HOME FOR STORYTELLERS

By Ron Prince

Every picture tells a story, and the team at Molinare would love to help paint yours.

Now I could be mistaken and am happy to be corrected if my next statement is incorrect. Out of all the post houses in London’s Soho, Molinare is one of two companies that can lay claim to more than 50 straight years of trading in the film and TV industry. (The other is a whopping commercials and movie VFX facility on Wardour Street, but we’re not going there today).

That longevity represents five long decades of withstanding and adapting to the vicissitudes of the screen industry, the ebbs and flows of tidal forces, plus different financial backers and figureheads, to remain not just intact, but very much match-fit, with a road map to boot, as we will discover. And it’s party time soon too.

Despite many long years, treading the streets of Soho myself – variously as a runner, freelance marketing/PR and now chronicler of cinematographic artistry – I have only ever stepped inside the facility on a handful of occasions.

During the mid-1980s I remember delivering 1-inch VTR tapes and packages to its drive-in studio. In the late ‘80s I recall the rooftops bedecked with large satellite dishes. On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, I was given a long-sleeved T-shirt, emblazoned with a capital ‘M’, which I thought was really cool and still possess.

At the turn of the century, Hugh Waters, the then MD, a former colleague and whip-smart engineer, gave me a quick tour of its newly-enable HD facilities, before we hit The White Horse for catch-up pint. A decade later, chairman Steve Milne was keen to show me what is now the flagship 4K Jack Cardiff DI Grading Theatre and cosy in-house café, where once stood the drive-in studio, as part of his determined effort to reposition the business as a welcoming home for visual storytellers. offer cinematographers on the occasion of its golden jubilee, who could say no? But first, a potted, pertinent history (containing helpful information from Martin Kempton’s wonderful TV Studio History website).

In 1972, entrepreneurial Australian sound engineer and film cameraman Stefan Sargent, his wife Tricia and a friend called Robert Parker, were looking for a sound studio to record a radio programme to be sold worldwide, called The Bee Gees Story. They were introduced to Michel Molinari, a fashion photographer who owned the lease on a large basement in Stratford Place, near Selfridges department store. Sargent paid the rent plus a small premium to use a twist on Molinari’s name. Thus the first Molinare studio was created in 1973. It was immediately booked for a year by Capital Radio, who made ads and weekend radio shows there.

DP Gary Shaw, another long-held friend, did the DI on Moon (2009) in that sizeable, state-of-the art room (now offering 4K Christie projection, plus Dolby Atmos audio mixing), and the company’s reputation for delivering great colour and post took off. Its credit list blossomed to encompass all manner of on-screen delights: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and The French Dispatch (2021) (both DP’d by Robert Yeoman ASC), Baby Driver (2017, DP Bill Pope ASC), Patrick Melrose (2018), Mrs Harris Goes To Paris (2022, Felix Wiedemann BSC), plus multiple episodes/ seasons of Killing Eve, to name just a few.

So given the opportunity to discover what it has to

Other bookings followed and the business had to relocate to larger premises. In February 1978, Molinare moved to its present HQ in Foubert’s Place, Soho – a warehouse/office building dating back to 1875 – where it has remained ever since. Under Sargent’s auspices the company built that filming studio I mentioned earlier (Blondie’s ‘Hanging On The Telephone’ was shot there) and moved into video editing for TV commercials and music videos. It is from these solid roots in that Molinare created and retained its reputation for excellence in editing and sound over the years.

During the early 1980’s the premises became the transmission home to Satellite Television UK, which broadcasted to cable networks across Europe – hence the dishes on the roof. The unsuccessful business was bought by Rupert Murdoch for £1, who relocated it elsewhere and called it ‘Sky’. Sargent left the company in 1983, to direct commercials and TV shows, and the company went through a succession of different owners and investors, until Steve Milne, in a second stint at the company, made a dramatic return in 2012, overseeing a £7m refit as part of a process of redefining the business and become recognised globally for TV dramas such as Netflix’s The Crown and features including Wes Andersons’ Isle Of Dogs (2018).

When Milne departed in 2018, to focus on his passion-project of producing features, he left the company in a strong, stable and profitable position. Nigel Bennett was promoted to managing director, with the task of growing revenue across the company’s feature film, TV drama, documentary/factual business, with the financial backing of shareholders Saphir Capital and Next Wave Partners. Bennett had previously worked at Pinewood Studios for 20 years, where he had risen to group director of creative services and oversaw the opening of Pinewood Digital in Atlanta amongst many achievements.

Still leading Molinare today, Bennett says, “We have a deserved reputation as one of the leading film and television post production facilities in central London, and it’s imperative to keep pace with the everchanging demands of the industry we serve.

“We have a tremendous opportunity to grow further and continue to diversify the business into new sectors, and with the solid foundations we have here we’re actively take the business to new heights.”

By which he means Molinare Creative Services Group has its focus on being an end-to-end – dailies, picture/audio post, finishing and localisation – facility across features, high-end episodic, factual and games.

The company currently employs 175 people, around 40 of whom are dedicated to picture post. Along with Foubert’s Place, its various audio and game divisions occupy additional premises in Poland Street and Frith Street, as well as Woburn in Bedfordshire.

When it comes to supporting visual storytellers, Molinare’s grading services encompass five HDR/ SDR suites, all equipped with Baselight grading technology. These are capable of servicing featurelength, episodic and factual productions of every scale, thanks to adopting the very latest advances in colour science, including ACES, clever workflows and no less than 10 petabytes of storage.

All these suites are can be cleverly re-arranged so that grading can be conducted via digital projectors or on backlit Sony BVM-HX310 professional master monitors with large colour-calibrated OLED TV screens for client viewing.

Molinare’s technology is kept up-to-date by Darren Woolfson, chief technology officer. He worked at the company for 16 years before moving to Pinewood Creative Service, where he met Bennett and was subsequently lured back to Molinare in 2020. Other key figures are Tom Woodall, director of post production, and Thomas Emptage, head of picture finishing, who both see oversee that projects run smoothly and accurately.As for the colourists themselves, they are variously engaged with finessing the wide array of feature, high-end episodic drama factual documentary productions. Their recent has been honing his skills assisting on BBC’s The Trials Of Oscar Pistorius (2020) and The Capture (2022) and Mrs Harris Goes To Paris (2022). highlights include: Ross Baker, head of colour, BBC’s SAS Rogue Heroes (2022), Netflix’s The Tinder Swindler (2022) and Apple TV+’s The Reluctant Traveler (2023); Lee Clappison, senior colourist, BBC’s Two Doors Down, (2021-21), Henpocalypse (2023) and Not Going Out (2023); Carl Thompson, colourist, Apple TV+ 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything (2021), BBC’s Inside No.9 (2022) and Ken Loach’s The Old Oak (2023); Vicki Matich, senior colourist, Sky’s Bloods (2021), BBC’s Silent Witness (2023) and the forthcoming Ozi – Voice Of The Forest (2024); and Jake Davies, junior colourist, who

Perhaps the most important aspect of supporting visual storytellers is collaboration. At Molinare this starts with getting-in early on projects, helping cinematographers with look development on test footage and then designing LUTs – which could be custom LUTs from the ground-up, or pre-existing filmemulation curves that perhaps need a tweak to the contrast and colour.

Additionally, when principal photography gets underway, the company’s Moli Dailies service provides in-house, near-set and on-location dailies for UK and international productions, as well as 4K screening services and transcode for editorial and dailies review. There is a new initiative in the offing as regards dailies services, but that was being kept under wraps during my visit.

Recognising that remote colour grading is now a fact-of-life, the company launched Moli Stream in 2021, an in-house developed service where a video/ audio stream can be securely-viewed remotely by multiple clients on computers and calibrated mobile devices, such as iPads, anywhere around the world using just regular broadband. This has led to remote colour-grading sessions with clients as far afield as Singapore and Los Angeles.

Bennett emphasises that with lockdown now over, there is no substitute for bricks and mortar facilities. “We want people to come together here, to collaborate creatively and create great content. Our dailies and picture post teams are here to guide productions from their earliest test and prep phases, so directors and their cinematographers can shoot with the confidence that their aesthetic intentions will remain true during production through to the final DI and beyond.”

Thanks to Stefan Sargent all those years ago, what a terrific spot they have to do it all. In celebration of its 50 years, Molinare is set to throw a summer garden party in Central London, where guests are expected; a good many who have played significant roles in shaping its history and its destiny. As well as its creative, collaborative crew, of course. Cin-cin everyone!