On Adelaide’s Pulteney Street sits a discreet office with a single door entrance and a small logo depicting ‘Rising Sun Pictures’. At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be anything differentiating it from the line of other stores on the CBD street.
However, behind the frosted glass is a timber-floored studio seating over a hundred staff working on multimillion dollar Hollywood blockbusters and television series. The site even has a mini-cinema for film viewings.
Rising Sun Pictures was founded by Tony Clark, Gail Fuller and Wayne Lewis over Coopers Ale, after they and another friend were made redundant by their previous employer going bankrupt.
At a time of economic instability, they were lucky enough to score their first job for a local television commercial worth $120,000.
Tony says, “We were doing bits of multi-media we were doing work in animation for computer games, we were essentially doing anything that we could, to make a dollar and just keep it together and keep it all happening.”
Rising Sun's rapid expansion came after doing the visual effects for Charlotte's Web Source: Rising Sun Pictures
Charlotte’s Web was their big break. Doing visual effects for that tiny spider boosted them from a tiny office space in Kensington to their 100+ staff in their CBD office.
From there came blockbusters such as Lord of the Rings, Gravity and the Harry Potter series, with Californian production companies reaching out across the globe to Adelaide for RSP to do their visual effects. However, it was the below scene from X-Men: Days of Future Past that got them an Academy Award nomination for Visual Effects in 2015.
Working on projects that entertain the masses is no small feat, so rapid growth was an inevitable part of the company’s narrative.
This scene from X-Men: Days of Future Past earned them an Academy nomination. Source: Supplied
“There’s a cliché that growth is painful, growth is what kills companies…We had a period of three years where we doubled in size every 12 months, and a lot of what we were doing just wasn’t scalable – we had to rethink what we were doing,” says co-founder Gail Fuller.
'This is a people business'
Throughout their Hollywood success, the team hasn’t forgotten what got them over the line to begin with – their staff.
Co-founder Tony Clark says, “We are really dependent on quality people - this is a people business. 60% of our costs are people. It's people who sit down behind computers and make pictures. Computers themselves are just like a paintbrush…they're not going to do anything unless they're directed…You need to create great talent.”
Perhaps it’s their Aussie talent that sets them apart from their Californian competitors.
It may seem impractical to keep an Oscar-winning business so far away from Hollywood, but with the advent of technology, Rising Sun can communicate with clients via Skype or email – and that’s only if it’s really needed. In fact, the visual effects company lead the way in globalising Hollywood productions.
“I think we were an early part' of defining the way that it was possible for the visual effects industry to move out of California,” says Tony.
One of their most recent works was on popular TV series Game of Thrones. Source: Supplied
“Your clients don't really want to see you anymore, they don't need to see you anymore because it's not time efficient.”
Existing in one of Australia’s smallest capital cities, Rising Sun Pictures proves business success also lies beyond the trendy ‘global’ cities.
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