BBC Studios and Post Production has built a new gallery suite at the George Lucas Stages at Elstree Film Studios, to support large-scale productions. The galleries are equipped with HD technology redeployed from BBC Television Centre, as well as new technology and a series of upgrades. The first programme to take advantage of the suite is ITV’s new Saturday night primetime entertainment show, Your Face Sounds Familiar (pictured).
“We’ve firmly made our stamp on the Elstree Film Studios site,” said Anna Mallett, CEO of BBC S& PP. “This investment in a brand new indoor gallery suite will greatly benefit large-scale television productions that pass through George Lucas Stages 1 and 2. It gives production teams direct and easy access into the stages – something that wasn’t possible before. We’re especially looking forward to welcoming the Strictly Come Dancing team through the gallery when the 2013 series starts in the autumn.”
The new sound gallery is fitted with an upgraded Studer Vista eight digital live production console and a Studer OnAir 3000 digital mixing console. The new production gallery features a Sony MVS-7000X vision mixer console and also has facilities for EVS and graphics operations. The lighting gallery has new Sony and TVLogic OLED monitors and Hamlet waveform displays. Finally, the suite features an apparatus and engineering maintenance room, where up to 16 VT machines can work independently or in varied configurations of 10 VT machines and two EVS machines.
The new installation features a mixture of fibre optic and copper cabling to link the George Lucas Stages 1 and 2 and the new galleries. The connectivity also runs through all of the company’s dedicated areas at Elstree Film Studios, as well as to Elstree Studio D at nearby BBC Elstree, its standalone post production facility on Charlotte Street and Digital Media Services facility at the Odyssey Business Park in South Ruislip.
