Factory Entertainment’s Creative Director, Barry Eldridge, discusses licensing pop-culture collectibles

Barry, you’re the Creative Director at Factory Entertainment. What does Factory Entertainment do?
Simple: our team are fans who strive to create great products from brands we love that we hope other fans will also enjoy.

Which licenses do you hold?
It’s a constantly evolving line-up, with nostalgic classics alongside brand-new properties. At any one time, we typically serve up an offering of around 40 brands. These include Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, JAWS, Back to the Future, James Bond and Masters of the Universe. All licenses that have passionate, enthusiastic fan bases.

Amazing! For context, tell me about some of your top-selling products…
70’s and 80’s nostalgia always does well for us, and brands like Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider are having a moment right now.

Tell me about a couple of your recent releases.
It’s always nice to release a product to an audience that’s been a little underserved, perhaps fulfilling some long-held dreams. There’s nothing greater than receiving a message from a customer that says, ‘I’ve waited 30 years for this’ or ‘I’ve wanted this since childhood’ – and we’ve been lucky enough to have had a run of those lately.

Oh, I can imagine. And in that respect, you must be spoiled for choice when it comes to which products you can develop… How do you decide what to create?
The pressure is real; we have to pick well and pick right. We use as much market intelligence and research as we can – but that only gets you so far. At the end of the day, we are – as I said – fans. We develop things we love in the hope that other fans feel the same way we do. We’re passionate about our products and we hope there are enough like-minded people out there who choose to come along on the ride with us.

And once you’ve got an idea of what you want to produce, what’s the process? How do you go from saying, “How about a Battlestar Galactica Colonial Viper Pilot Helmet?” to getting that on shelf?
That really depends on the product type. It regularly takes at least a year to research, design and develop a prop replica; longer if it’s from a 50+ year-old property and the process involves a lot of ‘forensic archeology.’

Oh! I haden’t thought about that – you have to uncover the details about a prop that hasn’t existed for decades…
Right. Another challenge with prop replicas is creating a physical object that can be the centrepiece of a collection and stand up to daily scrutiny based on a prop that was originally created to be quickly produced to survive a few seconds of screen time. On camera, it looks amazing and takes on almost mythical status, but when you see that original prop in person… Well, trade secret: it’s often less than inspiring!

That’s when our team has to get really creative. You have to remain true to the source material, but – at the same time – create something that’s satisfying to own in the real-world. The Viper Pilot Helmet is a great example… Most of the props in the original Battlestar Galactica were pretty flimsy; designed only for background shots. Our replica was digitally scanned to ensure fidelity, but each replica is crafted from fibreglass to give it the feel and facility of a ‘real’ helmet. That’s just one of the many refinements we made, while retaining museum-quality accuracy.

How did you get into this, Barry? What’s your background?
Kidnapped by elves as a child and forced to work at Santa’s workshop!

It’s a common story!
I’m kidding, but it’s close… I started in the traditional toy industry and moved into collectibles over many years. I was always that kid who grabbed a holiday catalogue and made fantasy wishlists of toys he wanted but was never in reality going to get – I guess I never really grew out of that.

Brilliant. Thank you, Barry. To wrap things up, tell me: what’s the one question I could’ve asked you today that I didn’t?
“What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” A little Monty Python joke for you!

Ha! Perfect! Thanks for joining me, Barry.