Over the years Dixon-Bellot had rented numerous Cooke Panchro vintage rehoused lenses which retail for roughly ВЈ50k but wanted to see if he could save some money on buying one by manufacturing it and customizing it to his specifications. During this period he also stumbled across the most scalable and lucrative area of the value chain in the rehousing and manufacturing of vintage camera lenses. Both East London Studios and Cinehouse were to form ADB Film Services Ltd, вЂњThis meant under the synergy of вЂnowвЂ™ three industry facilities, solely owned by Dixon-Bellot, вЂњI could do the production, directing, location hire and camera and lighting hireвЂќ he recalls increasing his earnings exponentially.ДЄs things started to pick up under Mastermind Media, Cinehouse, and East London Studios, Dixon-Bellot decided to increase his staffing structure to help delegate the daily operations of the various businesses, this gave him room to scale and expand. Dixon-Bellot then founded the hire division вЂCinehouseвЂ™, which is a film camera and lighting rental facility. After two years with East London Studios, Dixon-Bellot bought out his partners, as his plans for expansion were only just getting underway.

Once again he decided to bring this part of the value chain under his umbrella, partnering with two people and taking out a loan, something he had been hesitant to do previously to buy East London Studios. His desire to own more of the value chain extended further when he would cost up his videos and noticed that renting space was a major cost. He got to the stage where he was shooting over 5 videos a month but still realized his margins werenвЂ™t great. It dawned on him that вЂњrather than directing videos with ВЈ25 - ВЈ35k budgets I could produce multiple videos and hire staffвЂќ he says which naturally would take advantage of operational leverage. Whilst Dixon-Bellot enjoyed directing and was gaining notoriety in the industry, his interactions with the other side of production from the early days of putting together low-budget content exposed him to the other sides of the industry which are more entrepreneurial. The quality of the videos did not go unnoticed and he was soon being approached by artists and record labels to direct larger budget videos which proved to be a вЂњmajor breakthrough for me at the timeвЂќ he recalls.

This investment was worthwhile as he was able to increase the quality of his videos further increasing the return on investment for his clients. Despite finding hacks to make low-budget productions seem significantly higher quality than the budget would normally allow he realized he needed to develop his post-production skills further so invested in a masters degree in Digital Film & Animation. This gave his fellow students an income and valuable hands-on experience in the field. However, this side hustle quickly turned into a small business where he would shoot these videos with a ВЈ2,000 budget and hire other students at university to help with things such as lighting and filming. This was initially funded by carrying a part-time job alongside his studies which meant he was working every day of the week. Seeking an opportunity to apply what he learned at university in the real world to build up experience he started making low-budget music videos self-shooting and editing them. Dixon-Bellot got his introduction to media studying a BA in Digital Broadcast Media at university.

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