POST BUILDS FOR THE FUTURE
POST
Covid struck. “We were bursting at the seams in 2019,” says managing director Mark Purvis. The pause in production caused by the pandemic, he says, gave the company time to plan for the future. “It’s really hard to focus on growing in a logical manner when you’re very hands on with the business,” he explains. He frames Mission’s expansion within the context
of a booming content industry, one that’s seen streamers like Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Paramount, HBO and Apple invest billions in new content. Film and HETV production in the UK was worth £2.84 bn in 2021, according to the latest BFI figures. “That’s a really exciting opportunity for anyone
who’s servicing the market – a lot of vendors are benefiting,” says Purvis, who adds there has been a growing demand for digital dailies services in the UK. The focus of the streamers on high quality drama
Top left:Noah Media’s Finding Jack Charlton with post work from Roundtable
Top right: 72 Films’ All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur was posted at Splice
and film has also buoyed Mission Digital. Projects that might have run for eight weeks, now run for 24 weeks. “Virtually everything we are doing today has the technical requirements of a high-end feature film from three or four years ago,” says Purvis. Roundtable Post Production is another facility
that’s expanding, and again had planned to do so before the pandemic struck. The post house specialises in high-end documentary such as Andy Murray: Resurfacing, Whitney: Can I Be Me and Bobby Robson: More Than a Manager. It has grown consistently since launching in 2008 – successfully tapping into increased demand from streamers and broadcasters for feature docs.
“It’s really hard to focus on growing in a logical manner
when you’re very hands on with the business”
“The docs we were doing were growing in
scale,” says founder Ben Coulson, who explains that Roundtable was increasingly using outside facilities to handle final mixes and grade reviews – and wanted this inhouse. “We also wanted to add to our capacity because we were bursting at the seams at times.” Roundtable is expanding into a second building,
doubling its capacity. Where it previously had six offlines and five finishing suites at Macklin Street, it now has 11 offline suites. Its new building on Stukeley Street now has six bigger and better finishing suites, with a lot more finishing support systems around them. The finishing suites include a DI grading theatre with Christie 4220 4K projection and one home entertainment and broadcast grade suite with Sony BVM X300 HDR monitoring. There’s also a Dolby Atmos mixing studio.
BUSY TIMES AHEAD Coulson is confident that the investment will pay off, saying the firm is already fairly busy and predicting that next year work and revenues will increase significantly. “There’s going to be a capacity shortage [in the industry] later in the year, it is going to be a really busy period. Everyone has watched loads, but not that much has been made – so there is a gap in terms of supply. And everyone has spent the last year developing and working on ideas. There is loads of great stuff coming.” His point is echoed by Envy’s Dave Cadle, who
says broadcasters and streamers need to refresh their programme offerings after the production hiatus caused by Covid. “I think it could be a bit of boom time as we come out of this.” Splice is another post house that’s expanding, and
is set to open a new 55 room full-service post facility in Nile Street, in the Old Street area of London. It will be Splice’s third building, offering offline and online editing, grading and audio. The expansion was planned at least two years before Covid. But rather than pull back from investing
Spring 2021
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