If you take London’s Underground to any stop near Soho, you will find the epicenter of the U.K.’s commercial industry. The odds are good that if you throw a rock, you will hit a post house, visual effects shop, or another related company. Even if you miss, just stop in any of the local pubs, or make your way to Soho House, the private club where many in the industry tend to congregate.
Today, the U.K.’s advertising world is truly an advertising world. Communications advancements offered by high-speed networks and the Internet, the expansion of global brands such as Ascent Media Group and Technicolor Creative Services, and the success of U.K. franchises such as the Harry Potter series, have all helped make the U.K. a leading production destination. And now you can find leading brands such as London-headquartered Framestore CFC and The Mill in the U.S. One common message coming through is that the commercial business appears to be picking up steam.
SHOOT’s Soho tour begins on Great Marlborough Street, home of The Mill, which has consistently earned high marks with its visual effects work. The Mill’s managing director Robin Shenfield explains that in recent years, commercials have gone from incorporating small amounts of CG material to much larger amounts, which incidentally are garnering global attention. Among those is Sony PlayStation 2’s "Mountain," directed by Frank Budgen of Gorgeous Enterprises, London—he’s repped stateside via bicoastal Anonymous Content—for which The Mill handled visual effects and post. "Mountain," which was done via TBWA/London, has already collected numerous awards, and at press time was viewed as a contender for the Grand Prix at the Cannes International Advertising Festival.
Pat Joseph, president of the shop, relates that as The Mill’s core business grows, it is also quietly expanding in other ways. For instance, the company has launched "Mini Mills" at London agencies AMV BBDO, Lowe, Ogilvy & Mather and Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH). The set-up offers satellite suites for Flame and related tools that are networked back to The Mill. All are connected via Beam.TV, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Mill that specializes in digital asset management systems, which are quickly gaining agency customers.
Across the ocean, The Mill’s New York office moved into new and larger space this month, and added telecine services with its leading U.K.-based colorist Fergus McCall (SHOOT, 3/12, p.1). The New York satellite opened several years ago.
Expansion
A short walk from London’s The Mill, you’ll find yourself at the headquarters of another leading post and effects house, Framestore CFC. The company’s renowned work in the commercial world includes Johnnie Walker’s "Fish," directed by Daniel Kleinman, then of Spectre (now Large), London, out of BBH. At press time, the effects shop and Kleinman were re-teaming to create a new Johnnie Walker ad.
Framestore CFC opened in New York in late ’03, with Jon Collins relocating to New York to serve as managing director of the venture (SHOOT, 10/31/03, p. 1). Collins tells SHOOT that the move has increased the U.S.-based work the shop does, and phase two of its expansion plans are likely to begin this fall; he declined to reveal the details of those plans at this time. Stateside, he believes that the improving economy will prompt more risk-taking in advertising, and he looks forward to seeing what the market will create.
Also in recent years, London’s Smoke & Mirrors added a satellite office at Mad River Post’s New York space. (Mad River also maintains offices in Dallas, Detroit, San Francisco and Santa Monica.) As well, The Whitehouse, which initially opened in London, now has offices in New York, Chicago and Santa Monica. Additionally, Dan Swietlik, owner/editor of Santa Monica-based Swietlik Inc., owner/editor Steve Gandolfi of London-based Cut + Run and executive producer Christie Cash recently joined forces to open Cut + Run, Los Angeles, as part of an effort to create a global brand (SHOOT, 5/21, p. 7).
Branding
Meanwhile, global brands that are very present in the U.S. also play in the local London market. One and Rushes Postproduction, both in London, are among the commercial shops owned by Santa Monica-headquartered Ascent Media Group. (Recent projects out of Rushes include Vodafone’s "Free For All," directed by Graham Fink of the finktank, London, via J. Walter Thompson, London.) Joce Capper, managing director of Rushes, like Collins, expects to see more and stronger boards this year. "It’s a time of opportunities and forward thinking," she says.
On the technical front, Ascent’s U.K. facilities are taking advantage of their U.S. counterparts and private networks to expand collaborative efforts. "We need to develop better relations with our sister companies, and we plan to install [Ascent’s satellite-based real time collaborative service] UP Satellite," Capper reports. She also sees Europe-based markets growing in Sweden, Holland and Norway.
UP and other technological developments are key at Rushes. Capper explains, "In London, everything is fixed bid, so it is absolutely to our advantage to get things done as quickly and creatively as we can."
In the larger scope, Brenda Smith has been named to the position of group managing director of Ascent Media Group United Kingdom. In her new role, Smith will be responsible for leading the management and staff (1,200-plus employees) of Ascent Media U.K.’s businesses; oversight of the U.K. Creative Services and Media Management operations; and coordination of the U.K. Network Services and U.K. Creative Sound Services operations with Ascent Media’s global business strategy.
Many in the industry continue to question the future of Kodak’s Cinesite in Hollywood, due to Kodak’s recent acquisition of Hollywood-based LaserPacific, but London’s Cinesite (Europe) completed a massive renovation last fall, and has recently been awarded visual effects and model contracts for the upcoming features Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Alfie and Sahara. The facility previously announced that it is providing digital effects for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Alien vs. Predator, and at press time was completing visual effects for producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s King Arthur.
"We have already moved into pre-visualization and development of visual effects for some of the newly awarded films," says Antony Hunt, managing director at Cinesite. "Cinesite has essentially doubled its workforce since moving to substantially larger premises at Medius House in the Soho district last summer" (SHOOT, 11/14/03, p. 8).
During the past year, the facility completed extensive compositing and animation work on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and 165 digital effects shots for Troy, including all film scanning and recording required for both visual effects shots and digital intermediate applications for the production.
Meanwhile, the popularity of animated features appears to be driving new interest in animated commercials, notes Heather Wright, executive producer and head of commercial at Bristol, U.K.-based Aardman Animation. She observes that Aardman’s commercial business has picked up 60 percent in the past five years. Additionally, Aardman is in production on its second feature—the first was Chicken Run—which will feature its own Wallace and Gromit (the film is not yet titled), as well as animated TV series Creature Comforts.
Ed Sayers, managing director of London-based production company Godman, says the biggest change that he has seen in the U.K. business is the acceptance of branded entertainment—in particular, the series of IDs that are sometimes produced by the sponsors and aired several times during the course of a program, particularly soap opera and reality TV series, or events such as the EURO 2004 Football Championships, which at press time was underway in Portugal. For EURO 2004, Godman and directing team Albert are creating branded IDs for sponsor McDonald’s.
"The belief is that if the viewer is interested in the program, they would be interested in the IDs," explains Sayers. "IDs used to be a bit of a dirty word. The production rates were so low budget. … Now we have proper commercial budgets. [Before,] IDs were a great way to start off new directors. … Now, they are proper jobs."
According to Sayers, most of Godman’s work is still shot in 35mm or 16mm. HD, he says, remains too expensive due to post rates. That is starting to change in some areas. Others are developing new processes altogether. For instance, London-based post house VTR transfers select spotwork at 2k and stores it in Thomson’s Grass Valley Specter Virtual Datacine, enabling nonlinear color grading and a digital intermediate process for the commercial world (SHOOT, 10/31/03, p. 1).
Finishing to film for theatrical release is a large market in the U.K., where it is not unusual to watch 10 minutes or more of advertising prior to a feature presentation in a theater. Technicolor Creative Services (TCS) in Heathrow reports that it transfers an enormous volume of film annually for cinema advertising, which is a large service sector for the company. As for outreach beyond the U.K., the company is linked via fibre and the Technicolor Production Network to its TCS offices in the U.S., Canada, and recent acquisitions in Madrid and Rome.
The U.K. has also long held a leadership position in equipment manufacturing, housing long-time successes such as Newbury-headquartered Quantel, the makers of the iQ and eQ postproduction systems; and leading telecine maker Cintel, with world headquarters in Hertfordshire, U.K. As well, London is home to startups Filmlight and Nucoda, which are aiming for the growing digital intermediate market with scanning, color correction and mastering tools.
Stock Answers
On June 25, BBC Worldwide, with world headquarters in London, moved to extend its reach by launching an online archive of material available for licensing—including BBC and CBS news archives; the recent hit series The Office; classic series such as Fawlty Towers and Monty Python; and BBC natural history and documentary programming such as the acclaimed Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Beasts and Blue Planet. This also includes the tremendous body of documentary work developed by Sir David Attenborough, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association (IDA) last December in Los Angeles. In all, the BBC archive houses some 500 million feet of film and 350,000 hours of video dating from 1934, with more than 200 hours of new content added each week.
The launch of the library coincides with the re-branding of BBC Library Services as BBC Motion Gallery. Among the goals is marketing the library resource to new audiences, including the advertising industry.
Meanwhile, the sale of BBC Technology—the maker of digital asset management system Colledia—is imminent (SHOOT, 3/19, p. 1). The BBC recently announced that a third stage shortlist of bidders has been selected to the final round in the procurement process. They are: Accenture, CSC and Siemens. The BBC expects to make an announcement on the winning bidder this fall.
