Studio Sets, Infrastructure and General Technical

Aside from this being an absolute camparama from Cilla, would anyone be able to comment on the following (as a general rule in tv):

• This is a one-off special programme. Would the set have been built from scratch or cannibalized from previous sets? (Not only this one of Cilla’s, but generally);

• Without having been anywhere near a TV studio of this type, I’ve no idea what the actual materials of construction are. Is this set fabricated from steel, plywood, fabric, or what is the typical material used in this type of production?

• Back in the day before computer aided design, how would the designers have decided upon the lighting to use? (Why that blue as opposed to pink, for example?) would they have found the right look by trial and error?

• How much would such a set cost to build?

Apologies for the possibly naff questions, but that colossus of a set got me thinking about it all again. I can’t find the old thread of many years ago where we discussed all this.

And who knew Cilla sang this!

Many of the same rules as apply to theatre sets apply here, just with a bigger budget.

Sets can be built out of lots of materials, often depending on what's available and what the requirements are for that element. You don't make a structure out of metal if a bit of wood and fabric will do the job just as well, however sometimes you'll need metalwork in there for structural reasons. In a permanent set this would probably be built in to the actual elements, but in a one-off it's just as likely to be a scaffold or truss structure doing the actual support.

Theatre sets are often made from the same bits reused over and over and can be repainted & re-lit in infinitely variable ways. These elements are designed to be quick and easy to build / break apart, store nicely and be reusable with little fuss. TV sets for one off shows will use the same ideas. This isn't really cannibalising old bits of other shows - more that the bits were designed for re-use from the start.

As for lighting, there's a reason lighting design is a separate skill - you generally can't just wing it on the day as the lights you need for the effect you suddenly decide on won't be in the roof (and often once the set is in, you can't drop the bit of the rig in you need to swap things around). On the other hand, if you know you need a flexible rig with loads of options, you can put that in (probably more expensive though). These things are a lot easier these days with the ubiquity of colour changing fixtures, but choosing where they need to be to create a specific effect is still a skill. Lighting is normally the first bit put together when building a set and that means the decisions need to be made early on.

Why blue and not pink? My guess would be around the colour of her dress. Lighting colour choice is often based on costume colours as much as the content of the piece - the lighting needs to complement what people are wearing (and their skin tone) or things start looking weird .

Thanks for that. You actually answered a question perfectly that I didn’t put very well! Lol. But I guess you “got” what I meant.

(Being with regard to lighting choices made first and then the set built with the final geometry created to accommodate the desired lighting finish and not the other way round).

I guess that studio sets of this ilk are costed on a square or cubic metre “norm” that would be used to establish the budget for a programme?

There’s a vast world beyond what we just see on screen, in the example above, Cilla merely singing a song. The entire planning process and level of background technical detailing is phenomenal.

And that’s just for a one-hour one-off tv special. Imagine something like the Olympics or massive event.

Seeing the credits at the end of that video, it looks as though she had quite a few celebrity guests who she was interviewing in a chat show format (I can't imagine Chris Tarrant was there to sing), so the set needed to be versatile.

It looks as though they achieved that by different lighting of the main background area. Quite dramatic changes can be achieved as long as you've put all the correct kit in place beforehand, and have skilled lighting techs.

If you look a some more modern set constructions, it becomes obvious that most of it is rather bland white structures using metal, wood and fabric, which when mixed together with some lightboxes, video effects and other clever lighting skills creates something that looks good on screen.

Pointless is a prime example when shown 'unlit' and then dressed and lit for production.

Generally agree with what's been said, but I would add that storing sets is an expensive business and unless this was part of a series (and it looks like it wasn't) then the whole lot would simply end up in a skip. Perhaps certain specific key elements might be kept off site but you can bet TLS (in this case) would charge the client to store it off site. I'm thinking of something like the vertical background shutters on HIGNFY, they are likely to be used year in year out and perhaps Hat Trick could justify the cost of storing it somewhere. TV sets just don't tend to be re-used, it's often cheaper in the long run to start from scratch rather than make do and mend.

That image shows the power of lighting for a TV set, most shiny floor programme sets are almost monochrome in design, which means they can be lit almost any colour and any way.

When it comes to Pointless and more specifically the podiums, is it just a case of unplug and move when they want to add/remove them, with plug outlets hidden in the floor?

I won't deny I smiled at the Windows desktop icons on the screen there.

Is that "shiny black floor" effect applied in-situ or offsite in a paint shop? I always wondered how they achieved those shiny floors in studios. As a youngster, I imagined those shiny floors to be deep-set solid plastic. A bit like giant black lego blocks.

I recall a Chris Tarrant programme years ago called ITV Avenue of the Stars (ironically, Cilla Black was one of the award recipients). The stage was clear plastic of some sort with flowing and circulating water underneath it, and obviously lit in various colours from underneath.

I remember it so well because another participant, Shirley Bassey, came out onto that stage, not knowing it was filled with water, and had a near panic-attack and froze in position. They ended her segment very quickly after that.

Agitated water must be difficult to achieve on a tv stage (I'd imagine). The pumps which created the circulation effect must have been located very far away so as not to create too much noise during the broadcast.

Typically the set is built, lit, and then the floor is painted (using semi-permanent paint) and any graphics are applied. Once in a long time, typically every 10-20 years depending on usage, the floors will be stripped back to the original concrete, re-levelled, and the new layer of material will be applied. More details on the process here from the main UK supplier.