Sky News Studio Change

Hmm - difficult call for whoever is in charge at Sky.

On the one hand - if you are really busy covering big news stories you need your newsroom and gallery team to be completely confident, competent and up-to-speed with all production systems to generate clean, accurate and up-to-date output.

On the other hand - if you have loads of new production technology which can greatly enhance your output, it must be really difficult to chose to wait until after a HUGE story to use it.

I expect they are wishing they had been able to relaunch earlier.

The video wall (sorry News Wall) should start to appear on Sky from tomorrow, Thursday, if everything goes to plan.

The BBC have beaten them to it though. BBC Breakfast were using their large projection screen to show possible invasion and incursion routes and options, this morning. They also used Paul Beaver from Janes Defence, a regular contributor on Sky through out the Kosovo Crisis.

CSO- Stands for Colour Separation Overlay, and is as previously mentioned exactly the same as chroma key.

Believe me I don't want a war either. I was only echoing the view of Sky and many of the other News Broadcasters. A war means more viewers, more viewers means more advertising revenue. I am sorry to sound trite but if you don't like it watch the BBC.

Remember CNN were nothing before the Gulf War.

Goggle

Judging by the dodgy lighting, nasty CSO edging and the fact that one of the computer screens on the desk seems to be falling over, I'd say that the studio move definitely went ahead as planned! Presumably they've not made much of an effort because they're not going to be there for long.

Out of interest, exactly how much 'training' is needed to sit behind a new desk?! Presumably that's why they've moved, as they could rehearse with the videowall without needing to move studios.

Err... I don't think it is just the presenters who need to be familiar with a new set!

Directors, camera operator(s), graphic designers, vision mixers, sound supervisors, floor managers etc all need to be familiarised with the new shots, graphic devices, presenting locations etc. It will take a significant amount of time just to cable and check the computers, monitors, microphones, talkback boxes etc.

Whilst it is possible to rehearse some things like the graphics off-line, the only real way to look at camera shots is to install the set and point cameras at it. (Though you can mock some of this up in CAD systems now adays)

I doubt Sky would want to launch on a new set only for their to be sticky moments as floor managers walk through shots, or cameras aren't on the right presenters etc.

(Interesting that the lighting in the temporary Sky studio is noticably different...)

What are Sky doing overnight these days?

I watched the 1 o'clock, 1.30 and 2am half-hour bulletins last night and they were all identical - though presumably that was because of the set move.

Didn't all Sky's overnigh output used to be looped like this?

William

I know that the sport definitely was (and probably still is) pre-recorded during overnights. Not sure if this still happens, but the presenters used to do a bit of acting to make it look like it was live. It went like this....

News bloke: 'Now over to Steve with the sport' [looks to left]
Sports bloke: [looks to right] 'Thanks Dave, here's the sport...'

At least Sky have an incentive not to take too much time getting the studio ready, as the new temporary set-up looks absolutely awful (presumably thrown together very quickly). I haven't seen any wide shots of the studio today (eg handing over to the sports bloke etc), so I'm guessing that there isn't actually a proper set there - just a desk, cso screen, and a backdrop either side for sport/business/interviews.

EDIT - Ooh, just noticed that Sky have decided not to wait for the videowall and are using some dreadful chromakeying - every time the bloke turns to point to something on the map, his shadow has lots of green bits in it!

(Edited by mark at 1:49 pm on Sep. 19, 2001)

Last nights bullys were identical, a recording of the 11:00. This was as you said just because of the change round. Usually their over night bulletins are all live. The run continuesly through the night. They used to have it easy on night shift as every half hour was a pre-recorded program.

There was an entire overnight team on standby last night after they recorded the bulletin incase of breaking news.

Goggle

Oh yeah they obviousley couldn`t wait for the News Wall. At the moment they have one of their reporters giving a tactical map view of Afghanistan on a (very bad) chroma key bkgnd.

As the 1997 election Labour theme song went, 'Things can only get better!'

**ROLLS ON FLOOR LAUGHING**

Has anyone actually looked into the background??? The newsroom in the background has frozen in time!!!!!!!!

I knew they have been pre-recorded and looped for a while now, but they have just stopped, either that, or the screens/channels on the monitors have been showing the same image for 6 hours!!!!!!!

That is funny isn't it! The correct emoticon code is : biggrin : - not !!!! (I added spaces to avoid emoticon conversion!)