Lights, camera and action on UC and connectivity

Ardmore Studios is Ireland’s number one film and television studio. Following its launch in 1958, it played host to hundreds of high profile productions including Francis Ford Coppolla’s Dementia 13 in 1963 and Martin Ritt’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in 1965. In more recent years the Studio has been home to Penny Dreadful, Moone Boy, The Tudors, Braveheart and Veronica Guerin. A large and highly successful studio, Ardmore boasts five sound stages ranging in area from 3,000 to 15,000 square feet as well as impressive support buildings including a 4,500 square foot props department. The sheer scale of the Studio means that it requires a great deal of flexibility with regards to the number of telephone and network users throughout the year, as usage fluctuates pending the productions taking place.

Ardmore is renowned in the Global film and television industry for offering excellence in serviced studio facilities. With significant opportunities in the pipeline, the company decided the time was right to invest further in expanding its network and communications infrastructure to ensure it remains ahead of the curve through its ICT and telephone offering in the market. It recognised that its customers increasing desire for high-speed internet connections and also knew that there was a real need for more flexible telephony–created by the constant movement of people and phones with different productions coming onto site. Working with VEI, the studio first upgraded its LAN to support Power over Ethernet (PoE), Wi-Fi and VLAN configurations; it also upgraded its broadband connection to a 100mb synchronous link. This new network setup provides cost savings, flexibility, reliability and network control to Ardmore Studios as PoE simplifies the task of powering devices in remote locations. With the network in place the Studio also saw an opportunity to deliver enhanced, highly scalable and resilient communications capabilities to its clients. To this end, Ardmore Studios selected and implemented Unify’s OpenScape Business.

By installing OpenScape Business, Ardmore Studios gained access to a unique and scalable all-in-one Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solution, which is purpose built for single and multi-site organisations. OpenScape Business provides voice, UC, web collaboration, mobility and seamless integration into various office applications to Ardmore and its clients. The Unify solution has also made the provisioning of telephony to various stages significantly easier and more efficient. Staff can simply provision phone lines and hardware can be plugged in without the additional need for patching or on-site support – significantly reducing the time and cost of providing services compared to the previous legacy system.

Siún Ní Raghallaigh, CEO at Ardmore Studios, says: “In our industry constant innovation, at speed, is critical. As a company we place a priority on investing in cutting edge technology and infrastructure to support the needs of international and national productions using our studio facilities. Having excellent network connectivity and a flexible, secure and highly reliable telephony system ensures our clients have fast, easy and secure Internet and video conferencing facilities at the touch of a button. Unify in partnership with VEI has enabled us to deliver this. Moreover, they have helped us to reduce the time and money we had to spend in establishing communications for visiting film crews. With the continued growing interest in Ardmore Studios and numerous on-going projects, we are confident that we have chosen the right platform that will future proof our business and help us keep our competitive advantage on the world stage.”

Unify and VEI ensured that the entire upgrade and installation project only took three weeks to complete as Showtime and Sky Atlantic’s successful ‘Penny Dreadful’ TV series returned back to the studio to start filming season three.

Conor Killeen, Sales & Marketing Director at VEI, comments: “Ardmore Studios had very specific requirements as their business requires a unique focus on connectivity, resilience, innovation and speed. The upgrades to the Studio’s infrastructure delivered the platform on which we could build a flexible and scalable communications solution that would meet and exceed requirements. Unify’s OpenScape Business is the ideal solution for Ardmore Studios. It has revolutionised the speed and scale at which its staff can provision communication for films crews. We are delighted to be involved in this project and look forward to working with the Studio in the future.”

Tony Smith, UK&I Channel Sales Director at Unify, adds: “Being able to provision highly resilient communications effectively is from prestigious institutions such as Ardmore Studios. OpenScape Business lends itself to use in fast changing and dynamic work environments, making it a great fit for Ardmore. Alongside VEI, it is an incredibly exciting project to be involved.”