Moving offices three times in two years, and setting up two brand new studio spaces in the Fingal area of Dublin, may seem like extreme expansion methods to those suffering in a recession.
While the film and television industry has taken a hit like any other, one production company in Ireland has managed to carve a niche for itself in the online world, attracting business from both home and abroad, with its seemingly recession-busting methods.
Gerard McKenzie, a co-founder of Jump Films and Sunlight Studios, both situated in Balbriggan in Co Dublin, explained to IFTN the reasons behind Jump Films’ recent expansions: “Originally I was working with IBM, and was running Jump Films part-time. I was made redundant in 2010, and with the redundancy money I decided to work at Jump Films full time.”
Sunlight Studios is situated in Balbriggan |
With a background in video production, McKenzie and his Jump Films team, made up of producer and camera operator Alejandro (Alex) Castano and producer and social media expert Colm McCluskey, originally started with the name applebox.ie, a corporate video production company which has the likes of Volkswagen and the Convention Centre Dublin (home of the 2013 IFT Awards) on its clients books.
Jump Films was originally founded in 2005, with McKenzie committing to the company full-time in 2010, the same time he decided to keep Applebox purely for corporate market projects, and have Jump Films as a film and television industry-focused production company.
His production company office is situated adjacent to his two film studios; a 50x14 ft main studio, and a 30x14 ft smaller studio space. The double studio provides a green screen, a blue screen and a large filming space for outside filmmakers to take advantage of.
“The studios have been in operation about a year and a half, (for Jump Films’ work), now we’re renting out the studios for filming, whether it be amateur photographers or videographers. It’s actually something that we just planned to launch now because we’ve got so much space,” said McKenzie.
Jump Films is currently working on a project for Rescuez.com |
Situated on Railway Street in Balbriggan, Sunlight Studios are located just a few minutes’ walk from the train station. Currently, the Jump team is occupying a part of the studio with their project for Rescuez.com, an online video which the company is hoping to use to promote its own online funding campaign.
“We’re filming in-studio at the moment, we’re shooting in green screen, for stop animation. It’s all been storyboarded and scripted by myself and the client,” explained McKenzie.
Online promotions is where Jump Films has found its niche, having produced promo videos for the likes of Flowers.ie in the past, as well the Westport Food Festival, Insomnia Coffee and Mustang Jeans to name a few.
McKenzie added: “At the moment online video production is definitely our specialty. We’re also getting back into short films, and possibly feature films in the future.”
Among Jump Films’ short films is ‘Lost In Spanish’, a dramatic tale which the production team hopes to film on location in Spain. “It was co-written by Alex and me. I’ll direct it, and Alex is over in Spain at the moment working on getting all the shot locations and actors. We’ve launched the online funding campaign, but if we don’t meet the goal, whatever happens we’ll make a film,” said McKenzie.
Sunlight Studios has available space to rent |
With their own studio space and editing suites to take advantage of, why wouldn’t they?
To find out more about Jump Films and Sunlight Studios, see the company profile on IFTN.