The Insider's Guide to Production: Outsourcing - The Soho lifeline

Traditional advertising still dominates the market, and therefore the
structure of the market that services it. But digital and online are
attracting more and more of clients' spend. This would be fine if the
extra budget were available for this work, but that is not always the
case. Agencies and post houses are therefore having to rationalise their
businesses accordingly; offering staff and equipment to provide a dual
service to the client.

Post houses are also finding they are increasingly working with many
different types of company. From ad agencies to digital hothouses, from
PR companies to marketing companies, all are now able to get an ad on
air or online. And, in some cases, clients are even decoupling and just
doing it for themselves.

The pressures on post houses of servicing this fluid client base are
huge. For some clients, we are expected to internalise the services
usually provided by the ad agency. For others, we are called upon to
provide proof of concept of the ideas themselves, and to help find a
suitable director. Such assistance is increasingly expected as part of a
service that is still predominantly billed on a per-suite, per-hour
basis. Add to this shrinking budgets apportioned over multiple
disciplines, and client demands for more and more "bang for the buck" as
awareness of VFX techniques becomes more prevalent, and it becomes clear
why so many post houses are struggling.

Furthermore, with the demands of feature film productions and big
commercials projects, post houses need a vast array of staff with a
remarkable technical knowledge in order to produce work to the required
standard. To counter the cost of retaining large teams of highly
qualified and experienced staff in the studio, the vast majority are
hired on a per-project basis.

The problem with this is when the project ends, and all that knowledge
and experience walks out of the door to the company up the road. The
post house loses out because it remains stagnant, unable to grow from
project to project. And the itinerant workforce loses out because there
is less chance of being able to build a career, and no support and
encouragement of a benevolent employer keen to see its staff reach new
creative heights.

Prime Focus London is a major new post-production facility that launched
recently following the merger of three well-established Soho post houses
- Clear, The Hive and VTR. It has the latest kit, top-flight creative
talent and the all-important Soho location - just like two or three
other top-end creative post houses in London. But Prime Focus London is
different in that it is owned by India's largest post-production group,
and its launch marks India's first foray into the London post-production
market.

Prime Focus London offers all of the services, skills, experience and
technical know-how of a high-end London post house. But it also offers
much more - namely, a front door to the huge infrastructure and cost
efficiencies that can be realised by offering a totally secure
post-production outsourcing business model to India.

So how can India help with this? What are the benefits to UK
agencies?

Globalisation. It is hardly unusual for companies to have a global
presence these days. Manufacturers have been outsourcing overseas for
years to take advantage of tax breaks, currency fluctuations and cost
benefits. Post-production is just the next industry that has to look
beyond its familiar domestic confines in order to thrive.

What is essential in the whole outsourcing process is to facilitate the
transfer of knowledge and understand the nuance of the creative process
in both territories. The creative shorthand that is an integral part of
many of the creative relationships in our market is also vital for our
business, and we aim to ensure that it makes no difference to the client
whether our staff are working on a project in India or in London; if its
source is London, the bulk of the process is still undertaken in London
and vice versa.

Budgets that are challenged when they come to us, be they £20,000
or £200,000, can now be facilitated because we can divide up the
suite time between India and London, allowing the creative to take
precedence by removing the economic pressures that might otherwise
prevent it. This allows us to reflect the economics of the market. If
high-profile, high-budget projects need Soho suite time with some of the
best creative talent in the business, then we can provide that. If the
brief requires us to explore a more cost-effective route, we can
accommodate this. Or we can apportion the budget as best befits the job,
taking advantage of both the cost efficiencies of per-seat costs in
India and the talent, proximity and convenience of Soho. And, of course,
every job we undertake for the UK market is overseen by a top creative
here in London.

The benefit is that we can maintain a creative and commercial
relationship with our clients and the wider market. Budgets need not
define these relationships, thus deepening our understanding of our
clients' processes and needs, and allowing us to streamline and improve
the creative shorthand.

Staff no longer have to be hired and fired as the production slate
dictates. We can maintain a much larger workforce in India that will
survive the ebbs and flows of the market, improving the knowledge and
experience of our staff.

In short, by evolving and adopting this business model, Prime Focus
London is geared to offer clients a zero-risk method of addressing the
budgetary and logistical concerns that are part and parcel of almost
every project nowadays. And it does all this without compromising the
creative process. Outsourcing may just offer Soho the lifeline it so
desperately needs.

- Simon Huhtala is the managing director at Prime Focus London.