Packed to the rafters

Broadcast 

From Surrey to Scotland, the growth of high-end TV production is driving demand for UK studio space. Adrian Pennington looks at the new space coming on stream.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/features/packed-to-the-rafters/5091989.article?blocktitle=Production-Feature&contentID=1169

Investment at Pinewood and Leavesden, pop-ups and reusable warehouses galore, plus fresh technical developments at established TV spaces have made the options for shooting in the UK far broader than even a couple of years ago.

Traditional studios are expanding to keep up with demand, while producers are becoming ever more imaginative about using other spaces.

“High-end TV drama is driving huge potential for growth in the nations and regions,” says Iain Smith, British Film Commission chair and producer of 24: Live Another Day and executive producer of Mad Max: Fury Road.

“Productions are more interested in the greater value of bespoke spaces than booking into film studios in the main clusters like Cardiff, Bristol, Leeds and Manchester.”

In the year to June 2015, UK production was £1.2bn – £350m down on the previous year, but nearly £100m up on 2012-13. Spend on high-end TV production in the UK in the first six months of the year was £279m across 30 productions including Downton Abbey, War And Peace, The Dresser, Endeavour and Jericho.

Screen Yorkshire, backers of Peaky Blinders and upcoming feature Dad’s Army, has struck a deal with property investor Makin Enterprises to convert a former RAF site at Church Fenton, near Leeds, into a fi lm and TV production facility.

This increasingly busy region already includes Leeds Studios, home to Emmerdale, plus Prime Studios and Studio 81, both of which have supported drama including DCI Banks and The Syndicate.

Now, assuming council approval is granted, the 100,000 sq ft RAF base will be re-purposed as Yorkshire Studios, featuring production and office space with workshops and runways. Its existing hangars have no studio-specific soundproofing or lighting rig, but the two largest ones have load-bearing cranage overhead.

“The focus is on letting the site ‘as is’ and we’ll be working with individual productions to fit it out,” says Screen Yorkshire head of production Richard Knight.

Elsewhere, Corsham Media Park near Bath has been cited for a possible new studio, while Dublin’s Aardmore Studios is reportedly backing plans for a second complex on the west coast of Ireland in partnership with Limerick county council.

Scotland’s studio plans
Scottish production spend reached more than £40m in 2013-14, nearly £10m higher than any previous year. Productions include Leopard Drama’s children’s series Eve, which is filming in a converted 20,000 sq ft building in Glasgow, owned by Scottish Canals.

The first significant sound stages north of the border are gathering momentum. The Scottish Government’s Film Studio Delivery Group is in negotiations with the backers of an unnamed proposal. “We can’t dictate the speed of progress, but it is positive,” says Creative Scotland director of film and media Natalie Usher.

Film City Glasgow has previously tabled a bid to build a studio in Govan. The favourite, though, is thought to be a site adjacent to the Cumbernauld lot near Glasgow, currently occupied by Sony Pictures’ Starz drama Outlander.

In April, US studio executives were given a tour of the facility, which includes four sound stages, and were “hugely impressed”, says Usher.

Creative Scotland has ringfenced £1m towards a new complex, and the Scottish Government has pledged a £2m development loan.

However, this public initiative, which has been stalled for years, may be beaten to the punch by a wholly private £138m venture going through planning permission at Straiton, outside Edinburgh. The Pentland Studios scheme includes a £31m film studio with eight sound stages and a 50-acre back lot.

Could Scotland wind up with two major international studios?

“It’s a potential outcome”, admits Usher, who is also lobbying the Scottish parliament for an incentive fund to attract more international and UK productions.

“Outlander has shown there’s a real business to be garnered in Scotland,” says Smith. “I believe a site will be determined this year but, as things stand, productions are being turned away. The Scottish government needs to step up and give more strategic support to private capital to invest.”

Leavesden Studio: building three sound stages

More space for Pinewood
Long-established studios are scaling up. Pinewood is set to double capacity by 2017, adding 323,000 sq ft including three 40,000 sq ft studios. Phase one of the £200m plan, including stages totalling 170,000 sq ft, 10 workshops and two production offices, is due to open next summer.

Its franchise near Wentlooge in Wales opened at the beginning of the year with three stages (two at 20,000 sq ft, one at 30,000 sq ft) “suited for high-end TV”, says Darren Woolfson, group director of technology. It is also becoming a hub, attracting tenants like Arri Lighting and Real SFX.

FX’s historical drama The Bastard Executioner is shooting there, with a remake of The Crow earmarked to follow. Pinewood Shepperton’s TV division recently hosted Sky 1’s panel show Duck Quacks Don’t Echo and continues to host The National Lottery Live for BBC1 and Keith Lemon’s Through The Keyhole for ITV.

Leavesden Studios is building three sound stages (one at 35,000 sq ft, two at 17,000 sq ft), on top of the 48,400 sq ft sound stage, 50,000 sq ft of workshop space and 62,500 sq ft external tank that owners Warner Bros built there last year.

TV makes the difference
Studio business for TV is more competitive than ever with the loss of space at Wimbledon, Teddington and (temporarily) at Riverside and TVC.

“There’s been a lot of chatter about the UK being at capacity for stage space and that productions or networks may start to look elsewhere,” says Charlie Fremantle, general manager of Hayes-based West London Film Studios (WLFS). “There is a lack of ‘big’ space – 10,000 sq ft plus with 35ft height, which the expansion at Pinewood will address.”

3 Mills head of studio Tom Avison adds: “It’s a case of being busy, but I don’t believe it if anyone says they’re full.”

After catering for Lionsgate’s The Royals, ITV Studios’ Jekyll & Hyde (see page 26) has landed at 3 Mills, along with Big Talk’s third run of ITV2 comedy The Job Lot.

3 Mills’ client base is predominantly drama and film rather than light entertainment, but Avison is considering pumping £10 million into a dedicated TV stage.

“Productions come here because they want the knowledge, expertise and flexibility that an established secure studio can bring over a pop-up space,” suggests Avison. “We don’t have an entertainment-specific stage, so the question is whether we are better off with a slightly broader offer or whether we continue to service our black box facilities, which are in solid demand.”

Remote studio production
The ability to shoot in one location and vision-switch live or post-produce in another is opening up new options for producers and studios. Dragons’ Den is being shot at Manchester’s The Sharp Project with rushes piped across to Dock10 for ingest and post. Sharp offered the greater space the production needed, while allowing the team to maintain post at its previous home in MediaCityUK.

While Dock10 invested in a fibre solution to connect the site specifically for Dragons’ Den, both facilities can tap into Manchester’s thoroughbred fast internet connections. The Loop – 82km of fibre ringing the city – provides the dedicated fibre networks on which Manchester hopes to attract digital business.

“You can shoot here and post in LA, Sydney or Beijing, squeezing two working days into one,” says Sharp managing director Sue Woodward. “This is increasingly important for coproductions and to deliver to multiple distribution platforms.”

The Space Project, which opened in November, has welcomed Sky 1’s Mount Pleasant, BBC2 comedy-drama Cradle To Grave and Paul Abbot’s C4 drama No Offence through its doors. Big Talk Productions’ 10-part Houdini & Doyle (airing on Fox in the US and ITV Encore) has taken two stages until the end of the year.

Operational for just over a year, West London Film Studios has housed Churchill’s Secret (Daybreak Pictures/ Masterpiece for ITV); Sky 1’s Fungus The Bogeyman and Roughcut’s Top Coppers (BBC3).

“We’re taking long-term pencils up to May 2016, which is a marked difference from this time last year,” says Fremantle. “Lead times to actual confirmation of jobs seem to be getting shorter.”

Fast-turnaround shoots
At Elstree, BBC S&PP is keen to cater for fast turnarounds. On Celebrity Juice and Virtually Famous, multiple lighting positions were put into the grid at the same time to speed things up.

“Whereas large-format shows like Strictly and The Voice are so massive they have to sit in the space for their entire run, with classic panel and quiz shows we can record more episodes using the same studio footprint,” says BBC S&PP commercial manager Meryl McLaren.

Over The Top Productions and ITV Studios’ game show Keep It In The Family is back in Elstree’s 11,800 sq ft Studio D for a second run and will keep all its post at BBC S&PP too.

On renting space at Elstree in 2013, BBC S&PP splashed out on turning what were essentially four-wallers into a true TV studio with galleries, floors and monopole lighting rigs. The next big investment will be for equipment at the new-look TVC, due to open in 2017.

“Decisions will be made as late as possible to ensure we get the best possible solutions,” says McLaren. “Any kit investment we make from now on will have 4K in mind, so that we can react to that when demand comes.”

On top of the live finals for Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor, Fountain Studios has recently booked quiz shows including ITV Daytime’s 1,000 Heartbeats from Hungry Bear – a result of Riverside dropping out of the equation, believes managing director Mariana Spater. The gap between enquiries and bookings has narrowed, she says: “We’re getting enquiries for programmes coming in to book in a month’s time.”

While the studios are constantly refurbished, Spater is reserving her next major investment for 4K.

YOUNG, FREE AND SINGLE: HACKNEY’S LIVE DATES

In E4 dating format Young, Free And Single: Live, a group of 20-somethings move into a ‘singles apartment’ and go on blind dates.

Lime Pictures shunned a formal studio for something more comfortable. “The space is intrinsic to the format,” explains executive producer Derek McLean. “When we did the pilot, it felt natural to give the participants the same experience as the viewer, instead of going back to a formal studio for live feedback.”

The production team hired a converted warehouse in Hackney, part-fitted for loft-style habitation already, dressed the set and turned the living room into a studio floor for the live show. A neighbouring church hall houses a small audience, while a local pub makes for a handy date night venue.

Cameras inside the building are provided by HotCam with CTV supplying the OB facility for TX.

“Studios can feel so sterile,” says McLean. “While the facilities are amazing, you lose a lot of atmosphere; it feels very controlled. Getting a format like this outside the studio relaxes an audience. The show feels more open and producers have the freedom to think more flexibly about, for example, using cameras in outside spaces.”

IMAGINARIUM STUDIOS: CAPTURING PERFORMANCE

Performance-captured characters have remained beyond the scope of TV budgets, but Ealing-based Imaginarium Studios, co-founded by actor Andy Serkis, aims to change that.

It has established a post-production pipeline with Soho facility DNeg TV to produce performance capture for TV drama, beginning with Sky 1’s Fungus The Bogeyman. “

Shooting performance capture is not expensive,” says Imaginarium chief executive Tony Orsten. “What is complicated is rendering and working with the data. We wanted to find a way to deliver quality performance capture and full CG at TV prices. We think what we are building will be a revolution in TV storytelling. We’ve shown tests to a number of commissioners and they are extremely interested.”

In its studio, dozens of Vicon cameras are arrayed around a space, recording data from markers placed on actors’ bodies.

More than one camera can ‘see’ more than one marker at a time, allowing precise geolocation of each joint on an actor’s body. From there, it’s a simple process to build a skeleton and overlay a digital skin.

Faces are captured using a head-mounted rig of one to four cameras and post-produced in the same fashion. The delay in rendering the digital avatar is only a frame or two.

“People expect a render farm of servers doing this overnight, but it’s pretty much real time,” says Orsten.

“Since we shoot from every angle, the actor experiences a freedom more like theatre. They can perform scenes with an ensemble cast. We assemble the scene into cutaways and close-ups, reframing in post.”

STARGATE STUDIOS: VIRTUAL BACKLOT

Delivering high-end visual effects on a TV budget is the goal of Stargate Studios, but its secret weapon is a library of high-resolution live action backgrounds into which it can insert CG, 3D set extensions and actors.

The LA-based facility is able to cut costs by farming work across its network of operations in Berlin, Malta and Ealing, where it launched earlier this year.

Working Title TV and Bigballs Films’ 10 comedy-part drama You, Me And The Apocalypse for NBC and Sky 1 is using Stargate’s virtual backlot.

For a scene in which the US President drives a bullet-proof car through the Blue Ridge Mountains, Stargate sent a team to Virginia, including a drone crew, to shoot background plates. It added a 3D car in post with photo-real light reflections. The actors were shot against green screen at Stargate London and composited into the scene.

“This process costs less than 20% of what it would to shoot on location,” says Stargate founder and chief executive Sam Nicholson.

Stargate funds the cost of background shoots to own the right to reuse the elements in future productions. It performed a similar routine when hi-res imagery of London shot five years ago was used in a recent episode of NCIS.

“If you achieve the correct balance between 3D photo-real elements, virtual environments and live performances you end up with the most economical and high-quality solution,” says Nicholson.