Leading Welsh Post Production Company, Gorilla, opens new facility in Bristol

Gorilla expands its post-production offerings with a new facility in Bristol’s Finzel’s Reach.

Wales’ largest post-production company, Gorilla has opened a new facility in Bristol. Based in Finzel’s Reach, alongside BBC Studios and Channel 4, the facility was designed from the ground up to reflect the needs of a changing Industry. The facility can operate locally with all the usual onsite post house services, but also provide remote editing all backed up by Gorilla’s 24/7 Welsh HQ.

Managing Director of Gorilla, Rich Moss;

It’s been a fantastic opportunity to build a brand new facility that’s relevant to the times we live in but backed up by the decades of experience, resources and infrastructure we have in our Welsh base.”

Gorilla’s Bristol Operations Manager, Tom Arnold;

Bristol has always been at the forefront of programme making. It’s such an exciting time to be part of brand new cutting edge facility with a close knit team. Our departments from project management and technical support to picture and audio finishing have vast amounts of experience across multiple genres and formats. We are also looking forward to providing opportunities to new and diverse entrants to mould our future industry. “

The UK screen Alliance recently spoke to Rich about his decision to open a major post facility in Bristol.

Gorilla Building 1024x683 1

Here is a taste of the interview, which can be found in full here

Can you tell us a bit about why Gorilla is opening new facility?

“During the pandemic, our market opened up through remote working. We were already using remote connection technologies and cloud services like Avid On Demand pre-pandemic, so we were able to respond very quickly, resulting in a great deal of client confidence.

Following several successful projects, word spread and we were invited to tender for new projects outside of Wales, this opened up a new market for us.

Coming out of a pandemic, with many companies focussing on home working, the idea of building a new facility may seem at-odds with current trends, but it made complete sense to us. While remote working allows for wider talent choice and provides a quick solution to capacity issues, there is now a greater demand than ever for teams to physically come together and work in a creative environment. Every production has different needs, so getting the balance right and offering choice is what this new facility is all about.”

Gorilla Black and white floor

 

Why Bristol?

“Many of our new clients who worked with us remotely through the pandemic were Bristol based and keen to return to a creative facility environment and encouraged us to have a presence. We originally planned a small ingest and review area but it quickly became apparent that Bristol was going through a huge upturn across all genres of TV production which gave us the confidence to invest in something more sizable.”                                                                                                                                   

Bristol

What are your plans now?

“We want to start project by project, look after our clients and maybe our market and footprint will grow. We are here for the long term as we’ve got a 14 year lease. We want to look after clients with the same ethos we’ve had for the last 25 years back in Wales. We are an incredibly nimble and agile company, so we will very quickly respond to whatever our clients require. We are interested to see how the demand for remote vs on-prem changes over time or from production to production and provide our clients with the choice and flexibility they want. There is a lot of work around. We feel we have created a new facility that is dynamic and flexible to respond to our ever changing industry. We are not putting all of our eggs in the cloud or remote editing basket, but we also don’t believe things need to be as they were. We are genuinely excited by change.”

 

Gorilla Bristol Studio 2

What is the current size and staffing of the facility?

The Bristol facility currently has 10 offline rooms, 2 online, 1 grade, 1 dub, 1 track-lay and at present, 20 remote suites. This first phase of our expansion has seen us commit to over £1m of investment in equipment, infrastructure, technology and property.

Building teams from the ground up is a really exciting thing. There are currently 7 new staff supported by the Cardiff team of 60. We see this number increasing as our client base grows. Arun Hall is leading our picture finishing with Colin Chipchase in Audio. Our Post Producers Katelyn Rice and Cassandra Corbett are supported by Operations manager, Tom Arnold alongside Technical Operators Angus Taylor and Susanna Lee.

Gorilla Team

What are the rest of the team saying about their new facility?

Rhodri James, Gorilla Technology and Operations Director;

Our latest facility, provides the best in class in modern Post Production creative services. It not only uses the latest technology, but it’s connected to Gorilla’s private cloud infrastructure enabling a smarter way of working. This is the first Bristol facility designed for hybrid Post Production, allowing our clients to choose a menu of options that best suits their production needs.”

Arun Hall, Colourist and Online editor;

What’s always appealed to me about Bristol is the diverse selection of work we’re lucky to have here. The scope creatively to really embrace and invest in a project is something our creative departments will thrive in.”  

 

Gorilla Mural

Gage Graphics designed the mural in Gorilla’s new office  I enjoyed mixing different styles and adding lots of layers and references to this mural in Gorilla TV’s new office. I chose to highlight some of Bristol’s heritage on the left like the bridge and the old George’s brewery, which used to be a major factory opposite this office. The design then morphs into the vibrant and street side of the city with music and graffiti themes, adding some energy and a modern twist. There are other themes intermingled like multiculturalism, nature, sound and digital pixels to reflect the company’s editing work.

Gage Graphics, Mural Artist

About Gorilla:

Gorilla TV was established in 1999 and is the leading post-production facility in Wales. The HQ spans five floors and operates 24/7 alongside a second Cardiff city centre facility and new Bristol facility in Finzel’s Reach. Although very large, with over 150 edit suites, Gorilla still retains their boutique roots and customer service values.

While creative post-production is Gorilla’s background, they are also technical and media workflow experts, with Satellite uplink/down-link facilities, Broadcast lines, studios, fixed rigs and live TX gallery. Their media experts manage hundreds of terabytes of UHD/HDR media including VFX pipelines to and from multiple international vendors. They are also technical pioneers, and now provide a fully hybrid operation with on-premises and remote working for staff and clients alike.

Gorilla delivers hundreds of hours of multi genre programming from ‘Daytime’ to HETV to all UK Broadcasters and International clients including HBO, Netflix, Disney+ and BBC WW/SD.

 

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