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We were pleased to welcome Wales Office Minister Alun Cairns to Gorilla HQ recently as part of his tour of leading companies operating in Wales’ vibrant creative sector.

Mr Cairns, who is a keen supporter of our creative industries and regularly speaks about their importance as a catalyst for Wales’ economic growth, was shown around the studio by our MD Rich, who also spoke to him at length about the wide range of projects we work on here and explained the importance of combining creativity and technological innovation in all that we do. He was also introduced to the rest of the Gorilla team.

As a proud Welsh company, it is an honour to see the role Gorilla plays in developing and promoting Wales’ buzzing creative sector bring recognised.

Following his visit, Mr Cairns said: “We are committed to cultivating a vibrant creative sector here in Wales. The role these companies play in driving growth through the creation of jobs and attracting inward investment cannot be underestimated”.

Some of the Gorilla team are headed for the hills this weekend to attend the 2015 Kendal Mountain Festival and its highly regarded International Film Competition.

The award-winning festival is the main social event for outdoor enthusiasts and professionals in the UK and its International Film Competition – referred to as the ‘Oscars of outdoor filmmaking’ – sees outdoor-themed productions from around the world compete to win one of the eleven coveted awards up for grabs.

Two productions that were edited at Gorilla are shortlisted for awards at this year’s Festival – Fflic TV’s Patagonia Eric Jones ac Ioan Doyle (S4C) and Indus Films for BBC Two’s Hunters of the South Seas.

Patagonia Eric Jones ac Ioan Doyle was originally broadcast on S4C earlier this year to coincide with the 150th anniversary celebrations surrounding the establishment of the Welsh settlement in Patagonia. It sees world renowned climber Eric Jones share his stories and memories with young climber Ioan Doyle as they undertake an unforgettable journey along the Andes.

Indus’ Hunters of the South Seas is a documentary series aired on BBC in Spring 2015. It follows explorer Will Millard as he travels around The Coral Triangle in the Pacific Ocean spending time with remote communities who have adapted to ocean life like nowhere else on the planet.

Both productions will be screened at the Festival ahead of the awards ceremony on Saturday evening and Paul and Rhodri will be on hand to represent Gorilla and to enjoy the celebrations if the productions are victorious!

Best of luck to everyone involved in both productions from everyone at Gorilla. Keep an eye on our Twitter account for updated from the event.

We are very proud to be returning as Key Event Sponsor for this year’s 24th annual British Academy Cymru Awards when they take place at Cardiff’s St David’s Hall on Sunday 27th September. This year’s ceremony will be hosted by Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens and sees awards presented across 30 programme, craft and performance categories to celebrate excellence in broadcasting and production within film and television in Wales.

Gorilla is also sponsoring the individual award for Editing, the nominees for which are:

• John Richards – Da Vinci’s Demons – Adjacent Productions/Phantom Four Films/FOX
• Will Oswald – Doctor Who: Dark Water – BBC Wales / BBC One
• John Richards – Jack to a Kind: The Swansea Story – YJB Films Ltd

The BAFTA Cymru Awards are always a fitting celebration of what is one of Wales’ most exciting and rapidly growing industries. Gorilla wishes the very best of luck to all of the nominees and we look forward to celebrating with you on the night.

Industry and public tickets for the ceremony are available to buy through the BAFTA Cymru website.

Gorilla is now a proud member of the Digital Production Partnership, the not-for-profit membership organisation which aims to help the media industry maximise the benefits of digital TV production.

We join a select of group of trade bodies, companies and individuals from across the industry on the membership rota with other recent additions including Sky, Irish public service broadcaster TG4 and professional services provider PwC UK.

DPP was formed in 2010 as a joint initiative by the UK’s public service broadcasters. It aims to help those in the industry maximise the potential of digital in the creation and management of content through focussing on areas such as production, digital storage, technical standards and compliance.

On becoming a member, Gorilla MD Rich Moss said: “At Gorilla we deliver programming all over the world, in all formats and standards. We were very keen to be a part of the DPP and value the opportunity to input into its workshops and work streams.

“We have already had useful discussions with the DPP and other industry professionals around our practical experiences of AS-11 workflows and look forward to more as we head into the UHD delivery”.

We are pleased to announce that we have recently joined an exclusive group of independent TV facilities companies able to carry out ‘Quality Assurance Reports’ for BBC Worldwide programmes and content.

Any programme or DVD produced for global distribution for BBC Worldwide has to undergo strict quality checks. With over 53,000 hours of programming in its catalogue, BBC Worldwide distributes to every major territory.

As an approved QAR vendor, we join an elite list of facilities houses authorised to carry out the reviews, which cover the technical and content elements required for international distribution.

There are only three other facilities houses outside of London approved to carry out QAR for BBC Worldwide and we will largely be supporting Wales-based production companies in their preparation of content for submission to the BBC.

Jo Gudgeon, BBC Worldwide’s Asset Acquisitions Coordinator said: “We’ve formed a good relationship with Gorilla on post production queries and are looking forward to them taking on the responsibility of QARing BBC Worldwide deliverables on a range of Cardiff-based projects”.

Exciting news – we have recently added a second dedicated grading suite to our facility in Cardiff Bay, incorporating a Baselight Slate grading panel and Avid Baselight plugin from Filmlight.

The new suite sits alongside our existing Baselight suite which is equipped with Blackboard and Dolby Professional Reference Monitor.

Our Operations Director Paul Owen said that the new suite offers colourists the best of both worlds when it comes to using Baselight alongside Avid “We know that our clients love the Baselight and bringing it side by side along our Avid infrastructure, gives us total flexibility.”

To coincide with our recent move to our new Cardiff Bay HQ we have upgraded our audio editing and mixing facilities to include two Avid S6 consoles – the very first of their kind installed in Wales – as well as the latest Pro Tools HDX hardware and version 11 software.

Our friends at Scrub, the specialist UK post-production division of HHB Communications, configured and installed our new 16-fader S6 M10 and 32-fader S5 M40 mixing systems, as well as upgrades to the latest Pro Tools HDX hardware and version 11 software. They also supplied us with brand new Yellowtec m!ka mic and monitor arms. These are all set in stunning custom-made desks supplied by studio and technical furniture specialists AKA Design.

The S6 consoles have already allowed us to expand our workflow and the mixing platforms offer a new level of mix control, as our Senior Dubbing Mixer Tom Logan explains: “The ability to spill VCA spill groups on the surface of the S6 is a fantastic feature. It is great to have those faders directly in front of you in order to jump straight into a dialogue track to make quick adjustments during pre or final mixing”.

The latest Pro Tools HDX hardware and Version 11 software have also deliver dramatic enhancements in performance and speed: “The offline bounce feature in Pro Tools 11 saves us a huge amount of time on preparing the final mix. The system is also incredibly quick when handling a large amount of plug-ins. Sometimes we will use the Channel Strip plug-in on almost every track, and with the new Pro Tools hardware and Mac Pro you can use as many instances as you need without worrying about slowing down the processing speed of the session. The S6 gives us hands on control of all these features”.

We are excited to announce that we have now officially opened the doors to our brand new facility at the Welsh Government’s flagship creative industries at Porth Teigr, Cardiff Bay.

We have taken over 12,000 square foot of space over three floors at the newly-opened GloWorks building, moving all of our operations and technical departments onto one site in the process. This means we have been able to improve efficiency and communication across our departments, as well develop our client services through extended company working hours and technical services.

Facilities at our new HQ comprise 40 Avid Suites, including the UK’s first licence server and nearly half a petabyte of shared storage, a Baselight Grading suite and 5.1 Protools dubbing studios with ADR/VO. There is also a dedicated QC, file delivery and archive service, specially designed to service the demands of broadcast file delivery.

Gorilla’s MD Richard Moss said: “Moving to this new site has given us the flexibility and room we need to expand in order to service the ever-increasing needs and tight deadlines of our clients. Consolidating our existing businesses and designing from scratch a facility suited to today’s post-production environment was both a wonderful challenge and an opportunity for radical improvements”.

Paul Owen our Director of Operations said: “We have been able to significantly improve our level of services to clients thanks to new technology and staffing organisation. Bringing our bookings and technical departments together in the same accessible, client-friendly space has made a huge difference to daily operations. With our consistently strong team, we continue to offer the very best in post-production services in a much more streamlined and client-orientated environment.”

We were delighted to join the celebrations at this year’s Broadcast Digital Awards as Ludus, the new CBBC game show that we and Bait Studio worked on for Cube Interactive and Boom Kids, was crowned the winner of the Best Digital Children’s content award.

The interactive sci-fi show fought off stiff competition from the likes of CBBC favourites Wizards Vs Aliens and Dixi to take home the prize.

Ludus was CBBC’s first ever second-screen play along gameshow. A spin-off of S4C show Y Lifft, it features contestants battling to defeat a space villain to rescue their family and win a ticket home. The show comes with its own iOS and Android app to allow viewers to compete at the same time as the show’s contestants.

Gorilla was heavily involved in all stages of the show’s production process, providing the on-set and post-production facilities – our graphics arm Bait Studio also provided VFX and Motion Graphics.

Ludus was a ground-breaking project in terms of interactive TV production so we are so pleased to see it being awarded this well-deserved stamp of recognition from the industry – well done to all involved!

Gorilla and Bait Studio are hugely proud to be involved in the feature length television drama A Poet in New York as part of BBC Wales’ season of special Dylan Thomas programmes.

Written by Andrew Davies and featuring a wonderful performance by Tom Hollander as Dylan Thomas, the Modern Television production for BBC Wales and BBC 2 explores how the troubled writer died in smog-ridden New York on a November day in 1953. The film was set in NYC but filmed entirely in Cardiff and Dylan’s home in Laugharne. Our Bait Studio team were tasked with using VFX to create the look and feel of 1950s NYC – and Gorilla’s Emyr Jenkins was on hand to seamlessly blend and grade their efforts as well as the entire film on Baselight.

Having already premiered on BBC Wales to great critical reviews, A Poet in New York is being broadcast across the UK on BBC2 on Sunday 18th May, 9pm. Watch the below trailer for a glimpse of this powerful film.