Inside Track Q&A

Derek Quinn, co-founder Movieextras.ie

What is the most unique thing about your business?

Giving people the opportunity to get into TV and film, to appear in adverts and on billboards. Members of the public with no background in acting or experience in the film industry can end up on the big screen, be it a Hollywood blockbuster or an independent Irish production.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in business?

Not starting earlier. I think the main thing was pricing ourselves too little at the start. We charge both productions companies and members for our services and it took a while before we got the pricing right. As a result, it took two years before we became profitable.

What has been your major success to date?

The fact that the business is 10 years old. Our members have been involved in more than 1,200 films. We had no experience in the film industry when we started out, aside from being an extra in various productions. My claim to fame is the fact I was an extra in the Veronica Guerin film. I played the role of a businessman in a lap-dancing club!

Back then, you had to queue for hours to apply to be an extra in each movie, which is how we came up with the idea for the business. Production companies would end up with thousands of applications to sift through, so we decided to remove a lot of the hassle/paperwork for them with movieextras.ie.

Whom would you admire most in business and why?

Michael O’Leary. He’s consistently the best marketing person in Ireland. He doesn’t take no for an answer and is prepared to fight for changes in industry. Some of the advertising and PR angles he has come up with have been genius. I like the fact he is based in Ireland, too, and pays taxes here.

What piece of advice would you give to the Government to stimulate the economy?

There should be a system in place where companies can employ people easily and get grants for employing people. It’s good for people themselves to be in the labour force, too. The dole is quite high at the moment, so as an employer you have to be able to pay a lot of money to attract people off the dole queue.

The Government gives more than €10,000 a year to each person on the dole. They should be giving the same amount of money to companies who take people off the dole by providing employment. It would be a great incentive for companies to employ more people.

What would you say has been your biggest challenge?

Trying to bring in a new way of doing things. It was difficult trying to convince people who had worked in the film industry for years to do things our way and go with us. So much of the industry is still reliant on paper and we were trying to encourage companies to move towards computers and software, and using our databases instead of manually shifting through lots of paper applications for extra and acting roles. We can do things quickly as a result of having huge databases of members. One day last year, we had 700 people out on three different productions.

Another time, a company rang us and asked if we could have 300 extras available for two days’ time for an advert. We were able to arrange that quickly and easily.

How do you see the short-term future of your business?

The film industry itself is very healthy in Ireland. Last year was our busiest year since we founded the business. We were involved in the Bollywood thriller Ek Tha Tiger and, if that goes well, there is likely to be more productions coming in from Bollywood.

What’s your business worth and would you sell it?

I don’t know what it’s worth but if someone wants to buy it, my co-founder Kevin Gill and I might consider it. We have strong emotional ties to the business as we have invested a lot of hours in it. There have been a lot of very long days and 2am finishes. That said, if someone wants to offer us €10 million . . .

Do you think the banks are open for business to SMEs at the moment?

We’ve never had to actually call on the banks thankfully. From talking to other people I’ve heard some awful stories of businesses being blocked by the banks. That said, though, I didn’t see their business plans, so I don’t know whether the bank was right to refuse financing or not.

Do you think the new film tax relief, announced by the British government, will have an impact on the number of productions coming here?

The UK film tax relief might affect us. It is a strong incentive that the British government has put in place. A lot of US movies used to be filmed in Ireland, but in recent years there has been a shift to British productions such as BBC and ITV dramas. The Irish Government needs to keep, and maybe even improve, on their film tax relief if we’re going to keep attracting productions from abroad.

In conversation with PAMELA NEWENHAM