Logo Rob Buckley – Freelance Journalist and Editor

Pinewood pioneers

Pinewood pioneers

Just as Michael Grade announces brave new broadcast plans for Pinewood, the people behind Dog Eat Dog and Manic Films unveil the studio's first Avid house. Rob Buckley looks in on them

Imagine how all those happy storekeepers felt when the gold-rush came to California. With Michael Grade set to produce a broadcast gold-rush in Pinewood, newly-opened Outpost Facilities is in pole-position to be main supplier to the prospectors, being the only Avid editing facility on-site. And the directors are quite happy about that, too...

“We're riding on the coattails of what's going on,” says David Broscombe, a former graphic artist. “It's a very exciting time for us because we're going to be here right from the start,” adds his partner, Nigel Gourley. 'That means more business for us.“

Freelance editor Gourley and Broscombe met several years ago and have often worked together since. Each has other companies, but the chance to offer a completely different service at Pinewood, geared to traditional programming, led them to the idea of Outpost Facilities.

The day-to-day running of the facility is the responsibility of manager Helen Pyrah, formerly ofLynx and Locomotion. Ironically, Pyrah had previously employed Gourley at Lynx - which is how she got the call to run the new firm.

With Pyrah in charge, the two directors try to spend as little time at Outpost as possible. ”I try not to do any editing here,“ says Gourley. ”One thing I always notice about people who edit at their own companies is that they are always getting disturbed with questions about the business.“

Instead, says Pyrah, the company uses a pool of approximately 10 editors. ”We bring them in regularly - a little family of them. For everything else, there are other facilities on-site.“

The company aims for a mixture of broadcast and corporate work. ”That's what we know,“ maintains Gourley. ”We did discuss working with film, given the location, but the people we work with are TV people. Now we're here, though, it's something we're thinking about a lot.

“Clearly we're for people who work here or in the vicinity,” says Gourley. “If you live in Soho, it's not so great,” adds Broscombe. “But there are some people at the studios all the time and there are some here for only six months. There are plenty of one-room production companies.”

The Outpost team is not particularly worried about the threat of other editing houses discovering Pinewood for themselves. Says Broscombe. “space is tight here. When we were picking out our offices, there wasn't a lot of choice. I'm not sure what the development plans are, but space is always going to be a problem.”

“Rival companies are welcome to come here,” adds Gourley. “Just not yet.”

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