Last year, Chris McHale restructured his fourteen-year-old
McHale Barone creative audio shop, which today stands as a 12,000 square foot
duplex studio/office complex on Irving Place. He established a number of
alliances too, including ones with Ludorum Animation and Festival Network, an
international concert production company.
Pirate founding partner Terry O'Reilly and partner Tom
Eymundson were also in expansion mode and looked toward New York, where they
already knew McHale.
"While our Toronto studio is the ultimate production
facility, with creature comforts that leave the concept of 'cushy' in the dust,
our initial visit to McHale's high-tech, Ralph Lauren-esque complex made us
feel perfectly at home," says Eymundson. "We knew Chris from many social
meetings at London International, New York Festivals, One Show, Mercury and
other awards events. Our decision to make him a Pirate was a no brainer."
The New York location is outfitted with four Digidesign Pro
Tools|HD 5.1 mixing studios, designed for audio-for-video production and post.
O'Reilly adds that Pirate offers more than just production.
It also offers soundtrack direction services for television including music
guiding, voice direction, sound-scaping and mixing. Pirate's credits run the
gamut, from Molson to Hyundai, Ford, the Yellow Pages and Viagra, all the way
to Super Bowl ads.
McHale's creative/production credentials include work for
Budweiser, T-Mobile, Siemens, Volkswagen, American Airlines and McDonald's. The
arrangement is already seeing benefits as the studio recently worked with
agency BBDO on a project with writing created in Toronto and production handled
in New York.