Molinare has recently unveiled its newly refurbished Dubbing Theatres. The suite upgrades include an Avid S5 Fusion Control Surface with DSP, Pro Tools HDX and Version 10 software, the only audio post production facility of its kind in Soho.
The upgrade comes at an exciting time for us, with a host of features and high-end dramas in the pipeline for our award-winning audio department, including Carnival Films & Television’s highly-anticipated NBCU drama ‘Dracula’ and the feature film version of the Lightworkers Media US ratings-hit, ‘The Bible.’
Scrub, a division of HHB Communications, provided us with a fully featured 32-Fader Avid S5 Fusion Control Surface and Pro Tools upgrades for our Dolby-approved flagship Dubbing Theatre A. Molinare’s General Manager – Technology, Richard Wilding, worked closely with Scrub’s sales and technical staff to implement the new Pro Tools infrastructure and new JBL Screen Array surround sound system.
Munro Acoustics were engaged to entirely redesign the existing Theatre, with the addition of 7.1 sound monitoring and a larger five metre projection screen, revitalising the room to give a spacious modern feel. Molinare’s engineering team were aided by system design and integration specialists Absolute Cad, ensuring that the technical installation and wiring was carried out to the highest standards with the least possible downtime.
Julie Parmenter, MD, Molinare comments: “Our new audio suites represent a significant investment in our facilities and will complement our multi award winning sound team to give the film and broadcasting industry the very best post-technology in Soho. As our government improves tax breaks for film and TV makers looking to shoot in the UK, we are thrilled that our significant investments will provide top of the range facilities that cater for these types of projects.”
The technology in Molinare’s Dubbing Theatre B has also been renewed with a Pro Tools HDX upgrade and a matching JBL Screen Array surround system.
The S5 Fusion offers a powerful, dedicated Digital Signal Processing (DSP) engine and EUCON Hybrid control to record and mix EUCON-enabled Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) – such as Pro Tools – projects. The console accelerates the overall mixing process, giving users complete control and flexibility and providing instant visual feedback on metering, track info, routing and more through high-resolution screens. Users can save the position of sources on the surface at any given time and recall them at a later time; they can also control any number of faders from a single strip through Control Groups.
The upgrade to Avid S5 Fusion means Molinare is now fully compatible with the full Avid System 5 family of movie consoles, enabling it to work on collaborations with film studios through this new streamlined audio workflow, which is used extensively on major titles throughout LA.
The investment in the dubbing theatres is part of the post production facility’s renewal after Molinare was bought by a consortium headed by former Chief Executive Steve Milne and MD Julie Parmenter last year.
MTV recently recruited us to provide the post production on their new MTV STAYING ALIVE foundation promo, directed by David Barr and Stuart Meldrum. The Staying Alive campaign’s philosophy is to fund the teaching and support of inspirational young leaders who teach about the prevention of HIV. At the same time, MTV are creating and distributing content across their networks to raise awareness of the disease. This latest PROTECT YOUR PASSION campaign was graded and onlined by Molinare’s Senior Colourist, Gareth Spensley.
Televisual’s annual Colourist survey was published in the March edition of the magazine, and Molinare’s grading team featured heavily in the top 10 TV and Film category. The list was based on a number of criteria – Producers were asked to rate their preferred Colourists, points were then awarded for any industry award wins and nominations , and finally votes were cast by UK Colourists themselves for the peers and the productions they particularly admired in 2011.
Our very own Gareth Spensley claimed the Number One spot, having received a great number of votes from his industry peers for his grade on ‘The Hour’ (for which he was also nominated for an RTS Award) and being described by Televisual as now being in the “superleague” since his much-lauded grade on last year’s Oscar-winning ‘The King’s Speech.’
Recent Molinare addition, Asa Shoul, also featured in the list at Number Eight for his work on ‘Strikeback’, ‘Attack the Block’ and ‘Stolen’ last year.
And last but certainly not least, Molinare’s Tim Waller also featured in the list at Number Ten, with Asa Shoul complimenting him on his “consistantly top standard and resourceful grading” on shows including Silent Witness.
Well done to the whole grading team here at Molinare – to feature so heavily in a National survey is praise indeed for their efforts over the past year, and is a real compliment to Molinare’s grading and DI departments. Onwards and upwards for 2012…
We were absolutely delighted to be awarded Best Post Production House at last night’s Broadcast Awards, held at Grosvenor House. The Molinare team were out in force at the event, and we were blown away when the win was announced.
2011 was a year of highs for Molinare, including relaunching our brand (including an epic relaunch party!) and some truly fantastic Broadcast projects crossing our path.
One of the Broadcast highlights was our post-production of BBC2’s The Hour for Kudos Film and Television, which led to an RTS Award nomination for Gareth Spensley’s grade on the series. Producer Ruth Kenley-Letts, who has also teamed up with us on Silent Witness, said she was “blown away” by the work we completed on the drama series.
Our relationship with the MasterChef team continued in 2011 when we helped them make the move to HD, providing technical support and a cloud-based review and editing service for the production to view and assemble rushes remotely
MasterChef series producer Karen Ross said: “Molinare is not merely a facilitator but a contributor, and there is nowhere else we would have received this kind of ongoing service.”
A huge thanks to all our clients, staff and supporters, who over the past year have helped us go from strength to strength, with the crowning glory being this accolade. We’re looking forward to seeing what the rest of 2012 will bring.
We are delighted to announce that Gareth Spensley, Molinare’s Head of Grading, has been nominated for the RTS Craft & Design Award for his grade on The Hour – Kudos’s glamorous six part drama series which lead viewers behind the scenes of a ground-breaking topical news programme in 1956.
Gareth created the grade to subtly reflect the era without overpowering the emotion of the story. The show was shot digitally on the Arri D21, but the creative brief from the client was to give the pictures a rich filmic look.
The results were fantastic, with Chris Seager (Director of Photography for the series) saying that he was “delighted with the final look – the grade achieved everything we set out to create, and more.”
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 don’t just do Film and Television! We also have a thriving creative agency operating within our D’Arblay street offices, and are currently in our second year of working with Hozelock on their advertising campaigns.
In 2010 Molinare created a series of ads for Hozelock. This was an end-to-end creative process for Molinare’s short form team. The campaign successfully positioned them as the UK’s leading watering specialist.
Jola Piesakowska (Creative Director) and Mark Wellband (Art Director) shot the commercials in South Africa, directed by Groundglass’ Erica Brummage, which were then posted here at Molinare in the UK and delivered by Katie Ringer (Molinare’s Production Manager).
Building on the success of these ads, we are extending the campaign to Europe and are delivering foreign versions for transmission this Spring.
The BAFTA nominations are just out and The Kings Speech has picked up a resounding 14 nominations! Molinare completed the picture post production and VFX on this critically-acclaimed feature film:
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 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.
|
