Trailer Producer Craig Murray Consolidates Two Subsidiaries

0

Craig Murray Productions, one of the region’s largest movie trailer production companies, is consolidating two of its four operating units.


The two subsidiaries, mOcean, now located in Venice, and CMP West, will combine into CMP West’s West Los Angeles offices this month. The merged unit will operate under the mOcean name and be steered by Michael McIntyre, mOcean’s chief.


“By tiptoeing out a couple years ago with expansion, not noisy expansion, the natural culmination of that is to bring two of those (subsidiaries) back together into a much larger entity now,” said Craig Murray, chief executive of the Burbank-based firm. “From the corporate perspective, it makes us much stronger and more equipped to handle the changes in this industry.”


Consolidation is one way that movie advertising and trailer companies are adjusting to an increasingly competitive environment. The field has been flooded with startups as new technologies have “allowed people to turn their kitchen into a company,” Murray said.


To stave off competition from the startups, companies are expanding into new service areas, sometimes merging to supplement their offerings.


The growth is a hedge against a downturn in any one sector they serve. “If the studios’ budgets get slashed, that is going to hurt these little companies,” said McIntyre.


Murray was an in-house trailer producer at Walt Disney Co. when his position was eliminated in 1982. He went to work as a freelance producer on Disney products, forming the eponymous company in 1986, and signed to work exclusively for Disney.


CMP West was set up in 1996 as a way to work on non-Disney projects. Its portfolio has included campaigns for Focus Features’ “Seed of Chucky” and Warner Bros.’ “Ocean’s 12.”


MOcean was started in 2000 to expand the parent’s audiovisual design component. Murray said that mOcean has become the company’s “most unique brand,” developing graphics for projects ranging from ABC’s “Monday Night Football” to Universal Pictures’ “8 Mile.”


Craig Murray Productions’ two other subsidiaries are CMP Home Entertainment and Poster Child, which respectively specialize in DVD and print advertising. Poster Child launched in 1998, a year prior to CMP Home Entertainment.


MOcean’s workload has jumped as graphics become increasingly prized inside and outside the movie industry. “We both had really run up against the wall of not having enough room to grow,” said McIntyre. “We are basically out of space.”


The merger will lessen brand confusion among Craig Murray Productions’ subsidiaries, Murray said.

No posts to display