Golden Baritone: Offering End-to-End Solution For Feature Films, Documentaries, Music Albums and Advertisements

Golden Baritone (based out of Bangalore) is a one-of- its-kind digitally enabled creative collaboration center offering an end-to- end solution for feature films, documentaries, music albums and advertisements. It brings together a unique blend of Media and IT skills backed by a deep understanding of the global media and entertainment industry.

In an interaction with Sujata Sangwan of BWDisrupt, Sam Thomas, Managing Director, Golden Baritone, shares details about the company.

Excerpts:

1) When and how did you start Golden Baritone? What inspired you to start Golden Baritone?

On my numerous flights to the US and Europe I had the opportunity to visit many Post Production Studios. This rekindled the Passion of aiming to provide technical excellence to audio visual projects.

The high standards followed by the foreign engineers and studios encouraged me to think along the lines of “WHY NOT IN INDIA”.

This followed four years of research on how studios function and the difference between studios in India and Abroad.

I shared my idea with my colleague Capt. B. Abdul Gafoor who readily agreed to join me and together we approached our common friend Commander Retd. Binu Jacob who is a certified project management specialist along with being a nuclear engineer.

Without getting too technical, I would like to explain the core functionality of Golden Baritone and our main target segment.

Post Production is a process that transforms the raw footage to a displayable version for the common viewer.

In other words after the project is shot and before it comes to you as a viewer, it undergoes certain steps like editing,colour correction, mixing of sound, music and video, voice over, recreation of sounds like door opening people walking etc.

Each of these processes is done in specialized rooms with specialized machines and highly skilled engineers.

The sound effects and a large quantum of visual effects are added to the present day movies and other audio visual projects.

These processes are done mainly overseas in high budget Hindi cinema and Hollywood.

Our main target segment is the outsourced business from Hollywood as we are able to provide the exact same quality output using the exact same machines and engineers at a price less than 50% charged by major Post Production Houses in Europe and USA, which makes it a very attractive proposition to OUTSOURCE to INDIA.

Golden Baritone is unique in its approach and hence positioned as a DIGITAL CREATIVE COLLABORATION CENTER. Through the patented AVID EVERYWHERE cloud based solution, we are able to bring musicians and artiste together, via high speed data transfer, irrespective of their geographic location. This enables the customer to get the best of talent to work on the technicals of their project at extremely economical prices.

Thus was formed Golden Baritone which would be radically different from the existing studios in India. Golden Baritone would be a single point solution for Audio Visual project that are aiming to be benchmarked internationally.

At GOLDEN BARITONE our mantra is ENGINEERING ENTERTAINMENT and we believe in enhancing the eco system so as to enable us generate revenues in perpetuity.

2) What was your seed capital and what were the challenges have you faced during the initial days?

Firstly there was mild skepticism from the people around us due to us not being “Industry insiders”.

We however decided to put our personal funds and purchased land which was strategically located with respect to proximity to Airport as this would enable outstation artists and technicians arrive and depart in the most efficient manner.

We hired French designer Dedier Weiss of Sound wizards to design and construct a complete post production complex from the ground up with each room complying to the strict standards of DOLBY.

3) Please elaborate more on the mechanism of what Golden Baritone is all about and how does it work?

Golden Baritone brings together the three key aspects of DOLBY AVID and OSCAR under one roof which more or less ensures the highest quality output.

The complex will be a DOLBY PREMIER studio which is the highest certification available for quality of sound.

AVID the leading manufacturer in latest generation hardware and software for studios would supply 90% of our equipment thus enabling us to maintain a high degree of precision and commonality across rooms.

Our OSCAR winning engineer Resul Pookutty who additionally has won every major award in sound design in the last decade would be heading the film mix division thus ensuring Oscar level output with regard to quality control.

4) Please explain elaborately the entire end-to-end solutions that you offer.

We expect a project to be brought in at any stage after production (Shoot) and we possess the capability to deliver a displayable format on the most popular format the DIGITAL HARD DRIVE.

The facilities available at Golden Baritone are

1. Dolby Atmos Mix Stage with dual operator AVID S6 48 channel
2. Dolby 7.1 Mix Stage with AVID S6 48 channel
3. Analogue Music tracking room. With API vision Console 32 Channel
4. Digital Music tracking room. With AVID S6
5. Foley
6. Audio Mastering
7. Sound Design
8. Video Edit booths with AVID media composer
9. DI and Grading Conform and Finish.
10. DCP

5) What is the key role of creative collaboration center in improving the quality of post-production?

Golden Baritone creative collaboration is not only a state of the art studio but also provides the facility for artists worldwide to collaborate in real time through the patented “ AVID EVRYWHERE” cloud based software. This is going to be the way the world collaborates on projects. Its highly cost efficient and provides the best of talent for the project irrespective of geographic location.

6) How does your revenue model look like? What is your year on year monthly revenue growth?

We are looking at three revenue streams

1) Dry or wet rentals of the facility.
2) Complete post production of the project.
3) Revenue from Royalties Production of Music Albums.

7) Is your venture bootstrapped or have you raised funds? If not how are funding the growth and expansion of the company?

It is bootstrapped and we have invested approximately 7 Cr in construction of the complex which now requires acoustic treatment and interiors.

We require funds to the tune of 23 Cr for Machinery 3 Cr for acoustic treatment and 2 Cr for working capital.

The acoustics are done to the specifications of DOLBY so as to ensure DOLBY PREMIER certification.

8) Please throw some light on your partnership model highlighting the services that you procure from them.

The main source of revenue would be OUTSOURCED work procured from companies like Halo Post UK , Sound Deluxe USA and Independent producers from Europe and US."

The average cost of a MIX room is USD 550/hr in the US and 350GBP in Europe.

We are able to provide the rooms with exact same specifications at a price of USD200/hr.

Similarly the edit, mastering Foley and MUSIC rooms.

9) How many employees do you have currently and what is your current geographical presence?

We have retainer arrangements with Sound Engineer Madhu Vishwanathan, Written arrangement with Resul Pookutty, Editor Neil Sadhwelkar. Mr.Paul Thomas is on the rolls as GM audio and Mr.Thomas Jacob as COO in charge of worldwide marketing.

10) What are your growth and expansion plans for the next two to three years? Your anticipation in terms of revenue for the next fiscal year.

In Three year’s time we plan to have our own Shoot floor complete equipped for Hollywood films and we would also like a state of the Art training facility to match the government policy of MAKE IN INDIA, DIGITAL INDIA and SKILL INDIA.