Clear Cut Pictures has moved into Exposure Post’s former premises on Newman Street.

The move is the first phase of an expansion plan that could see West London-based Clear Cut open a second Central London office and premises in the regions.

“We have had many clients who were keen to work with us and our talent, but our location made it difficult. When Newman Street became available, it was too good an opportunity to miss,” said Clear Cut managing director Paul Austin.

“The West London business had a really strong year and will remain as the core focus, but now we have the added benefit of a second building.”

The ground floor of the 4,000 sq ft site is being kitted out with nine Avid v6 offline suites.

The basement will house audio and grading and will contain two dual-boot online suites with Avid Symphony Nitris and FCP v7, Nucoda Film Master and two 5.1 Pro Tools suites with Ikon D-Command desks.

Austin said Clear Cut hoped to take offline bookings for the new premises in two to three weeks: “There’s a lot of work needed to make good certain parts of the building, which is undergoing an aesthetic and technology refresh, but the whole site is expected to be ready by early June.”

The £500,000 expansion will also include a dual 10Gb private fibre ring to connect Newman Street with Clear Cut’s Shepherd’s Bush headquarters, with shared storage across the sites.

“The move into Central London is phase one; phase two will be to grow in the regions,” said Austin.

“We are focusing on [Newman Street] at the moment but some discussions have taken place, possibly around a second base in Central London. We’re looking at Manchester and Scotland as well.”

Exposure is moving to new premises on Great Titchfield Street, where it will reduce its offline and duplication capacity to focus on finishing and grading.

Exposure owner and senior editor Paul Jones said: “Running a large facility was taking attention and focus away from what we enjoyed about post, and I wanted to get back to that.”