Windmill Lane Pictures, the largest and longest established integrated film and television post production company in Ireland, has completed its move to a new home right in the heart of Dublin’s creative district.
The refurbished building, located in the Herbert Street area, incorporates state of the art facilities for audio and video post production. Included in this list are three sound studios that have been designed and installed by acoustic and studio design consultancy, White Mark Ltd.
Windmill Lane’s technical director John Brady says the new sound studios encompass a stereo room and two 5.1 surround sound rooms that have been designed and equipped to meet the Dolby specification. All of the studios have natural daylight and each comes with its own voiceover booth.
“All three sound studios are fantastic and are performing exactly as we had hoped,” Brady says. “White Mark’s international reputation and impressive client list made it the ideal company to handle the acoustic requirements for the entire facility, including the three new sound studios, and I am very satisfied with what has been achieved. It was a complicated project but because we were involved with the refurbishment of the building from the start, all acoustic problems were anticipated at an early stage and dealt with in time. As a result the rooms are performing exactly as we had hoped and they also look amazing, which is an important consideration for our discerning client base.”
In terms of equipment, the sound studios are standardized to allow perfect interchangability. Each has a Pro Tools system with D Command console and all of the systems are connected via a central server.
John Brady adds. “We have installed Genelec speakers in each studio and also in our edit suites, presentation rooms and grading rooms to give us consistency across the facility. The studios all come equipped with Neumann microphones, Focusrite amps and tc Electronics finalisers. The two main studios also have JVC HD100 projectors for video monitoring.”
White Mark’s managing director David Bell says the Windmill Lane project indicates what can be achieved when a client wants to go the extra mile in terms of design.
“Great emphasis was placed on the selection of a building with the fundamental architectural interest necessary to help make the completed facility both extremely striking but also technically excellent,” he explains. “The completed Windmill Lane is a fine testament to the balanced approach taken by the client and the whole design team to the creation of a stylish building, that is not only aimed at technical excellence but also at the production of working environments that are functional and an inspiration to spend time in.”
Since first opening its doors in 1979 many associate Windmill Lane Pictures with its rich history of music production in the 1980’s and its early connections with U2, who recorded their first three albums; Boy (1980), October (1981) and War (1983) in Windmill Lane. The music studios were sold by Windmill Lane Pictures in 1990 and moved to Ringsend Rd. Since then, Windmill Lane Pictures has become Ireland’s leading film, television, digital communications and creative services company working with international broadcasters, advertising agencies, production companies, businesses and government bodies.
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About White Mark:
Established in 1997 by David Bell, John Dunnill, Derek Buckingham and Alan Cundell, White Mark Ltd specialises in production facilities for music recording and the film and television industries. Over the last decade it has designed and supervised the construction of over 170 audio production suites worldwide. The company’s impressive client list encompasses some of the world’s most famous music recording facilities including Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in the UK, Hit Factory in New York (for which the company won a coveted TEC Award for Best Acoustic Design), Hit Factory/Criteria Recording Studios in Miami, Strongroom in London, Red Bull Studios in Santa Monica (another TEC Award winner) and private studios for producers and musicians such as William Orbit and Damon Albarn. In the area of audio post production, White Mark has completed over 100 studios for more than 40 companies in Soho alone. The list includes Grand Central, Hackenbacker, Envy, Scramble, Lipsync, Molinare, Ascent Media, Wave and Boom. This impressive achievement means that a significant proportion of mainstream British television output passes through rooms designed by White Mark. www.whitemark.com
