With the recruitment of Paul Giles, Pauline O’Rourke, Rory Gavin and Morten Vinther to Piranha Bar, the company’s growth in the broadcast post production continues. Managing Director Dave Burke has announced to IFTN a number of big name projects already in the can, with more planned for 2005.
Since opening its doors in 2002, Piranha Bar has established itself as one of the leading facilities companies in the industry today. In just over two years the team has worked on a huge amount of 2D/3D motion graphics and visual effects, predominantly within the commercials sector. However, a tide of change has begun at the Dublin based company and online and offline broadcast projects have come to their attention, finally, says Managing Director Dave Burke, under the guidance of Facilities Director Marc Long a top class team has been assembled to deal with these new opportunities.
| Seeds
of change were planted at Piranha Bar in March 2004, recruiting Paul Giles
as their head of editing. “Marc & Paul started to build the team
together and the ideas started to flow, the phones started to ring, and
people were asking “are you going into broadcasting?’” says
Burke. “We wanted to bring in someone who was a brand in |
Coulter & Co.
|
themselves and Paul Giles is that. He was very successful as a freelance editor specifically on high end good quality documentaries. Immediately things started to happen and we launched into the 8 part disability series ‘Three 60’ for Animo and continued with the summer replacement for the late late, ‘Coulter & Co’ for Palomino. This led us to talking to Pauline O’Rourke and realised there was a chemistry between us. By bringing Pauline in people would take us even more seriously in the broadcast area”
Pauline O’Rourke began her career as a production assistant at Windmill Lane Pictures in 1993. She has post produced a number of documentaries, reality series, features and shorts with ‘You’re a Star 1 & 2’, ‘Cabin Fever’, ‘Cinegael Paradiso’, ‘Veronica Guerin’ and ‘In America’ among her list of credits. Since moving from Windmill Lane she has brought “organisation, contacts, massive amounts of experience and a huge degree of professionalism”, to Piranha Bar says Burke.
BAFTA nominated Flame Operator, Morten Vinther, has also joined the team and brings vast knowledge of the broadcasting sectors with him. Highly regarded Morten has worked on five Irish Film and Television Awards nominated productions including ‘Imagining Ulysses’ with Blueprint Pictures, ‘God's Early Work’ with Fat Lisa Productions and ‘Proof’ with Subotica Entertainment. Morten has just completed the first stage of work on the re-branding of RTE TWO at Piranha Bar.
The fourth new addition to the Piranha Bar crew is Rory Gavin. A Highly regarded DS Operator Gavin left High Wire where he spent four years as an online/graphics operator working on projects like ‘No Frontiers’, ‘Killinaskully’, ‘CrimeLine’ and ‘Witness’.
With these key staff members in place Dave Burke feels they are prepared to become wholly involved in the independent broadcast production sector, thus fulfilling a long term goal for Burke whose plans to become “more than just a facilities company” are nearing fruition. “We want to get in at ground level, perhaps even at the stage where people are pitching an idea. I believe post houses have been an anonymous cog in the wheel for too long. The increasing demands of broadcast projects fuelled by advances in digital technology require a greater synergy between production and post, and this is where we locate piranha bar - a new generation digital
boutique that has broken out of the outdated facility model”.
After working for the past six months on high profile broadcast projects like ‘Coulter & Co.’, the 10 x 1 hour series for Palomino , ‘O2 in The Park’ , ‘The Homeless World Cup’ and ‘Global Beats’ with Paradise Pictures, ‘Sex and Sinners’ directed by Jimmy Duggan and the international documentary ‘Feast of the Dying Sun’ both for Tyrone Productions, the IFTA nominated ‘Three 60’ an 8 x half hour documentary series with Animo Productions and the IFTA winner “Show me the Money” for Agtel, Piranha Bar have started work on ‘Reverb’ 8 x half hour and a sell through DVD music archive series directed by Dave Heffernan for RTE. They have also secured the ‘You’re A Star’ series from January 2005 which involves the video inserts for the 10 x 1 hour live shows and 10 x half hour behind the scenes documentaries.
 New 'You're A Star'
deal for Piranha Bar |
"We
had already completed opening sequences for Socca Stars and Rising Stars
two very successful foreign series for Screentime Sinawil and were working
on the new opening sequence for You’re A Star. Larry & Linda
saw the work we were doing in the broadcast area and
|
decided to give us the opportunity to quote on the post. To be honest we had been knocking on that ‘You’re A Star’ door for about two years while we were consolidating our reputation in the commercial sector. Now with all the elements in place and given the list of credits we have worked on in the last six months, there is a realisation that while we are not a carbon copy of larger more impersonal facilities, this is in fact a great advantage.”
With the graphics and visual effects business keeping Piranha Bar constantly busy, this pro-active move from Piranha Bar is a bold one given the sometimes volatile state of the film and television industries. Burke admits “trying to predict our future is impossible. In this fickle industry all it takes is a couple of mistakes and you’ve lost a client. It’s so tough to stay on top all the time. We have just come through a busy period, a very busy summer, and all our clients seem very happy. I would like to think that they’d be back to work with us again.”
For Further Info: go to www.piranhabar.ie
