Facilities News SSN first to air from Harlequin BY GEORGE BEVIR


Sky Sports News will become the first channel to transmit from Sky’s new £77m Harlequin 1 broadcast and production facility next week, as the broadcaster begins consolidating staff cur- rently based in separate buildings around its Osterley campus. When Harlequin 1 is at full


capacity in six months’ time, 1,300 of Sky’s production and playout staff will be based there, allowing Sky to decommission four build- ings on the Osterley campus. Further consolidation is likely over the next few years as Sky has also taken ownership of the neighbour- ing Harrods distribution building.


Last month, Broadcast reported


concerns raised by London post houses that the broadcaster was taking an increasing amount of post production work in-house. John Lennon, head of broadcast


Harlequin 1: eight HD studios Harlequin 1 will house eight HD


studios – one of which will be used solely for Sky Sports News. The biggest studio will be twice the size of its current largest studio and will allow the broadcaster to shoot light entertainment shows with audi- ences of up to 300 in-house.


strategy, said opening the facilities to third parties was “not something we do”, and acknowledged there has been a “big change in the past couple of years”, with Sky looking to use its internal studios and post facilities for commissioned pro- grammes that might previously have gone to external facilities. But, he added: “There is signifi-


cant spend planned for content and we can take only a percentage in- house, so there’s still huge opportu- nity for the rest of the industry.”


SIS LIVE braced for £15m loss on India Games BY GEORGE BEVIR


SIS LIVE does not believe it will be paid the £15m it is owed for providing outside broadcast facili- ties at last year’s Commonwealth Games in India. The firm has now entered into formal arbitration after a failed


CREATIVE REVIEW


attempt earlier this year by British diplomats to recover the money from public service broadcaster Prasar Bharati. David Holdgate, chief executive


of SIS LIVE’s parent company SIS, told Broadcast the firm had been “caught in the crossfire” of politi- cal in-fighting in India.


“If we do have to write off £15m,


that is about one year’s after-tax profit for us. It won’t kill us, but it is a blow to the business,” he said. “I don’t have any faith that we


will be paid, but we won’t be less- ening our efforts to get the money. This is a lesson to those thinking of working in India.”


IN BRIEF


Arqiva thinks global Arqiva plans to use its experi- ence implementing digital switchover in the UK with over- seas clients. Digital switchover project director Peter Heslop said opportunities would arise “as soon as the UK network is finished”. Countries that have made enquiries include Singa- pore, Gibraltar and Cyprus.


BDA promotes Merry Creative agency BDA has pro- moted Dan Merry to the role of assistant creative direc-


tor. It follows consolidation of the firm’s London creative depart- ment, which BDA said would help it deal with an increasing amount of integrated multimedia campaigns for TV, print and dig- ital clients such as ESPN.


Look turns to the Light The Look has chosen a Light- Space colour management sys- tem by Light Illusion for facility- wide colour management control. The Look managing director Thomas Urbye said accurate colour management had become “increasingly critical as display technology has continued to move away from traditional CRT monitors to LCDs”.


SECRETS OF THE POP SONG Post The Farm Client Renegade Pictures Brief Full post on the 3 x 60-minute doc series in which songwriter and producer Guy Chambers collaborates with artists to write and stage new songs. How it was done Sonny Sheridan used Digital Vision’s Nucoda Film Master to apply vignettes and a soft glow to brighten, refine and create intimacy. Sheridan also applied layers of sharp green and blue to create an edgy feel. Del Shoebridge and Ian Birchall onlined. Watch it July 2, 9.45pm, BBC2


HISTORY COLD CASE Post Envy Client Shine Brief Provide full post on the series following a team of forensic scientists as they try to solve historical cold cases. How it was done Senior editor Dicky Everton used the Sapphire Scan-line and Sapphire grain and colour effect plug-ins to create a palette of short transitions used in the programme. These were used to assist the viewer by signposting changes in filming location and to mark chapter starts and ends. Watch it 30 June, 9pm, BBC2


THE CHOIR THAT ROCKS Titles Tomorrowisclosed Client ITV Brief Create a compelling title sequence for the series about a community choir. How it was done The titles were designed to show the whole country, city by city, joined in song. Musical notes were animated flying out of windows and up into the sky using Cinema 4D’s Mograph module. These were then composited in After Effects, where clouds and the final grade was added. The animation was matched to music by David Lowe. Watch it Thursdays, 9pm, ITV1


You can view clips at www.broadcastnow.co.uk. To submit clips, send an MPEG4, Quicktime or Windows Media video file (max length 30 secs) to will.strauss@emap.com


www.broadcastnow.co.uk


Procam in £1m upgrade Procam Television has invested £1m in kit over the past three months, buying 10 Sony PDW800 cameras and five more PMW500 cameras. The London rental firm, which has supplied kit for E4’s Made In Chelsea, has also bought an extra 20 Sony MC1Ps and now has 50 of the mini-cams.


Vision’s charity run Vision’s annual charity fun run through Soho will take place on Sunday 7 July. Proceeds will go to Vision Charity, which works with blind and visually impaired children. The race starts at 6pm. For details, contact jemma. bailey@visioncharity.co.uk.


For the latest breaking news www.broadcastnow.co.uk


1 July 2011 | Broadcast | 19


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