Facilitating TV By Committee, By George Jarrett (Part 1)

Production teams soar in number as we enter a freelance world; what BBC engineering has achieved at Elstree is remarkable. On a recent guided tour round the facility, George Jarrett discussed the studio refurbishments and the wider issues that shaped the work done.

Parliament and the national press savaged the BBC for its over generous executive severance payments, but they might have tempered their attacks a little had they been aware of what BBC Studios and Post Production has achieved out at Elstree in the way of re-purposing, re-tooling, and re-structuring.
The five-year deal the BBC has struck with Elstree Studios MD Roger Morris, to effectively reduce from five to four studios by moving the London studios business HQ, is hugely beneficial to both parties.
"It is a satisfying deal, and works really well," said Morris. "In consequence I have been able to spend £1.2m on doing the place up, in fact on general things like floors and cladding walls, and could well spend the same again. There is a shortage of good TV stages now."
The story behind the transition from Television Centre – achieved on time and under budget, despite 30 days lost to the removal of deposits of Asbestos – was told by technical manager Danny Popkin, John O'Callaghan, head of studios and post production services, and two of the industry's top sound supervisors – Andy Tapley and Peter Bridges, a BAFTA winner for his Olympics sound work.
In fact stages A, B and C plus another stage have been booked out by the TV soap EastEnders for some time. Studio D, sold commercially by the BBC, now has a revised main gallery, sound and lighting facilities. And the BBC has two stages on long-term hire, and has built a totally new gallery to support the George Lucas stages and big shows like Your Face Sounds Familiar (ITV) and the upcoming new series of Strictly Come Dancing (BBC).
The tour started in studio D, where the original lighting and production galleries have been swapped.
"We were going to take the opportunity to swap them over because production is growing bigger and faster than lighting. We were a few weeks in when we discovered Asbestos, and we ended up taking out far more than we anticipated," said Popkin. "But in some respects it did us a favour because we were able to clean the floors out and put in computer flooring throughout. It is only six inches deep but it has made life easier in terms of installation."
What you see is the main desk brought up from TC6 in pride of place, plus a new one behind you. The first show made using the new gallery was Animal Honours (ITV), but League Of Their Own (Sky) was done from an OB truck and the studio floor.

The Freelance Model
New computer floors, new air conditioning, and new power wiring are the big factors, but what about the people? How many TV Centre operators have survived the move?
"Pretty much the only person that would be staff will be the resource manager, the person who comes with the studio, looks after the production from arrival to depart, and then sends the bill," said Popkin.
In fact the BBC has been moving towards the freelance model since planning the move of sports TV and children's TV to Salford back in 2008 and the changes at TV Centre and elsewhere. Popkin has a small staff in engineering and for the set turn round side.
The first issue raised by O'Callaghan was that so many freelancers of a certain demographic puts pressure on training budgets.
"The industry as a whole is finally waking up to the fact that nobody is training," he said. "The BBC is involved in the intensive training of engineers, taking on 20 in each successive year, and they will do placements with us. We will have apprentices of our own in cameras and sound starting in September, but our current apprentices are working on EastEnders."
Popkin pointed: "Certain producers do not want trainees working on their shows. They expect the top end professionals."
Productions rent cameras and lenses (there are quite a few upgraded Sony 1500s around) and specialist lenses, VT machines and EVS servers are hired production to production. "It is similar to an OB truck, which turns up with the majority of the kit you see here and the other bits to make it work," said Popkin.
"We are looking at large format, particularly for drama. Every now and again someone comes along and says they want the shallow depth of field that comes with large format capture without recognising what the implications of doing this are," he added. "Realistically there is no large format camera yet, but Arri is trying with its studio kit and when the back comes for the Sony F55 it looks like the first and most promising camera that will plug and can be used as a studio camera."
Hard behind this notion came the issue of focusing. "The film industry has for decades run dailies for a very good reason – they check the stuff shot the day before to see if it is in focus," said Popkin. "We are going to be in exactly the same situation, and we are already doing that with EastEnders and other things shot in HD. Sometimes it is only when they get to editing they notice shots that are a bit soft."
This would require a dedicated person to check every shot on a big and expensive screen, a difficult task given the huge jump in shooting ratios.
Studio D's production gallery will play back 3D. At the moment 4K (UHD) is a no, but Popkin is looking at it. His current interest is in the continuing hybrid world of fibre and BNC video cable, and the10 bit Ethernet backbone between the main network hubs.
Read the article in the online edition of Regional Film & Video here
(IT/JP)