Welwyn Garden City, anxious to develop the town with home industries, had initially approached A.E Bundy, who had bought British Instructional Films, from Sir Oswald Stoll.
Bundy was offered the site on favourable terms and thousands of girders, left over after Stoll had enlarged his Surbiton Studios, further reduced the construction cost.
Woolfe made the popular Secrets of Nature series and war films, the afore-mentioned Battles of the Coronel and Falkland Islands and Tell England.
Tell England, a story concerned with the Gallipoli landings, was directed by Anthony Asquith for British Instructional Films, and he was an artist who had been given his first chance at Welwyn studios.
The studios were apparently not ideal for talkies and noises easily penetrated and made shooting difficult - the 5pm hooter from the nearby Nabisco shredded wheat factory and the adjacent main-line railway were amongst the distractions.