Broadcast
http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/5111628.article
“It’s difficult to put your finger on, but there’s a different buzz when you do a comedy in Manchester,” says Tom McLennan, creative director of ITV Studios Entertainment.
“In the conversations I’m having with commissioners, it’s clear that they realise a northern audience gives you 10% extra.”
This is far from trivial: audiences can be a deciding factor in the location of an entertainment production.
ITV Studios’ first season of The Voice UK remains at Dock 10, home of its BBC incarnation – and of new BBC1 rival Let It Shine. It is ITV’s most significant live light-entertainment show shot outside of London since production ceased on Stars In Their Eyes at the old Granada Studios in Manchester in 2006.
It is shot at Dock 10 in part because of the ancillary spaces available to manage the 1,000-plus audience. “We have two audience-handling areas plus a large open centre for warmup,” says Dock 10 head of studios Andy Waters.
“Ultimately, people are here to have fun and it’s our job to help create the chemistry between artists and audience, which is all important to a show like The Voice UK.”
McLennan says he wants to bring more big shiny floor shows to the north: “We are proving that production teams in the north can do these shows better than anyone else.”
Productions will head outside the capital to meet national quotas and qualify for regional spend but these are far from the only reasons. A fuller and more enthusiastic audience is one; lower costs is another.
“There’s been a shift of mindset in the past five years,” says McLennan. “There was a feeling that talent wouldn’t travel or that key crew needed bringing up from London, but that is no longer the case.
It often takes as long to travel across London as it does to get to a regional studio and the talent pool around hubs like Cardiff and Manchester is established. Shooting outside London is no longer token. We can produce, shoot and edit shows better than anyone.”
“We’ve operated out of our Glasgow base for eight years and the majority of our shows [including Who Dares Wins] are filmed here,” says 12 Yard Scotland executive producer Zoe Tait.
Two recordings a day are made with around 300 audience members and a sizeable set that demarcates areas for family dynamics and the Newton’s Cradle ball selection machine. Globecast provides international live links.
“The tricky challenge is juggling the logistics of booking studios on the other side of the world for live links with families,” says Tait. “It may mean booking slots at 3-4am in New Zealand.”
Post is handled by Glasgow’s Editworks. Although co-produced with Cardiff ’s Boom Cymru, the team are mostly local freelancers.
“Part of my role has been making sure we develop key talent from researchers to lighting directors and realise a solid pool of freelance staff to call on across all of our productions,” says Tait. “We don’t look elsewhere.”
The show’s home has always been in Cardiff. Siân G Lloyd co-developed it while at indie Presentable before co-founding Parasol Media to continue production with RDF in 2013.
Recorded at Enfys TV Studios, the show uses six manned cameras including a jib and one locked-off camera for the Connecting Wall quiz round. There is no studio audience. “We typically shoot between three and four episodes in a day so a 37-part series is shot over 12 days across three long weekends,” explains Lloyd.
The series is post-produced inhouse, except for the sound mix, which is taken to nearby audio post production facility Cranc.
“Producing an entertainment show outside the M25 has never presented us with any difficulties – quite the opposite in fact,” says Lloyd.
“The talent and contestants are happy to travel to Cardiff and are always pleasantly surprised by its proximity to London.”
That said, the number of studio facilities available to indies in Cardiff is “woefully inadequate”, she says.
“Enfys is a brilliant facility and the team there provide us with everything we need technically to make a very successful entertainment series. But there are now very few options open to producers in Cardiff.
“NEP Studios was demolished last year to make way for housing and the C1 studio at BBC Wales is rarely available to indies because of their scheduling commitments. The sound stages at BBC’s Roath Lock in Cardiff Bay and at Pinewood Studio Wales, while ideal for drama, are not a good fit for studio entertainment shows.
Extensive trussing, extra sound-proofing and suitable floor coverings are essential but basic requirements for any studio production, but they are all expensive additions that don’t add any on-screen value. These are costs that today’s tight budgets simply can’t bear.”
“We needed a large warehouse space and London’s cost put it out of the question,” says head of production Tim Sealey, who selected Bristol over Manchester. “The Bottle Yard was then just a warehouse so Bristol council supported us by inwardly investing in the production to keep costs low.”
The council used Trollied’s studio rental fee to build wardrobe and dressing rooms and help create a working environment. “It was also important for us to recruit locally and work with local crew,” adds Sealey.
The main 1,500 sq ft set, which required a false ceiling, has been standing through all six series and the production occupies a second studio during the seven-week shoot.
Offline assembly is made on-site by Films@59, which also handles dubbing and final post.
The 3 x 60-minute show, which features two teams re-enacting the Battle of Waterloo and the Roman conquests of Zama and Catalunia, is housed in Studio B but employs two galleries.
In this unusual set-up, the gallery for Studio A is used for vision mixing, while Studio B’s gallery holds the servers running Creative Assembly’s games platform.
“We don’t have to take up two galleries but the space helps to accommodate a whole load of PCs,” says Lion director of specialist factual Bill Locke.
The set is draped with banners depicting various historical generals, with the video screens that divide the teams each showing that team’s view of the battle. The shows were rehearsed and filmed over three days and shot with 10 locked-off cameras.
Around six minutes per programme is VT inserts shot on location.
Offline editing is done at Lion Scotland, while online moves to the indie’s London base and all of the audio is performed at Glasgow’s Edit 123, apart from the voiceover, which is recorded at Platform in Soho.
“There’s often no benefit to shooting in London,” says Lion director of entertainment Simon Welton. “For CBBC series Officially Amazing [also recorded in Studio A], we need contestants from all over the UK, so it makes sense to base ourselves in Scotland, where production doesn’t attract the premium of central London.”
Post for Officially Amazing is taken back to Lion London and overseen by Welton.
“I like to be very hands-on with the edit so it simply saves time. Even outsourcing to Soho is too far.”
“The Lyric wasn’t available but we’re also able to take advantage of the greater infrastructure at Blackstaff, such as more space for production offices,” explains Stephen Stewart, managing director of Green Inc Film & Television, which co-produces the show with Jeremy Salsby’s Saltbeef TV.
“The Lyric is an excellent venue but has no gallery so you need to book an OB. It’s also a very active theatre, whereas the BBC was able to grant us exclusive use of its facility for a week.”
Four half-hour shows were shot each day in the 6,000 sq ft Studio A during the booking, using a typical six-camera set-up (five pedestals and a jib) without an audience.
“I’ve produced network shows all over the UK but Belfast offers several benefits, including great value for money,” says Stewart.
“Everything and everyone you need is within a couple of miles. When we do an entertainment show in London, trying to find accommodation near the studio is hard and everyone struggles to travel in on time. For Hive Minds, we’re able to put contestants up in hotels just outside the studio gates.
“The staff, from editors to lighting directors, are a match for anyone working in the UK – provided you book them early. Plus, there are highquality post facilities on the doorstep.”
Hive Minds is offlined in-house and onlined at Yellow Moon (Game Of Thrones, Line Of Duty) in Holywood.
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