Flix Facilities is to strengthen its commitment to MediaCityUK by agreeing a 10-year lease on 5,500sq ft of additional space.

The facility, costing £750,000, will open in November in The White Tower and will be equipped for high-end finishing.

It will feature two Pro Tools 5.1 mixing theatres, Avid DS v11.5 and Symphony online, plus six graphics suites with 3D Studio Max, Maya and After Effects and 96TB Edit- Share storage.

The facility will offer dedicated grading on a full-spec Da Vinci Resolve, operated by ex-Sumners colourist Liam Shanagher.

Established in 1992, Flix has mushroomed in the past three years and now offers 12 offline and two online suites in the Pie Factory, and a further eight offline, two online and two dubbing theatres at Invicta House in central Manchester.

Flix employs 38 staff, including three dubbing mixers who joined recently from Sumners, and senior online editor Richard Pearce, who rejoined from The Farm. It also hopes to connect Media- CityUK to indie True North in Leeds via high-speed broadband as a part of a joint venture.

“We’re exploring fast pipe connectivity between MediaCityUK, central Manchester, Leeds and London,” confirmed co-owner and managing director Leo Casserly.

True North managing director Marc Allen added: “We can edit in Manchester and send the files to Leeds for onlining and quickly arrange viewings for CBBC and others at MediaCityUK, even if it’s being edited in Leeds.

“It also gives us resilience. If something did go wrong, we can switch to the other location.”

As well as posting MTV’s Beauty School Drop Outs for True North, Flix recently finished The Midwives for The Garden Productions.

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