Baraka Post Production has ploughed around£250,000 into a new dedicated offline editing division, Chop.
Baraka Post Production has ploughed around £250,000 into a new dedicated offline editing division, Chop.

Set to go fully operational in mid-August, the facility will be installed within Baraka's existing Greek Street premises, and will consist of four cutting rooms equipped with Adrenalines.

They will be connected to an Avid Unity LanShare central storage system, designed to allow multiple suites to share media and project data for longer or more complex projects.

It will initially be staffed by Baraka's existing senior editors, David Freemantle, Caroline Sarin and Blue's former head of offline, Matt Hall, although two more editors are expected to be drafted in once it opens. Ross Culligan, who also recently joined from Blue, will oversee the new division.

The decision to set up an offline facility comes as other post houses divert their attention away from what is a less profitable area in post than online and as production companies and broadcasters such as the BBC are increasingly conducting offline edits in-house. However Baraka joint managing director David Cox is confident there is still a market for talented offline editors.

'Traditionally offline editing within such a facility is always considered a bit of a sideline activity- but it's not about the machines it's about the people that use them. Anyone can go to the high street and buy an inexpensive editing system, but that doesn't make him an editor,' said Cox.

He added that Chop will have its own staff and agenda focused on creative editing services for broadcast, commercial, corporate and feature film work for Baraka's clients, which include Flextech and Film4.

Baraka's current projects include providing the graphics, online and grading on the promos for Discovery's American Chopper.