Fraktiv was founded by Oli da Costa in 1999 as a small business providing video, web and graphic design services. Originally called Vital Media, we developed rapidly to take on high profile clients in the fashion and hairdressing industries, together with developing music brands, culminating in working on the lo-fi, irreverent, hit underground TV series, ‘Pop Will Shoot Itself’ in 2002, presented by Danann Breathnach.

With offices in London’s post production hub, Soho, ‘PWSI’ helped expand our service offering, with da Costa working as the sound recordist, second unit camera operator, graphics and title sequence designer on the 20-part series (not to mention his first and thus far only foray into writing a TV show theme tune). We soon began undertaking work on TV and cinema commercials for Mercedes-Benz and hair products brand TIGI in the UK and overseas.

Complementing these developments, we diversified into various roles shooting, editing and post-producing several short films including ‘The Banjo Account’ (dir: Sam Carrington, starring BBC Asian Network’s Tommy Sandhu), as well as developing corporate, broadcast and web content for Motorola, The Face, Extreme Sports Channel and production company, Baby Cow, which featured one of the first stand-up TV appearances of Noel Fielding (The Mighty Boosh).

Having worked for several years in partnership with international hairdressing brand Toni&Guy, in 2003 we were invited to direct the company’s signature video campaign, ‘The Chromatic Collection’, as well as their 40th anniversary video, both of which debuted at The Royal Albert Hall.

In the mid 2000s, Vital Media officially became Fraktiv, and with a new name came a greater service offering and more capacity in the form of new studios with an integrated sound recording facility in (groovy) Carnaby Street. Fraktiv also moved from SD to HD/2K post production pipelines, enabling higher-end production and delivery.

From providing editing and finishing services for short films such as ‘Basho’ (dir: Babak Gray) and ‘My Tumour & I’ (dir: Tom Shrapnel) to filming, editing and directing multiple promos, in-house TV episodes and corporates for Toni&Guy, TIGI and label.m, our portfolio was constantly growing. With a background in engineering, da Costa’s love of action and motorsports also found a creative avenue, with the development of one of the first in-car multi-camera POV recording systems, around two years before GoPro cameras existed. The system was deployed at the Nürburgring Nordschleife in Germany, in a race-spec Renault Clio driven by current BBC Top Gear presenter, Chris Harris, along with his 24-hour endurance team.

Alongside the ‘special projects’, we continued to develop our more down-to-earth services, working with ITV to develop web advertising assets for brands such as OXY, Nestlé, Weetabix and several toy manufacturers. When it came to toys and gadgets, IWantOneOfThose.com (IWOOT) was one of the biggest players in the market, so we were honoured to create two national campaign Christmas TV commercials for the brand in 2007 – where we were the first UK company to use Panasonic’s P2 system for a TV commercial – and 2008, as well as a TV advertorial for GoPro’s HERO 3 camera in 2012. We also began working in the arts alongside director Patrick Dickinson from Story B, creating a range of promotion films for the V&A and British Museum, including working with Sir Derek Jacobi CBE.

With a significant amount of broadcast work under our belt, Fraktiv won the contract for a total of sixty 1-hour travel shows – ‘Inside Luxury Travel’ and ‘Culinary Travels’ – for Travel Channel and its international partners, with da Costa associate-producing, editing, undertaking voiceover recordings, grading, mastering and delivering the shows over a four year period. In tandem, Fraktiv worked with some of the best known luxury hotel brands – One & Only Resorts, Raffles International and Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts amongst others – to produce corporate and customer-facing website content.

In the early 2010s, after a move from Soho to a purpose-built studio in Battersea, south west London, Fraktiv also developed a new focus on its long-held passion for action sports, with the aim of combining high-end cinematography and video production with its established editing and post production services. With our history of camera work in the high-pressure fashion and hairdressing industry and the advent of specialist HD and 4K cameras, Fraktiv’s new sister brand – geebeebee media, co-founded with Farah Ahmed – was soon producing high-end promos, short films and documentaries. We were even selected by Sony to be the first UK facility to shoot action sports content on their prototype NEX-FS700 camera, several months before its release.

With an acquisition-to-delivery production pipeline in place through geebeebee media, Fraktiv could now offer further services to existing as well as new clients such as Men’s Health and Nespresso, for whom we developed and created viral web and in-store digital promotional content.

We also continued to develop long term partnerships with directors such as Babak Gray, on his second short film, ‘For Zeta’ (starring Colin Tierney), architectural visualisation studio Pixel Aspect and production company Story B. 2013 also marked Fraktiv’s first feature film work, creating motion graphics for ‘The Patrol’ (dir: Tom Petch), which went on to win the 21st Raindance Film festival award for Feature Film of the Festival.

As times have changed, so have we, and our approach to creating content remains agile and always evolving. With clients in the UK, Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, we remain a small company, delivering a uniquely personalised service with a global reach.

With the rapid and successful development of our filming and production services, we have worked around the globe, delivering engaging web and TV event coverage from sports events such as Red Bull Joyride, Crankworx World Tour and British Cycling’s National Downhill Series. We have also delivered content to internationally recognised broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV and IMG Media (inCycle and Trans World Sport) as well as to online giants such as Google and Yahoo.

With action sports production playing a major role in our portfolio, and having a considerable knowledge of the sport over 20+ years, journalism has become an additional facet to our service provision, and we’ve been proud to work with Pinkbike.com – the world’s largest mountain bike website – to bring articles and guides to their millions of site users over the last four years. Our video and journalism work for Pinkbike has even seen us nominated for the UK’s prestigious Cycling Media Awards.

Alongside our focus on action sports, over several years we have developed an exciting partnership with production company Milky Films, creating numerous motion graphics-based pharmaceutical productions for a range of drugs companies, and we continue to work in the arts and architecture.

With the increasing convergence between camera and computer-based skills, it’s also seen us call time on geebeebee media as a distinct division of Fraktiv, with all its services being reintegrated into Fraktiv.

Fraktiv.com now acts as the hub for all our work, and whoa, we have a lot we still want to do!

After growing up in Yorkshire, Oli da Costa gravitated towards London where after training as an aeronautical engineer, he earned his Masters degree. However, with digital media having played a huge role throughout his later academic life, he made a bold move away from a future career in Formula 1, instead focusing on digital content creation. Since founding Fraktiv in 1999, Oli has worked across numerous media fields, learning, assimilating and developing as a media professional.

Oli has worked as the managing director and sole creative at Fraktiv for 17 years and has developed many long term professional relationships along the way, all around the globe. Through Fraktiv, Oli has built a wide-ranging portfolio; from creating entire TV series to filming at some of the world’s most prestigious action sports events. Through Oli’s continuous development and adoption of the latest tools and techniques in filming, editing and motion graphics, Fraktiv has developed a wide client base and a comprehensive ranges of integrated services.

Through his use and understanding of their software, Oli has also been recognised by Adobe Systems as an industry professional since 2005, and offers broadcast-centric wokflow advice and small group training to broadcasters and production companies. Oli has been featured by Adobe several times in the press and is currently an official Adobe Community Influencer (ACI).

Oli has also been recognised by Sony Professional as an expert in their professional range of broadcast products since 2014 and has made a range of films for Sony Professional Europe. Oli has been a guest at several professional live webinars and is currently a Sony Independent Certified Expert (ICE).

Throughout Fraktiv’s history, we’ve been proud to use Adobe software as our primary content creation suite, and in recent years have been extensive users of Sony professional camera and broadcast systems. We’re proud to be Adobe Community Influencers and Sony Independent Certified Experts.

With our production work, we have also been proud to work extensively with music library Cinephonix and specialist luggage and protection company EVOC.