At first glance, Christopher Mapp does not appear to be the kind of man many regard as one of the most influential media players in the world. In between settling down with coffee and chatting about his latest production, three week-old daughter, India Rose, I catch glimpses of the sharp businessman, the entrepreneurial producer.
I had pieced together what I thought was a respectable profile on Mapp prior to our meeting. After five minutes I knew I’d been on the right track, but light years behind. Perception, as those in advertising well know, is everything.
At their East Sydney offices he tells me of his latest project, to evolutionise the independent screen industry with Omnilab Media Cinema Services. It is an elegant platform delivering high-end digital solutions and content to 900 independent and regional screens around Australia and New Zealand. I’m thinking this guy could be the closest thing we’ve got to a Branson - but no, he isn’t – he is an original operator, a man on a global frontier and certainly someone to be taken seriously.
Mapp swings, somewhat endearingly, between media magnate and first-time father in mere moments when asked how the new arrival has altered his working life. He has compromised surprisingly little, although the one time adrenaline sportsman now focuses that energy into night-time tennis sessions and moving through what looks like a punishing schedule, including sharing the baby’s night feeds.
“It’s life-changing. I am a sharper thinker because of it. Even at an every day level when I look at my schedule. I think ‘I want to, and I will, dedicate time to this’. So I have to be more effective again in order to fit everything in. You think having a baby, which trillions of people have done before you, can’t be that big a deal because everyone does it, but the reality is that it just is,” he says with a chuckle.
Back to business and Mapp explains how the group buying now provides independent cinemas an efficient, cost effective digital rollout far more sophisticated than the currently deployed hard drive or satellite run networks. In essence, the new arm makes available in cinema the retail opportunities once only available on free to air.
“The independents are talking about it as if it’s the biggest change since colour. By buying digital projectors, 3D screens and theatre management systems, they can revolutionise not only the way they schedule programming, but more importantly, it gives them the opportunity, through our satellite network, to play alternative content,” he says.
The international, live content will include stage shows and sporting events along with public and corporate events, delivered in real time. Given most regional exhibitors are currently without access to many cultural events held in major cities, the potential for local businesses to promote at mainstream events screened locally is clear.
“It’s a major network once you connect them all and provides so much more flexibility with advertising. We’ll be able to group buy all their technology for them. We’ve got partnerships with all the installers around the country and NZ. We can also provide the content. It might sound easy, we’ll make it look easy, but here are always inherent complexities when dealing with over 100 owners,” he explains.
The corporate bio will tell you that Omnilab Media is a leading media, entertainment and technology that provides extensive media and technology solutions for diverse clients in the film, television and corporate sectors including content development and production, financing and distribution, visual effects, post production software, technology IP and development, broadcast and channel playout, media asset management and distribution with 17 businesses capable of developing, producing, financing, servicing, distributing own projects.
It’s quite a mouthful. When you’re done swallowing that, consider this. His expansion of Omnilab's cross-media asset management and distribution company Dubsat, through the acquisition of US based Vio Worldwide and in partnership with IMD in Europe made it the biggest distributor of print, TV and radio commercials and digital media content in the world.
In the cinema arena alone, he is a man with a significant stake in Happy Feet II, Mad Max IV, When The War Began, Robert De Niro’s new vehicle The Killer Elite and the soon to be released Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, amongst others in the cavalcade.
So what makes Mapp tick? How does one man lead a company to the brink of such apparent accolade and acclaim? Passion? Perception again perhaps?
Passion is high on his list of valued characteristics. He also cites accountability, curiosity and his family as driving factors in his own career.
His trajectory reads like the stuff of novels. A mischievous little boarding school boy, who made cold cash at school by selling copied school rules to naughty kids, demonstrated early on a business aptitude that serves him still.
Mapp credits his father with much of his approach to business success despite their diverging careers. He says he was lucky enough to have a father that enjoyed talking to him about business.
“He was in the coal mining industry and has many a wise word. I enjoy trying to understand what they now mean in 2011. It’s amazing how things he learnt in the 1970’s actually translate. The world hasn’t changed that much when it comes to the key fundamentals,” he says.
The extreme sportsman is known for his love of adrenaline whether it involves white water, soaring cliffs and other varieties of danger. He admits to his honeymoon a few years ago as being the first relaxing holiday he has ever had. It is evident that as important as ideas are to him, Mapp has the energy to burn and it is this that has seen Omnilab propelled to the market leadership position it now inhabits.
In 1993, his first year working for Communicon, an arm of Omnicom, Mapp spent much of his time making coffees and buying cigarettes. Somewhere in between he found the time to try his hand at camera assisting, operating, editing and directing. He admits to being terrible at directing, but found his natural niche as a producer.
In 1996 he was running Sound Gallery and then Corner Post, another Omnicom stable mate. As General Manager of Omnicom he oversaw the merger with VideoLab to form the behemoth as we now know it, Omnilab Media.
A cursory googling of Mapp reveals, apart from the ubiquitous references to business networking sites, a decent amount of information about Omnilab and its managing director. IMDB lists 13 major film credits. Omnilab overarches 17 companies. In the last 12 years the organisation has grown from 46 to over 1000 staff.
That Mapp is at the forefront of Austro/global creative enterprise is not an accident. In an industry populated predominantly with creatives, Mapp has a business head and an artist’s heart. His very approach to corporate growth, technology and business operations is inherently creative with an approach it would be fair to say is of the visionary type.
Gutsy? Yes. Foolish? Maybe. Ambivalent? Never.
Ask a man if he is brave and a smart one will ask you to define bravery. When asked about the courage required to expand a business the way he has done, Mapp refines the definition.
“There are some lunatics out there spending other people’s money and you can call them brave but they are mostly reckless. It’s a brave person who had the vision to see it come together and make it work. In saying that, pioneers are often the ones with the arrows in their backs.”
By all accounts it’s been a wild ride although Mapp appears to be a man very much in control. His ideas for the future are firm, and one by one, he keeps knocking them down. The Killer Elite is a classic case in point. The pride is evident when he speaks of this project and the game changing it represents placing Omnilab very much into the sphere of movie studio, with Mapp at its head. The endeavour is massive with major implications for the company if its projected success manifests.
Alongside De Niro, the locally produced $70 million film features Jason Statham and Clive Owen. It also has a 49 member Australian cast and 100% Australian crew. Backed with foreign presales, the project was 60% financed by the preproduction stage.
“We need to continue to learn from the US. They are constantly looking for product, and we are constantly looking for global partners because it’s a global industry” he said on a recent panel on Australian film industry predictions for 2011 with Encore’s Miguel Gonzalez.
His influence in the industry was recognised with the 2010 Independent Producer of the Year award from the Screen Producers Association of Australia and was recently appointed as an ambassador of Screen Singapore, an event highlighting creative and media innovation to the Asian market.
A former board member of Ausfilm, another feature of Mapp’s makeup is that distinctly Australian skill of diversification. Given the relatively small film industry, producers and technology providers work across a much broader scope than film alone. Television, technology, broadcast service, advertising services and corporate work are as much a disc of the Omnilab backbone as the blockbuster flicks. It’s survival of the fittest, the most malleable and the one most endowed with the gift of long sight. Diversify or die is a dictum all creative industries in Australia know well.
Given that reality, more than in most markets, government support is vital to get Australian productions over the line. Mapp believes that if the financial support is well structured, it can lead to industry growth and sustainability. The challenges occur with changes in government or indeed arts policy that can see funding stripped with little warning.
“The financial backing here, compared to other countries, is relatively small. We’ve been lucky, and have had tremendous support from Film Australia and Film NSW with Tomorrow When the War Began (TWTWB) and Killer Elite. We are incredibly grateful for that, as they have afforded companies like us to put private enterprise money into a project to try and step up, to get money back, and to reinvest it. Without that, the risk would have been too high and we wouldn't have been able to stomach making a film like that. We've proven Australia can do it.”
With so many major feature film productions to his credit it is not surprising to learn more of Mapp’s vision of Omnilab as a fully-fledged movie studio. With a functioning production site established at Fox Studios, regular shooting at the Melbourne facilities and multiple animation studios, Omnilab generates hundreds of television hours a year. He is philosophical about the road ahead.
“I think the Disneys, Foxs and the Paramounts are amazing. Maybe that’s 25 to 30 years away but the reality is you have to set your inspiration. I think we can be a fighting studio on the world map.”
With such a bold charter, a seeming overflow of energy and a canny market perspective it will be interesting times ahead for Mapp and the Omnilab group. If perception counts for anything, one might risk the thought that the future of Australian broadcast media and film production is in very capable hands.
This article first appeared in the June/July issue of Australian Creative magazine.
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