Anybody can take a few cameras and booms around the town and ... erm ... follow people around.
Not everybody can mike a big band, set lights on dancers/singers, work out complex shooting scripts, sound mix the lot, and not only capturing it through an on-the-ball vision mix but also maintain a lively and bouyant atmosphere for a large studio audience whose enjoyment is evident through the sound which, with today's Stereo and Dolby Surround, should be exploited more than ever.
Too much primetime TV today is full of wonderful technology squandered and wasted by nothing more than media students "made good" making student-type programmes but with more expensive kit and an assured audience.
Anybody can take a few cameras and booms around the town and ... erm ... follow people around.
Not everybody can mike a big band, set lights on dancers/singers, work out complex shooting scripts, sound mix the lot, and not only capturing it through an on-the-ball vision mix but also maintain a lively and bouyant atmosphere for a large studio audience whose enjoyment is evident through the sound which, with today's Stereo and Dolby Surround, should be exploited more than ever.
Too much primetime TV today is full of wonderful technology squandered and wasted by nothing more than media students "made good" making student-type programmes but with more expensive kit and an assured audience.
Take Grampians latest offering - Cop College!!
The day in the life of a group of rookie cops - great idea - but it got the new Grampian treatment. It looked like they sent a guy from Aberdeen with a video camera!!!
All the excitement has gone out of our regional and networked ITV - I am sure that other ITV regions are in the same boat.
As I said before Grampians Queen Cross will soon be expensive flats and no more "entertainment" will be studio made in Aberdeen but GTV bosses say thats a good thing!!
Even our news output now looks poor - the new studio looks the size of a broom cupboard - and thats all there is (but there must be millions in the bank)!!
I think this, "TV doesn't need as many studios anymore" is such a daft thing to say. The current crop of crap reality shows just need a man with a video camera but any decent tv show,sit coms etc (the sorts we should get back to if people like ITV want audience share) need more studio work. It may be more expensive but the final product is so much better,
Grampian used to make studio programmes and they still should, sadly shallow bean counters and media studies students think we need even more reality programming.
Well there has been a recent upsurge in use of TV studios and over the next few years many people in the industry are predicting a lot more stuff being done live.
Well there has been a recent upsurge in use of TV studios and over the next few years many people in the industry are predicting a lot more stuff being done live.
Thats a shame then as Grampian or should I say SMG has flogged ours off - but as they say the new "broom cupboard" news studio in Aberdeen is a great step forward for Grampian and no doubt for SMGs bank balance!!
The Southampton site is almost into it's fifth decade and from the last time I saw it, Meridian hasn't done much to it since TVS gave it a coat of paint in the late eighties.
If it's costs that people are worried about, then why not just move back to The Maidstone Studios and rent some space. it seemed a some what perverse idea to move out in the first place.
It's a shame to hear large production centres replaced by boxes in industrial estates, but this is what I think will eventually shape up, production centre wise:
Grampian - Cheap box as now
Scottish - Cheap box, they're bound to sell Cowcaddens, it's huge and worth a lot of money
Border - Cheap box
Tyne Tees - Cheap box, all that space at City Road can't be being used any more
Granada - Safe as ThreeSixtyMedia
Yorkshire - Safe, lots of large productions here
Ulster - Cheap box
Central - Cheap box in Birmingham, unsure about Nottingham - after Crossroads, just what gets made any more
Anglia - Safe, lots of productions here
Carlton/LWT - very safe as The London Studios
Meridian - fate decided I feel
HTV West - Cheap box, I think Bristol is a Office complex now
HTV Wales - Safe, only production centre in Wales
Westcountry - Already in a cheapish box
Channel - who cares
Meridian replaced their 'sun' symbol on the building on the far left to a slightly larger symbol in 1998/ early 99. I have pics of the studios from the front from 1999 I took whilst in my car.....
I think this, "TV doesn't need as many studios anymore" is such a daft thing to say. The current crop of crap reality shows just need a man with a video camera but any decent tv show,sit coms etc (the sorts we should get back to if people like ITV want audience share) need more studio work. It may be more expensive but the final product is so much better,
It's true, less studios are needed and it's not just the 'reality' cheap single DV camera jobbies, the trend has been around for years.
Look at cookery programmes - until the 90's they were all studio based, now they're all shot on location (with proper crews and everything).
There's also the issue that the advances in technology such as CSO, virtual studios, low heat lights, smaller studio cameras etc studios are smaller and can be installed either permanately or temporarily in 'normal' spaces.... just look at Watchdog, LDN news and the like - filmed in offices, not large studios.
I know the topic is a little dated now, but I had the misfortune of walking past Meridian's Northam studio complex in Southampton and it looks like an absolute dump. A very large dump with three enormous purple and orange suns all over the place, but a dump all the same.
Surely they don't still produce local television programmes from here? It looked really delapidated.