Films at 59 Redefines UK Audio Production

Continuing its strong momentum in delivering pre-eminent audio solutions, Avid® (NASDAQ: AVID) today announced that leading post-production facility Films at 59 has become the first customer in the UK to adopt the all-new, innovative control surface, Avid S6®. Based in Bristol, Films at 59 provides location kit hire, workflow support and post for a variety of independent producers and broadcasters. Its investment in Avid S6 will see the company switch to a fully integrated Avid content creation infrastructure, enabling it to benefit from greater operational efficiencies and seamless, faster collaboration across its television projects.

Post-production facilities like Films at 59 face challenges including accelerated digitisation of the creative process, increasing competition due to commoditised tools, and greater pressure for operational efficiency. For example, facilities must meet clients’ expectations for more deliverables, simultaneous audio and video production, greater flexibility in creative decision making and faster project turnarounds – all with lower budgets and fewer resources. To meet these challenges they need professional tools that facilitate creativity, and open, integrated workflows that can connect audio and video professionals, and easily manage a variety of formats and deliverables.

Gina Fucci, managing director of Films at 59 said, “With ever-decreasing budgets, faster turnaround times, and the need for producers to find money across territories to fund a project, we needed an agile workflow based on open and tightly integrated solutions. With the innovative and intuitive Avid S6 at the heart of our workflow, we can be more creative, yet less labour intensive, enabling us to grow our business.”

Films at 59’s new audio production infrastructure, which combines Avid Pro Tools® and the S6 console - the only integrated software, hardware and control surface environment optimised to work together, has been integrated into its existing proven and trusted Media Composer® and ISIS® shared storage video content creation workflow.

“Through extensive testing we’ve found Avid solutions to be the most reliable, while their compatibility with third-party applications and robust, high-speed central media storage deliver significant time and cost savings,” added Fucci. “With shared storage, the ability for productions to share audio and vision, and the flexibility to pick up a mix in any room to accommodate schedule changes are tremendous benefits.”

“Films at 59 was the first UK facility to adopt our ISIS 5000 shared storage solution, and is once again leading the way with its investment in our S6 modular and customisable control surface,” said Tim Hurrell, director of EMEA Audio at Avid. “Avid is the proven choice for industry professionals who rely on groundbreaking solutions to credibly solve the current and future demands of today’s challenging production environments and help them deliver higher quality, inspiring content to consumers.”

Purchased through Avid Elite reseller, Digital Garage, Films at 59 plans to add additional Avid S6 consoles to its workflow later in 2014. The all-new S6 is designed to give audio professionals the performance needed to complete projects faster while producing the best sounding mixes.

At BVE 2014, Stuart Dyer, operations manager at Films at 59, will be speaking about how the facility is staying at the forefront of industry innovation by partnering with Avid. The session takes place at 12.30pm on Wednesday 26 February on the Avid stand (J62).