The London Studios is investing£1.5m in its post-production facilities as it adds an additional 11 suites and makes its first step into high-definition editing.
The London Studios is investing£1.5m in its post-production facilities as it adds an additional 11 suites and makes its first step into high-definition editing.

The South Bank facility, which posts shows such as Parkinson, is buying its first DS Nitris HD and five Avid Adrenalines. The Granada Media-owned business is also building an additional 10 non-linear edit suites, more than doubling its capacity to 18. It currently has six Avid Symphony suites, six audio suites and 10 linear edit suites, bringing the total number of suites at the site to 47.

Jacqui Rutherford, director of post-production operations at The London Studios, explains: "I joined a year ago [from Soho post-production company Resolution] and I've appraised what we need to compete with both Soho and west London. We're hoping to expand the business in several ways by bringing in more customers like Hat Trick."

Post at The London Studios - the department's recently rebranded name - has just won the pitch to edit around 40 hours of BBC programming on the Hat Trick series He's Having a Baby.

Up to five further support staff, in the shape of bookings and edit assistants are expected to be taken on to manage an increase of work at the London Studios' post-production department. Post at London Studios has already taken on 10 staff this year, including post-producers Rick Horne and Natalie Lucas from Resolution and Sky respectively.

Around half of programmes cut at Post at The London Studios originate with projects being recorded in the studios, while much of the other work stems from Granada productions. Rutherford is aiming to fill capacity with work from external clients.

Suites will be networked to the machine room and four Avid Unity systems, which allow suites to work on the same project simultaneously. A StarNet shared storage server is also due to be installed to improve the networking ability of the dubbing suites.

The building work starts on 15 August and is due for completion by the end of the year.