The NEW Central West and BBC Midlands thread

hi peeps, the new set looks great, think i might have to sky+ mt tonight to see how it looks for the 6.30 show

Nah, Look North NE&Cumbria's studio looks far better.

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/lnns1.jpg
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/lnwn6.jpg

I do hope that's sarcastic! That studio is just a shoe box with some nice lightboxes, a tea tray and screens. Midlands Today's is a real newsroom background for a start!

Nope, to start with, the NE&C studio is properly lit and is far more balanced in terms of detail, shadowing and focus. Yes, the MT set may have a real newsroom behind it, but with all the window treatments to make it look vaguely acceptable on screen, it looks like a proper sea fog has decsended on the Mailbox.

Then there's the midget desk, and the sofa which means poor Nick looks really uncomfortable. They may not have the space for a full soft set, but the other regions upon this refit have opted for the proper desk with proper chairs, which looks far nicer.

With regards the lightboxes - they look far nicer than the illuminated perspex panels most other sets are getting rid of in this refit, but MT has kept hold of. All the regions with the lightboxes are also getting panels for the Politics Show and the regionally football league show I've now forgotten the name of meaning the sets can actually look different.

The shoebox and teatray (which is present in the MT refit anyway) are all parts of the BBC News look, so saying the NE&C set looks bad because it emulates it is like saying it's bad the BBC One globe looks like the Earth - it's supposed to look like that. The Norwich Look East set used to be curved like the MT set, but they ripped it out and put a weird trapezium shaped set in - at first look I thought it looked horrible, but the way most shots are framed, you don't really realize it isn't square, and is a good way of gaining some extra space in the minute news studios the BBC liked building in those days (interestingly Cambridge's LE studio is big enough for a proper square studio and looks better for it).

So no, I wasn't being sarcastic. The NE&C studio is the still best of the "recreations on a budget" of the national news set, and IMHO, looks better on screen than the new MT set (along with all the other recreations). That said, they also have a proper studio, with a decent amount of space, and more money put into the work.

the NE&C newsroom looks flat and fake.

I'm pretty let down by the revamp. It seems they have frosted most of the glass looking out onto the newsroom, which makes the background look dull and washed out.

I don't like the fact that they've kept the curved 2003 style screen, looks very out of character with a rectangular baking tray. Nick also looks very uncomfortable on that sofa. The desk is like one of those stupid ITV ones which look too low.

Still, the actual design of the new sofa is much better than the old one.

It may be fake and flat, but this shot :-
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/lnwn4.jpg
looks nicer than this equivalent shot :-
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2753/4453549623_df8b5a5bd8.jpg

Umm, unless I'm mistaken, the 'monitors' on the NE&C background are blue, and appear to be burning through the red 'walls'. If MT were to get some red plastic in the newsroom and light it, it would look the same as what you called the 'nicer shot', although it isn't the nicer shot at all, it looks like someone has exploded a wallpaper factory and looks all over the place.

Not as nice as the fake newsroom sets. Why have they blurred the entire window out? Makes it look so cold now. They could have easily have just stuck some of the shapes to the existing window. Looks better than before but still a bit pathetic compared to other sets which cater to a much smaller audience.

More shots from todays 1830:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4041/4455118348_1bdfaa3321.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2737/4455118536_280bd6a88c.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4034/4455118670_e29b34b0a4.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4070/4454338285_9b4ef1aa37.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4030/4454347693_6ac33136f1.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4051/4454347989_ea522482d9.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4031/4455128700_3953af6059.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2732/4455135196_6760278028.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2699/4455144230_f1bbbb9192.jpg

Is it lit properly ? Looks very dark.

And yes, in this case the real background is not actually as nice as those with the fake backdrop.

How cramped!