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Last month they won an Emmy for HBO’s Game of Thrones, this month some of them lost their jobs. Deadline has learned that staff have been let go at CSS Studios’ Todd-AO, Modern Music and Soundelux facilities in LA. The postproduction company’s President Bob Rosenthal also has left. “Earlier this week, CSS Studios laid off 18 employees out of our workforce of more than 400. The layoffs impacted employees serving in a variety of administrative and support functions. Our facilities in Los Angeles are operating normally, and there will be no impact to our capacity to continue to service our clients and their projects,” said a company spokesperson.
CSS Studios has worked on sound production for numerous award winning films and TV shows over the past 30 years. Besides their recent Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series Emmy, their facilities have worked on The Hunger Games and End Of Watch, among others. In mid-September Discovery Communications sold CSS Studios to the Miami-based Empire Investment Holdings. Within a week, the new owners closed the doors on the company’s NYC-based Sound One postproduction house. At the time, Empire Investment Holdings said that action wouldn’t impact CSS Studios LA operations. Now it has.
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.
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So Empire Investment Holdings bought CSS for its real estate holdings? Its equipment? Both things that can be sold off. *If, indeed, CSS even owned the spaces they were in.)
All Empire did was enrich itself, killed a historic production facility (Sound One), and laid off talented people.
Empire wouldn’t be part of Bain, would it?
Empire doesn’t even show CSS studios on their portfolio list, just the boutique Companies that made up CSS. Clearly this is a dismantle job. No wonder smart Bob left.
They sell modern, Soundelux and Todd-Ao to Warner bros. sell edge to a software company and keep POP cause it makes good money on commercials and is non union. Oh, and WB opens a place in NY but bypasses sound one and brill for more modern digs.
Or they bring in a new CEO from outside the business and they drive it into the ground cause all the talent will split the minute they do.
As one of the laid off employees of Todd-AO, I can say that the hammer has come down swiftly. Less than 2 weeks after the new owners gathered us in Studio 1 and professed their sincere desire to grow and strengthen the company, they have begun to decimate it. They swore that they are not corporate raiders, and had no plans to dismantle the company. “We’re in it for the long haul”, they said.
Now, I believe that very little of the real estate that the company occupies is owned by them. The last couple of owners took care of that. It’s possible that the new owners are planning to thin the ranks, cut off the deadwood, and emerge with a smaller, more profitable company. What worries me is that they are not experienced Hollywood insiders, and what works for a textile mill may not be what works for creative movie studios. We’ll see…
It’s interesting that Bob Rosenthal, who hosted that meeting in Studio 1, has now left the company. It seems that one of the last things he did at CSS was to lay us off.
I mean, we all know the company was just a wee bit top heavy?
“…their sincere desire to grow and strengthen the company.”
Tough to believe the horse shit from corporate suits anymore.
Buy. Raid. Downsize. Sell. A few make pots of money on their exit.
Welcome to the “new” capitalism.
Thanks Empire Investments Holdaings for killing off historical post production house in NYC. Real slap to film makers. A lot talented people will be affected…
Warner’s has a MX Ed dept, they don’t need Modern
Sure they do. Great editors at modern. Captures market share too.
My feelings to those who have lost their jobs. There is allot of talent looking for work.
Its a new world that is not so facility based, with its associated high overhead costs. Its time again for the smaller, more adaptable operators to step forward. Quality work at a lower cost.
“Quality work at a lower cost.” Competition drives the price lower and lower – forcing people to take multiple jobs and work uncompensated overtime in an attempt to soften the blow of diminished income. All the while placing livelihoods, savings accounts and mortgages in jeopardy.
The new America….THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM….disgraceful
Soundelux and Modern Music are basically service and support organizations for Editors. As long as the new owners keep the quality of support high, the Editors will continue to work through their organization. But if the quality of support drops to equal or below the support already provided by a direct contract with the major studios, these companies will vanish.
This is not the first holding company that Empire has taken this approach with. When they came in as new owners, promissed to invest in our company and our growth, but it was all empty promisses. Corporate Raiders, liars. They laid off people who have been working in there dirty factories for over 15 years just to replace them with cheaper less experienced new hires. Safety program was cut to shreds too. So much for caring the employees. If the CEO didn’t agree with Empire’s approach, he was gone shortly too!
It is sad, the same thing is happening again – CEO gone. employees cut. Profits to Empire!