Wanted to comment on my " local " background for Dundee. They've been using the same pulldown backdrop for years, and show no sign of updating it for the BBC News identity. I wish they'd either update the technology and have a live backdrop, put in a new " picture " or change it to fit in line with Reporting Scotland / BBC News identity.
I'm not sure quite how old the regional outposts' backdrops go, but Dundee, Inverness and Aberdeen all suffer from the same problem. They have a fairly basic setup, with photos printed on rollerblinds - one for day, one for night. And as you say, the photos are ancient.
Dundee's daytime one is a fairly bad shot in the first place: it's a very odd perspective of the Tay Rail Bridge, which looks like it might have been taken from an aircraft, just after takeoff from Dundee airport. Perhaps someone at BBC Scotland thought that it needed to be immortalised as badly as its predecessor was by McGonagall. The nighttime shot (of RRS Discovery) is somewhat better.
This is a wider shot of the Inverness contribution studio, showing its not-very-good backdrop. That ParcelForce van has been there quite some time:
BBC Scotland Inverness contribution camera by bbcbob, on Flickr
The 1999-era railings might help date the pictures, but then again they could be as old as the wall on the left. They've got some nicer pictures (complete with BBC News swirls) in the An La studio, but it isn't as easy to do down-the-line interviews from there.
The best of the lot has to be Stornoway, but then it's probably the most recent:
Glasgow's got a couple of different options - if they use the unattended studio (Studio D), then there's an odd shot from the other side of the Canting Basin, which has a fairly nondescript view of the Science Centre and Pacific Quay itself; whereas the newsroom camera position has a big plasma which usually has a live roof camera shot. But that too has a rollerblind, in case there's nobody around to set up the camera. (And a recording of the roof camera, where someone's done a very bad animation of the Clyde bobbing around in a somewhat unnatural way.)
Fascinating, thegeek. Many thanks for those. Do you perchance have any photos of the behind the scenes of the Glasgow studio? Or at the risk of thread creep, any others?
Love the idea above of putting the aluminum bars in front of that ancient photo to bring it some youth!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7168/6452192691_5114ac5631.jpg These were taken just before Christmas, a couple of years ago - I don't think the CSO screen there gets used very often in normal circumstances, on account of it being in a corridor. Note the rollerblind at the top of the wall. I think that one's got a picture of the Science Centre on it.
The newsroom is off to the left of this shot (with only a tensabarrier to stop people wandering in), and there's a frosted glass wall behind where I was standing.
Once again, fascinating. Many thanks indeed. Does Sportscene actually use that white curtain as it's backdrop? That's probably worse that the Dundee backdrop which started this thread off. They are probably curtains from Mary Marquis's living room.
Edit: what's that big ATM looking thing in the centre-left of your Studio C photo?
Once again, fascinating. Many thanks indeed. Does Sportscene actually use that white curtain as it's backdrop? That's probably worse that the Dundee backdrop which started this thread off. They are probably curtains from Mary Marquis's living room.
Edit: what's that big ATM looking thing in the centre-left of your Studio C photo?
I think Sportscene used to use that, but it was coloured blue.
They now just use the Reporting Scotland/Newsnight Scotland set.
Is the newsroom camera position just used for down the line interviews for news channel & networked bulletins and the late bulletin or do they also utilise it for breakfast?
Is the newsroom camera position just used for down the line interviews for news channel & networked bulletins and the late bulletin or do they also utilise it for breakfast?
Is the newsroom camera position just used for down the line interviews for news channel & networked bulletins and the late bulletin or do they also utilise it for breakfast?
They've got a pretty flexible gallery arrangement - the studio floor can be controlled from either Studio C's gallery or the Bulletin Control Room, which can also do a whole bulletin from the newsroom camera. The main bulletins and Newsnight use the main gallery, and the BCR does Breakfast.
On weekday evenings, Studio C runs An La, while the BCR does the 8pm BBC One bulletin from Studio C's floor.
