Stefan Sargent first opened Molinare’s doors in 1973 in a basement in Stratford Place, near Selfridges owned by a retired fashion photographer called Michel Molinare. Stefan named the business after his landlord! Stefan’s experience came from working as a film camera man for the Film Producer’s Guild, but the first Molinare job was sound recording the “Bee Gees Story” and so the business started. Capital Radio was the first big customer booking the sound studio for the whole of the following year. In 1978 the business moved to its present buildings in Fouberts Place, here Stefan invested in the latest technology for video cameras and “new 1” tape recording equipment and built a TV Studio. Jobs included pop videos for clients included Blondie, Gary Numan, Suzi Quatro and other 80’s artists, commercials for EMI, Casio and many other clients. Stefan build the business investing in the latest technology of the day such as digital edit controllers and digital audio post production and this investment philosophy still continues today.
Stefan sold the business in the 1984 and over the following 20 years Molinare has had various owners including, WH Smiths and the TV corp. each one continuing to build the business, Molinare soon became one of the most respected post facilities in Soho.
In 2003 the ownership moved to Mark Foligno and Steve Milne who invested in Film post production and grading facilities, building Molinare’s reputation in Feature Film and posting features such as Moon, Ironclad, Man on Wire and the The King’s Speech.
In 2008 Century Communication brought the business and under their ownership, recent significant investment has strengthened the film, television and production facilities across the board including investing in the latest film scanning and film out technologies allowing expanding into VFX and film restoration. The business continues to grow from strength to strength with recent rebranding and continues to provide excellence to our clients in post production services across VFX, Film Restoration, Feature Film Post, Audio Post, Television Drama, Documentary and Broadcast Television.
Molinare has recently completed post production work on the feature film Ironclad.
Starring James Purefoy, Paul Giamatti, Brian Cox and Derek Jacobi, it is a medieval blockbuster following a Templar knight and a ragtag group of warriors as they hold out for months against the hard-fought siege of Rochester Castle in the thirteenth Century. Set in the time of King John’s signing of the Magna Carta treaty, the group struggles against the King to defend the freedom of their country.
Silent Witness – BBC drama series – follows a team of forensic pathologists (Emilia Fox – Nikki Alexander, William Gaminara – Dr Leo Dalton, and Tom Ward – Harry Cunningham) as they try to uncover the truth about murders.
The post production on the latest series (14) has been handled by Molinare. Having worked on the program since series 10, we are proud to be asked to complete a fifth series.
Produced by BBC Drama, Silent Witness Series 14 is currently airing on BBC1
Molinare has recently completed post production on Killing Bono.
The Feature Film follows the story of two brothers in Ireland attempting to become rock stars. But keeping their band together and getting noticed is only part of the challenge. Having to watch their school friends become U2 and turn into superstars is a pressure that few can compare with.
Starring Ben Barnes (Narnia films), Robert Sheehan (Season of the Witch) and Krysten Ritter (She’s Out of My League), this is also the last feature that Pete Postlethwaite (Sharpe, Inception) completed before he died in January.
Molinare have recently been grading the BBC Natural History show Human Planet.
Molinare’s colourist Andrew Daniel was asked to travel to Wales and grade 4 of the 8 hour-long episodes, with him being asked to set the look for the whole series. He bookended the series, grading the first episode ‘Oceans’ and the final episode ‘Urban’.
This is a landmark show as it is the first of its kind, entirely centered around the human relationship with nature (rather than from Nature’s perspective).
The BBC wanted the look to be very different to previous BBC Natural History shows – the aim was to make this one much more cinematic, with less of a traditional ‘TV’ feel.
Andrew chose not to use heavy shapes or grads, in order to make it more natural and just to enhance what was already there. Any secondaries were kept very light, so that the footage can be projected and still retain the essence of a cinematic feel. The overall aim was to keep the grade simple and dynamic, because of the epic proportion of the show itself.
Chris Elson has recently joined Molinare as Head of New Business Development for Television:
“I am personally very excited to be joining Molinare, as Molinare is a post house on the verge of a rebirth. Given the massive recent investment and the new talent and expertise coming in, Molinare is the only place to be in Soho. During the 20 years I spent at Sony Broadcast I had always been focused in and around Post Production across HD, DI or Film. Most recently my involvement has been in file based workflows.
My role at Molinare is to take my prior experience and advise production companies on effective and efficient file based workflows. It is my belief that an optimization of these workflows will see not only cost savings but a better end product. I am here to ensure that productions migration to HD and file based production is as smooth, painless and as risk free as possible.
Scott Holmgren (COO) has said, “Chris brings a wealth of experience to Molinare from his time at Sony, he is part of our new investment and will help drive our continued focus on our TV clients.”
The Oscars are drawing near and we wait with baited breath to find out the nominations. We are hopeful that The King’s Speech will be put forward for at least 2 Oscars to add to the many awards and nominations it has already received.
The Academy Awards Ceremony takes place on 27th February 2011, with nominations announced on 25th January.
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