We are proud to share with you a beautifully made documentary celebrating 50 years of Rega Research and what makes us tick. We were approached by film maker Chris Purcell of ‘Right Angle Films’ who was searching to make a documentary about passionate British companies, focusing on the history, engineering, and most of all the people.
The film attempts to discover how five decades of dedicated record player R&D, has shaped the company. As the title implies, the film concentrates on Rega’s tireless development of the turntable, as this epitomises an ethos applied to all the company’s other hi-fi making activities. Focusing on vinyl also provides a fascinating insight into a particularly tricky technological challenge. That of retrieving ever more fine detail from a revolving vinyl disc. The information we are talking about is microscopic. Mind bogglingly tiny musical vibrations cut into the record’s groove. Roy Gandy founded the company in 1973 and fundamental engineering principals, that are very dear to his heart, have driven Rega right through from its uncertain beginnings. As Gandy tells us, in those days, very few people believed that the turntable could make much difference to the reproduction of an LP. He and his colleagues have been proving those doubters wrong ever since.
Watch the documentary.
About the filmmaker
Chris Purcell is a multi-award-winning documentary director, filmmaker, and director of photography. He has worked on over a hundred documentaries and sponsored content films for the BBC, Channel 4, The Discovery Channel, National Geographic and Sky Arts. In addition, he has collaborated with well-known brands including Airbus, Alstom, Rolex, Samsung, Siemens and Vestas. Sir Richard Branson, Buzz Aldrin, Jane Goodall, Pattie Boyd, Ginger Baker, Gary Oldman and Sir David Frost are just a few of the big names he has worked with and reflect the diverse themes that his films explore. Ranging for Music and Arts to Science and Technology, his projects have taken him from Abbey Road Studios to the Zambian bush and from Blackpool Lancashire to Yellowstone Wyoming.