and the commercial production companies,” says Colson. “It’s almost like somebody’s gone around with their little wand at Christmas and said, ‘Final Cut for ’. “But also naturally progressing down the route of Final Cut are the big-wig terrestrial and satellite channels, and whatever production companies come with them, whether it be ITV, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, BBC – we do stuff for ITV as well. It seems that all of those guys are now more au fait with Final Cut and Apple workflow. They’re more au fait with the Final Cut route of delivering an HD master than they are with an Avid way of delivering an HD master.” In parallel, though to be fair not quite in step, was the road to audio services. Initially, says Colson, UNIT hired in Pro Tools as and when it was needed and relied on an old voiceover booth bought on eBay. As the calibre of clients went up, UNIT became ‘wholly embarrassed’ by its audio offering and as an act of admission, hid it. But then Colson, with a background dominated by the audio side, brought in Kim Storey, an audio post operative originally from Canada, and gave him the enviable task of building his own audio suite. It turned out to be a nice big Digidesign Pro Tools HD system with D-Command and PMC monitoring – all connected to the studio’s racks of shared storage. Admittedly, Pro Tools is definitely not in keeping with the all-Apple policy, but it is in tune. “We did some quite extensive interviewing for the role,” explains Colson, “Because we wanted somebody to manage the facility as a separate entity – to build up clientele for just the audio side, as well as it being here for all our picture post, commercial, and documentary clients. . . . An d G row i n g > 42 AUDIO MEDIA SEPTEMBER 2008
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