Ardmore Studios

Ardmore Studios, in Bray, County Wicklow, is Ireland's oldest film studio.

It opened in 1958 under the management of Emmet Dalton and Louis Elliman. Since then, it has evolved through many managements and owners. It has been the base for many successful Irish and international productions, including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold to Fair City, Braveheart, My Left Foot and Veronica Guerin.

The studio struggled through several changes of ownership in its early years, entering receivership in 1963, 1971 and 1972.^[1] After several ownership changes, the studio became the government-backed National Film Studios of Ireland in 1975, under the management of Sheamus Smith.^[1] During Smith's tenure, notable movies based there included Michael Crichton's The First Great Train Robbery, starring Sean Connery. When government funding was withdrawn in the early 1980s, Ardmore was briefly owned by the Indian producer Mahmud Sipra, before the studios were taken over in 1986 by a consortium made up of Mary Tyler Moore Enterprises, Tara Productions (Ireland) Limited, and the state National Development Corporation.^[1] Tara CEO Morgan O'Sullivan attempted to attract major international film and television productions to Ireland, but several planned MTM productions failed to materialise, and when MTM was sold to the UK company Television South in 1988, the MTM stake was sold to Ardmore Studios International, a company owned equally by Paul McGuinness and Ossie Kilkenny.^[1] ^[2] Under managing director Kevin Moriarty, the studios thrived during the 1990s and 2000s as the Irish film and television industry expanded. Notable productions during this time included Far and Away (1992), The Tudors (2007-2010) and Camelot (2011). Following the opening of rival Ashford Studios, Ardmore began to struggle financially.^[3] In 2013 Siún Ní Raghallaigh was appointed CEO, implementing cost cuts and restructuring the company.^[4] In 2018, Ardmore was sold to Olcott Entertainment, an Irish company headed by businessman Joe Devine, who had developed another rival studio, Troy, in Limerick during 2017. Ní Raghallaigh was retained as CEO of both studios. Olcott sold Ardmore and Troy to a US consortium headed by Hackman Capital Partners in 2021.^[1]

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Vsauce, I’m Van Helsing ... Dr. Jake Van Helsing. I hear that there is somebody ill inside. Oh, this is beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous and do you smell that? You can smell the sickness in the air. No really you can. Doctors, other than myself, did a study that shows that our pheromones change when we are sick. For example if someone has diabetes their breath can become stale or sour. Is the patient in here? Oh my my, this is curious. Well...I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that your study is fantastic. Kudos to your interior decorator. The bad news is that this man is spectacularly no longer alive. He is quite dead. You know, something interesting happens when you die. Parts of you are still alive, for example most of our cells are unaware and continue their metabolic functions. But when you do die your heart stops beating which keeps oxygen from going to your organs. Without oxygen your brain can’t regulate the body’s functions and it can no longer support consciousness. At this point, the cells start dying. But the 4 pounds of bacteria you have in your gut are still very much alive, and since they have no immune system to stop them, start to consume you from the inside out. But isn’t that what we are all after ... the pursuit of life. The ability to live forever, to not be forgotten. So let’s imagine living forever. Close your eyes and really imagine it. Time is vast. It is easy to envision a hundred years, a thousand years. But imagine 5 billion years from now when our Sun becomes a Red Giant and begins to expand. The oceans on Earth boil away and eventually the Sun devours our planet. And there you are 5 billion years later which would still be a speck of dust in the infinite life ahead of you. Open your eyes and I want you to imagine something else. Imagine no longer being alive. You can’t can you? We can’t comprehend nothingness, just thinking about nothing is something. But we know at some point we are going to die yet we can’t imagine not being alive. It’s called the Mortality Paradox. And this is what drives humanity to pursue living forever. Some of us try to achieve it in very different ways, like your friend here who did not die of natural causes. In fact, the cause was quite ... unnatural. As a Van Helsing, one of my fields of study is Vampirism, and judging by the two holes on his neck, he’s on his way to becoming a vampire ... he could turn at any moment ... you might want to look away. Oh! I missed! Back demon, back! Back! Just the idea of extending one’s existence drives man towards seeking out or pursuing an idea like vampirism, but its not as if this concept is foreign or as crazy as some other pursuits. If we go back 4,000 years to 2,100BC we have one of the first great works of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, where Gilgamesh goes on a journey to find the secret of eternal life. Fast forward to 220BC with Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, who tried so hard to fend off death that if you mentioned the word around him you would be executed. He was so afraid of dying that he went so far as to have a giant barricade built, what we now know as the Great Wall of China. He also famously sent an expedition of over 1000 people on a mission to find the elixir of immortality - that precious liquid that would keep him alive. In a cruel case of irony, Qin Shi Huang ended up dying by ingesting mercury pills that his physicians had thought would do just the opposite. Now, to live forever it’s generally required that you already be alive ... but what if there was a way to bring you back once you had passed on? I have a colleague who’s been working on something quite ... shocking that we could try.Let me grab that corpse and I’ll meet you at my friend’s laboratory - look for the sign that says Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Gah! Electricity really is a modern marvel, isn’t it? Back in ancient Greece it was believed that our muscles contracted because of fluid flowing through our nerves and that was the thinking for 1500 years. Then it was considered that animal spirits were the cause. And then came electricity! In the 1780s Luigi Galvani discovered that if he attached electrodes to muscles and sent a current of electricity through it, the muscles would start to move. He tried it most famously with frog legs and his nephew made the next logical step and used it on the body of a recently deceased criminal. During the public demonstration the jaw began to quiver, the right hand clenched open and closed, legs and thighs began to move and an eye even popped open. Most spectators thought they were witnessing a re-animation. Now, if Frankenstein’s and I’s theory is correct, with the right amount of continuous electricity, distributed across the body proportionally, we should be able to re-ignite that spark of life - our modern prometheus. Yes! Yes! It’s working! It’s working! Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! So ... it turns out I was wrong. Galvani thought that what he was witnessing was “animal electricity”, a fluid similar to normal electricity that flowed through an animal’s muscles and nerves. When in reality it was just the muscles reacting to the electrical current coming into contact with two different metals in a damp environment. But there are other options for resurrection. Cryonics is the preservation of human bodies in extremely cold temperatures, below -238F. Currently you could get yourself crypreserved immediately after death for the low price of $200,000 - or if that is a little rich for your blood - just the head for $80,000 in hopes that one day science will be able to revive you. It is the incredibly cold version of a mummy. And speaking of which, the reason ancient Egyptians put so much effort into the proper preservation of their dead was in hopes that if the corpse was suddenly brought back to life, they’d still be themselves. Side note: One of the substances used to treat the body is called bitumen which in Persian is mum hence the reason we call them mummies. Unfortunately, electrification, cryopreservation, and mummification have yet to revive any person. However, the ancient Egyptians did have a back-up plan for living forever which is actually pretty simple: You don’t have to be alive to be immortal. Stop right there. Yes, don’t move. In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles is given the choice between a long life or eternal glory. He chose eternal glory because he knew that long after his death, he would still be remembered - he would live on the lips of every person. Let’s try something, I want you to tell me right off the top of your head the names of your great-grandparents. Do you know? It has been estimated that the majority of us will be remembered for 75 years at most. The ancient Egyptians called this the second death, when their names would be forgotten. Admittedly I am not a very good artist but what drawings, paintings and photographs do is capture you, you in that specific moment and they keep you there forever. Time can age the canvas but it can’t age you. We could go to the museum down the road and look at paintings and murals from a thousand years ago. The physical bodies of the people represented long gone but their image, their history, that feeling of who they were still remains. We all live forever, genetically. We could trace our genes back millions of years, and we continue to push our genetics forward. As Einstein said “Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children, for they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life”. We spend so much time concerned with who is doing what or how they feel that we forget to focus on us. When people look at a photo or painting of you, what will they say? What legacy will you leave behind? How will I be remembered? In the words of Jorge Luis Borges, “Except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death.” And ... as always ... thanks for watching. I'd like to thank Showtime and Penny Dreadful for allowing me to film on their incredible sets. The show really is amazing, I've been a huge fan of it. And I'd especially like to thank these amazing peoples, there we are, thank you for making this awesome video with me. Thanks. Yaaaaaay.

History

Irish film before Ardmore Studios

Ambitious Irish-based filmmaking began when producer-director Sidney Olcott made his first visit to Ireland in 1910. Prior to this time most Irish filmmaking consisted of newsreels. Olcott's first movie based in Ireland was The Lad from Old Ireland, produced by Kalem. His follow-up was Rory O'More, based on the events of the Irish Rebellions of 1641 and 1798, which earned the disapproval of both the British Home Office and the Irish Catholic Church. Olcott continued Irish filmmaking, with most of his films shot in County Kerry, specifically in the towns of Beaufort, Dunloe and Killarney. To facilitate year-round filming, Olcott planned the building of a serviced studio based in Beaufort. The outbreak of World War I derailed this plan.^[5] Irish filmmaking continued, with native-born directors initiating their own work, but through the 1920s and 1930s and 1940s, no purpose-built studio facilitated year-round filmmaking in Ireland.

Early years of Ardmore Studios

Finally, in the middle 1950s, a business consortium part-funded from the United States,^[6] started building a Hollywood-style studio south of Dublin city. Ardmore Studios first opened its doors in May 1958. Situated on a ten-acre site 12 miles south of Dublin, the studio offered the first opportunity for Irish filmmakers to shoot indoors all year round.

The first production to emerge from Ardmore Studios was an adaptation of Walter Macken's play, Home Is the Hero, starring Macken and directed by Emmy Award-winning Fielder Cooke. Renowned British director George Pollock shot the next two productions at the studio, Sally's Irish Rogue and The Big Birthday, both based on popular Abbey Theatre comedies.^[6]

In the late 1950s, managing director Emmet Dalton^[7] and entrepreneur Louis Elliman travelled to the US to promote the studios and to acquire foreign investment. The studios accordingly landed its first major foreign booking with 1959's Shake Hands with the Devil, starring Oscar winner James Cagney and Dana Wynter. A year later progress was consolidated when Robert Mitchum appeared in Tay Garnett's A Terrible Beauty. In 1961, Ardmore Studios hosted the controversial The Mark, directed by Guy Green, which was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and earned its star, Stuart Whitman, an Oscar nomination. Other films produced at this time include Don Chaffey's The Webster Boys and Johnny Nobody with Cyril Cusack.^[6] Hammer Films also utilised the studios as a base for their production, The Viking Queen.

The National Film Studios of Ireland and MTM Ardmore Studios era

In 1975 Sheamus Smith became managing director of the studios and film director John Boorman assumed the role of chairman. The studios were renovated and renamed as The National Film Studios of Ireland, and subsequently hosted several major movies including The Purple Taxi, starring Fred Astaire and The Great Train Robbery starring Sean Connery.^[6]

In 1981, Boorman filmed his $11.5 million epic Excalibur, where he cast a then-unknown Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne and Ciarán Hinds, at the studios and in the local hills of Wicklow.^[6]^[8] Also produced during this decade was John Huston's The Dead, based on the short story by James Joyce and starring Huston's daughter, Anjelica Huston.

The withdrawal of government funding effectively closed the studios in the early 1980s. For several years the lot fell into disrepair but the studio was reactivated by an initiative led by an Irish independent company, Tara Productions, in partnership with MTM Hollywood and the Irish National Enterprise Authority. Thereafter, the renamed MTM Ardmore Studios made its mark again on the global scene with the success of My Left Foot, directed by Jim Sheridan, which earned Oscars for Daniel Day-Lewis for his portrayal of the cerebral palsy sufferer Christy Brown and for Brenda Fricker, for her portrayal of Brown's mother.

From 1989 until 1994, all interior shots of Fair City were filmed at Ardmore Studios.

In 1991, a street set, known as 'The Lot', was built at Ardmore. In 1994, Ardmore Studios and the Wicklow countryside were transformed into the Scottish Highlands for Mel Gibson's Oscar-winning Braveheart.^[6]

Ardmore Studios today

Since 2006 Ardmore Studios has been home to three television series: The Tudors, filmed between 2006 and 2010, Camelot, filmed in 2010, starring Joseph Fiennes and Eva Green, and from 2014 Penny Dreadful.

In 2008, Ardmore Studios celebrated its 50th anniversary.

In 2011, Byzantium, directed by Neil Jordan, located at Ardmore.^[6]

In January 2017 the studios were used by RTE for Dancing with the Stars, Ireland's version of the popular British show Strictly Come Dancing. RTE had purchased the rights to make an Irish version of the popular dancing show, however, it became obvious to RTE that the studios at their television centre in Donnybrook in Dublin would not be large enough for the scale of the show, and so Ardmore Studios was chosen.^[9]^[10]^[11]

In April 2018 Irish firm Olcott Entertainment Limited officially announced the full acquisition of Ardmore, after purchasing the shares owned by Ardmore Studios Limited (68%) and Enterprise Ireland (32%).^[12]

Facilities based at Ardmore

During its MTM incarnation in the 1980s, Ardmore extended its facilities and built new sound stages. Today it offers 5 stages, including a water tank facility. In the early 1980s a handful of service provider companies were located on the lot. Under O'Sullivan's management, the range of Ardmore-based service and facility companies increased to include other specialised related businesses.^[13] These include: