By FilmInk Staff
Though there does finally appear to be a little light at the end of the tunnel in terms of vaccines and their eventual roll-out in Australia, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a truly brutal one when it comes to the entertainment industry. Concert halls and cinemas were closed for much of 2020 (with many still shuttered now), while film and television production either ground to a halt or was altered exponentially in the face of new health and safety guidelines. Some businesses, of course, managed to rise on the ugly tide of COVID-19, with obvious players like Zoom, Uber Eats and Woolworths reaping huge rewards that they never sought out or dreamed of achieving.
Another surprising success story is that of Australian film tech company, Blackmagic Design, which was founded in a South Melbourne garage back in 2001 by Grant Petty. A regular fixture on the film and television scene, Blackmagic create high quality video editing products, digital film cameras, colour correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners. The company’s renowned DeckLink capture cards prompted a major shift in quality and affordability in the post-production space, while their Emmy award winning DaVinci colour correction products have played a major role in the television and film industry. Despite those industries being hobbled to a previously unseen level by COVID-19, the ability of those in film and TV to be forward thinking and agile in their business planning meant that production did indeed continue.
Despite very obvious concerns, Blackmagic Design actually saw their sales surge in 2020 as customers set up home studios, and major Hollywood production houses took the opportunity to revamp studios that were left vacant due to the pandemic. To meet the sudden demand, Blackmagic Design opened three new manufacturing lines, and released various new products to aid in the creation of remote, post-COVID productions whose creators had to rethink the manner in which they worked. Doing all of their creation in-house, the company has manufacturing plants in Singapore, Indonesia and Australia, all of which have not only kept the lights on during the pandemic, but also maintained their 1,500 staff members, none of whom were made redundant. “Having multiple manufacturing sites worldwide allowed us to adapt to changing conditions,” says Blackmagic Design founder Grant Petty. “We were able to continue operating, which is something that we wouldn’t have had any control over if we relied on third party manufacturers.”
Even in the face of COVID-19, Blackmagic Design’s latest financial figures have revealed that the company nearly quintupled its net profit in 2019-20 to $72.7 million, with revenue up 38 per cent to $522.6 million. The 100% revenue funded company – whose products have been utilised on major productions including Ford Vs Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit, Mulan, Birds Of Prey, Watchmen, The Walking Dead, Fargo, NCIS, and many more – is now on track to surpass $700 million this financial year. “Our priority has always been innovation,” says Grant Petty. “We are building really amazing products right now, and it’s because we’ve put in years of work to develop the best technology and quality that we possibly can. Last year we released a 12K camera and various new product lines that are shaping the film industry. We are now seeing the fruits of our labour, which is the amazing work being done by our customers with these new products, and hitting business milestones. The fact that we are a self-funded company that is now this big is a remarkable achievement.”
For more on Blackmagic Design, click here.
