Page 33 - Fujifilm Exposure_11 Blackadder_ok

company profile
TWO PLUS ONE EQUALS SUCCESS
F rom the balcony of Joy Hancock’s sixth-floor office, which also dou- bles as the boardroom, you get quite stunning views across Soho. This not only serves to underline her own good fortune, especially on warm summer days, but also helps to explain the name of the company conveniently located just below Golden Square. Hancock is managing direc- tor of 2 + 1, one of London’s newest broadcast post-produc- tion facility companies which offi- cially opened for business 12 months ago. However, when she first joined up last year with for- mer TVi colleague Clive Bourne, it
for business in October 1998. As
director of technical operations
and engineering Bourne was
responsible for ordering and over-
seeing the installation of £1.5 million
of new equipment. “That was by far
the biggest initial cost for us. For a
new company it was important we
have all the key essentials. That meant
things like an aspect ratio converter, a
digital vision noise reducer and, of
course, Pro-Tools audio editing. Buying
the Softimage DS/II dual stream non-linear on-line edit- ing system was perhaps the only gamble because we bought the first one out,” Bourne explains.
As well as the equipment, getting the right com- bination of people was vital too. Says managing direc- tor Hancock: “When we started I insisted on inter- viewing everybody because I thought it was extreme- ly important that being a small company we all got on. I didn’t want any major prima donnas. Teamwork is everything. If coffee’s needed for a client and everyone else is busy I’ll make it. There is a hierarchy because you need that but when there’s work to be done it’s all hands to the deck. But they’ll all tell you I make lousy coffee!” Staff now currently numbers 15 - “that includes one person in accounts, a bookings manager, and Laura in reception though she also dou- bles rather more as my PA. Everyone else is pushing buttons, earning money.”
Another crucial plus - in addition to their name - was that by the time 2 + 1 bounded out of the starting gate, it already had a major deal in place, with the
prolific production company RM Associates, which now involves hundreds of hours of pro- grammes a month. Says Hancock: ‘We also do quite a lot of work for CIC International doing the cuts, trailers and tape dubbing for some 45 territories. And we’ve just secured our first drama - Monarch Of The Glen for BBC Scotland. As we don’t have telecine yet we are dividing the work on that with TVi who do telecine while we do the final sta- tus of post-production.”
“The difficulty for us is that state-of-the-art telecine costs as much as we spent investing in the whole company at the outset.
For a start-up company, another £1.5 million, which is what the telecine and all the other equip- ment that goes with it would cost in total, is too much. What puts us off at present is the situation pending in the US market over High Definition - that’s where
the cost just skyrockets.”
The way forward for 2 + 1 - now, crucially, FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) accredited - is very much on the agenda. Says Hancock: “At present we operate from eight in the morning to 8.30 at night seven days a week. There is actually a lot more capacity and we eventually hope to run 24 hours a day. For instance, there’s room for enormous expansion in the machine room. That could take another five bays worth of equipment. Our next big cost? We’re probably look-
ing at DVD mastering, maybe 3-D graphics too.
“A year on,” Hancock concludes, “I think we’ve judged it about right. When you’re a new company peo- ple can be reluctant to put their precious programmes with you simply because you haven’t been around before. It’s probably taken us a little longer than we first thought but now it seems to be coming together very well. There are odd moments when Clive and I don’t necessarily agree but we get over that and then just get on with the job. Happily producers seem to be
committing more and more to us.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
was at that time an idea with quite literally nowhere to go. They looked at buildings and debated names, from A to Z for Zeus. Then finally, after trekking the city and scouring the files at Companies House, they lucked into the extra- ordinarily central and eminently refurbishable 1/2
Lower James Street.
“So we thought ‘why not One Plus Two?’ Except,”
as Hancock, a bubbly thirtysomething single mother, now recalls, “someone in Newcastle was already using that name and wanted loads of money for us to have it. By now sheer tiredness had kicked in and inspira- tion had gone so we just turned the numbers round.”
So while the name might be meaningless that cer- tainly doesn’t apply to the company which in just a lit- tle over a year is well on its way to becoming a very successful player in an already well-stocked field.
Hancock had worked at TVi for 14 years - from bookings right up to her eventual post as sales and marketing director - when, after quitting the compa- ny, she linked up again with Bourne, himself a 15 year veteran of the same outfit, who was by this time developing ideas for an as-yet nameless new opera- tion. For Hancock, it had “got to the point at TVi when I just didn’t know all the clients; they were run- ning 24 hours a day and there were even staff I didn’t know.” Bourne had felt he “needed a change and a new challenge.” even more to the point he believed there was a “gap in the market for the right type of small facility company.”
With backing from the City and two other main shareholders in place - Vaughan Mullady of Tru-cut and former TVi editor Andy Lloyd - 2 + 1 officially opened
EXPOSURE • 33
Photos: 2+1 HQ at London’s Lower James Street and MD Joy Hancock.