Founded in 1997, Goldcrest Films is an iconic name in the cinema industry, with legendary movies like Chariots Of Fire, Gandhi and Local Hero to its credit. The company formed Goldcrest Post in 1992 and currently operates one of the industry's premier audio post-production facilities from its Dean Street, Soho premises, as well as having a significant branch in Manhattan.
With this new project Goldcrest Post is aiming to become the UK's premier 'one stop post-production shop' for picture, audio and grading post work on feature film and high-end drama productions. Matching the best human talent with the best equipment has included a significant expansion and technical upgrade of the company's Lexington Street premises.
Medialease has enjoyed an excellent working relationship with Goldcrest Post for over five years. The company's unique ability to pack the punch of a large financing business, while retaining the personal values and bespoke finance offerings of a small one, made it the ideal partner to manage the provision of asset financing for this project.
"A large part of the UK post-production market's continued growth is down to the film tax credit and, more recently, the new TV tax credit on offer to larger productions here in the UK," says Medialease managing director Paul Robson. "The first and most important element for Goldcrest's US client base when planning a production is which countries offer the greatest financial incentives. The UK is at the top of that list."
He continues, "When the Directors approached us 12 months ago to discuss their plans, my initial thoughts were surprise at the size of the plan and their desire to put both feet firmly in the film/picture finishing space. But after discussions on the financial plan and realising the absolute commitment the owners of the business had to achieving this project, we were able to provide a medium term financing solution for most of the £1.5m equipment requirement. Working with this team has been fantastic and, now that we are seeing the results of the plan, it's visually rewarding too.
The Goldcrest plans included adding the best feature film editing and effects post-production artists to the company's staff, dovetailing with Goldcrest Post's Oscar-winning audio post and Foley effects staff. Building a large, state-of-the-art film and video post-picture facility was essential in order for the company to attract the right calibre of talent and compete at the highest level.
"The installation includes two 4k compliant theatrical grading suites that will be, in my opinion, the best DI suites in central London. They will complement their existing smaller grading suite, bringing the total rooms available for theatrical DI to three," says Paul.
This multi-million pound deal sees a significant investment in equipment, which includes Resolve colour grading suites, Barco 2K DCI cinema projectors, Autodesk Smoke finishing suite, a fully automated tape archiving robotic system in conjunction with a pair of ARRI film scanners to convert film stock to digital before it enters the post process, all sitting alongside the largest SAN storage system we have ever financed, providing 400Tb of 4K resolution media storage.
"We have been working with Paul and his team at Medialease for a number of years, but this major expansion of our facilities was on a much larger scale. Once again their professionalism ensured that the process of project funding was well managed throughout," says Mike Georgiou, group FD. "That they understand our industry is a distinct advantage, but t
