14 minute read
STLD visit: New Broadcasting House
New Broadcasting House
New Broadcasting House Entrance
Old Broadcasting House, left, and New Broadcasting House
Auntie’s new home
Words: Bernie Davis Photographs: John O’Brien, Chris Davis, Guy Saich & the BBC
The biggest ever renovation to the BBC’ s Broadcasting House in London ’ s West End enabled BBC News to relocate from Television Centre after the latter was given early retirement. If you have seen the outside of the new façade next to the more familiar BH, you will know how very big it looks, but like the Tardis found at the entrance, it is even larger on the inside.
On the eve of the 60th anniversary of the first BBC Television News broadcast, the STLD’ s Robert Horne, who is also part of the lighting team at Broadcasting House, invited members and guests to look around the new facility now it is up and running.
We first had a presentation by Guy Saich (pictured right) who has written A History of Broadcasting House (as well as A History of Television Centre) and somehow managed to cram 86 years of history into 20 minutes.
Presentation by Guy Saich
Foley House
The "Top Hat" Design
Pictured, left column: Foley House, top, and, the Top Hat design. Pictured, centre column: work in progress, top, and the completed building. Pictured, right column: Eric Gill’ s Ariel and Prospero, top, and the concealed portrait
Work in Progress
The Completed Building
Eric Gill's Ariel & Prospero
The concealed portrait
The iconic building opened in 1932 in a London that looked very different to today. On the site of Foley House, demolished in 1928 for the building project by All Souls Church in Langham Place, the famous ‘brow of a ship ’ building was constructed using methods borrowed from the skyscraper boom in New York, with steel frames clad with stone (the New Yorker Hotel bears more than a passing resemblance to the façade of the old Broadcasting House). This wasn ’t the first design, though. A previous plan known as the Top Hat was rejected in favour of the familiar building.
The famous Ariel and Prospero statue over the main door, designed by Eric Gill, was fitted a little while later, and after his death, a paper was found saying that behind the statue there was an image that would only be discovered when the building was pulled down. During the recent renovations, Guy managed to look behind with the help of a mirror and a camera and found a hidden gem of a carving. We ’ re still not sure what it is – apart from a face – but at least now it has been seen.
Guy talked us through the war years and had some fascinating pictures of bomb damage from a Doodlebug that fell nearby. We also saw a picture of some steps that lead down to nowhere, attributed to a secret route used by Winston Churchill to access the Tube line in some covert way. All apocryphal, it seems; the steps were made to lead to a proposed future extension that was never built.
As part of the effort to stay on the air during the war, four studios were built secure enough to withstand a gas attack and they even had their own well. Fortunately, none of this was ever tested.
The latest extension introduces a whole new style to the building, while still preserving the original, much-loved look, and to make best use of the space, the building goes down three floors as well as up seven. In fact, it goes down so far it is within three metres of the Bakerloo Line, which runs along below Portland Place. This was an important factor in the studio design as noise from the trains can clearly be heard in the corridors. As the studio floors are at the lowest level, each studio is mounted on springs with dampers to acoustically separate them from the rest of the building. Studio B is the largest TV studio in the world to be constructed in this way.
We then had a presentation from Mick Cocker of Lighting Logic, which won the contract to supply all the lighting and hoists for the studio complex. Anyone who has dealt with the BBC will not be surprised to learn that the tendering process proved to be the most complex they had undertaken, with the tendering document reaching revision
New Broadcasting House
The atrium & newsroom
Pictured, clockwise from above: the atrium and newsroom; the lifts tune in to different BBC radio channels; Matt Miles of Lighting Logic; electro-mechanical indent; Studio B under construction
The lifts tune into different channels
Matt Miles of Lighting Logic
Electro-mechanical indent
Studio B under construction
14 before the end. At this point, Lighting Logic thought they would hear no more, only to get a call one day to say they had won the contract. There were a few adjustments to make, such as the need to supply LED lighting rather than tungsten, but as Mick pointed out, this gave them a steep learning curve in new technology and also gained them a great knowledge base in this area.
Matt Miles, also of Lighting Logic, took over and gave us a brief summary of what the BBC now had at its new headquarters: 6,000 staff running nine networks, three 24hour TV channels, 26 foreign-language services, all providing for an audience of 240 million people worldwide. Lighting Logic would be responsible for the lighting, power, hoists and control systems over eight floors of this new building. Working to BD Broadcast, the project systems integrator company, they then spent two years almost living on site getting the system up and running, though not without a few challenges along the way.
As well as being spread over eight floors, the control galleries were two floors above their studio floors. There would be five studios, one of which needed to be flexible, the others were for more dedicated purposes. Studio A is 1,850 sq ft, Studio B 3,150 sq ft, and studios C to E all about 1,500 sq ft.
Lighting Logic was requested to supply LED lighting as part of the BBC’ s green compliance, and also to save on both power and air conditioning. They had to provide ‘ redundancy and resilience ’ . Redundancy meant they had to allow for cable breakdown for studios transmitting 24 hours a day by routing fibres through different routes through the building. Resilience meant that any studio had to be able to be controlled from any gallery. They even had to develop their own hoists for scenery and lighting. The lighting control had to include house lighting and automation, and it all had to have a seamless back-up.
The dedicated studios use a fixed grid arrangement for lighting suspension, but for Studio B – the flexible one – they developed their own self-climbing 1m-wide hoists – all 92 of them. Each hoist comes with fixed power, dimmed power, data in the forms of Ethernet and DMX all routed back to a patch room, sound and video, and even eye bolts for scenery suspension. Each has a rating of 160kg and can be operated from a central position or a remote position. They also have a cup switch like a pole operated light cup that allows for pole operated height adjustment of each hoist. Although it wasn ’t part of the plan, the hoists are likely to become a commercial product in the future.
Lighting control is from a Congo and back-up system in each studio, all networked as previously described. Studio B has the full Congo and the others all have Congo Juniors. Studio B also has a Congo Junior in a wall box for remote
Stuart Gain talks about lighting The One Show
ETC Congo Junior on The One Show
Stuart Gain talks about lighting The One Show.
control, and there is also a Junior on a trolley for moving to any studio as needed. Together with a fader wing, the backup can run the show if necessary and it tracks all the desk operations so it can take over seamlessly. This was not achieved without issues, but with ETC’ s technical support all is now working properly.
It was now time for a tour of the studios, and first stop: The One Show. This programme used to come from BBC White City but had to find a new home as the BBC moved out. The studio is now a room just to the right of the main reception to New BH, with windows overlooking the concourse outside. The lighting designer is Dave Evans, but Stuart Gain is a regular guest LD and he was there to talk us through the studio. As with the previous studio, there is a sofa end – the usual place with presenters and guests chatting –and what they refer to as the ‘blue ’ end, which can be different things in different shows – sometimes a band, sometimes a walk-in or demo area, very often just a place for the regular invited audience or posse. The LED lighting allows for different colour schemes at different times of year and, of course, the occasional effects.
Unlike the last studio, this one is on the ground floor, so people can walk past the windows and be seen, but early fears for unwelcome guest appearances through the window proved unfounded, and thanks to the outside set, the public are kept just far enough away not to be a problem, while still giving the idea of activity.
An ETC Congo junior on The One Show
No expensive voltage-controlled glass in the windows to cope with the different light levels through the seasons here. Instead they just fit 0.6ND from about April to August, and the light levels in the room are adjusted to cope. However, rather than the old method of frames or trying to hide PVC tape at the edges, they have used the new Rosco Window Grip selfadhesive filter. The area outside does not get direct sunlight, so it is not as bad as it might have been at another location.
The main key lighting is from ARRI Lustr L7s, which have proved a great success, and when the level is adjusted to cope with the weather, the colour temperature does not change.
The set is lit by a host of LED products, and there is a set of Martin Exterior 410 wash lights to light the buildings opposite when needed, too. (For a full analysis of The One
New Broadcasting House
The LED-equipped Studio D
Show ’ s lighting, turn to Peter Phillipson ’ s article on p24.)
The studio has proved popular and gets used for more than just The One Show, too, with regular visits from Sunday Live, Film 2014 and even Rogue Traders.
Infrared illumination and infrared cameras in the virtual reality studio
A camera with robotic locator array
We then went back in to the main building where you can overlook the main news floor, with the very familiar news studio set-up we have all seen, and also the weather area. All cameras were robotic pan and tilt as well as tracking.
We went down to –3 floor and looked into Studio D, which is familiar to viewers of the London News opt-out. At first glance you might think this was a tungsten studio from the look of the grid, but all the De Sisti pole-operated units are LED sources. A nice touch is the use of some Lite Panels built into the desk to provide a little cosmetic up-light fill.
Next stop was the Virtual Reality studio. Most people must have seen this sort of operation before, and the green walls and curious camera structures like cheap sci-fi alien head-gear were present, as you would expect. Infrared lighting and infrared cameras process the images reflected from the camera arrays and, together with information from the zoom demands processing equipment, calculates the appropriate backing for the camera shot. Again, all the lighting was energy-saving.
Our last stop on the tour was Studio B, the largest of the complex, and to our surprise, 80 per cent of the lighting was tungsten. On one side is set up a De Sisti Fresnel on a stand to compare the colour, and to match to tungsten on camera
Robert Horne explains the VR system
Robert Horne explains the VR system.
A camera with robotic locator array
Infrared illumination and infrared cameras in the Virtual Reality studio
Studio B grid with tungsten lighting and ventilation ducts New Broadcasting House
Studio B grid with tungsten lighting & ventillation ducts
Studio B’ s production area Jamie Osborne demonstrates the telescopic mount.
Jamie Osborne demonstrates the telescopic mount
Wall-E in action
Studio B's production area
The open-plan gallery in Studio B Wall-E in action
The open-plan gallery in Studio B
Steel banded self-climbing hoists, fitted with DeSisti 2Ks
they had added quarter CTO, even moving lights, including a few Sharpies. As though the LED is classed as tungsten Jamie explained, production might tell you equivalent. The lighting team has they are bringing in a band only at the last worked hard on the scenic LED to get minute – it is just how News works. good red from them – essential as BBC Jamie said he had seen how other News ’ brand colours are red and white departments had headed towards down– and has used half CTO, ND and sizing, with news presenters doing their diffusion to get the desired effect. own sound and even their own camera.
An interesting lighting unit I had not His philosophy is to keep chasing seen before was affectionately known as production to find out what they are Wall-E, for obvious reasons. These LED doing and offer lighting suggestions to help units sit on rechargeable batteries and deliver it. He finds they often aren ’t aware have wireless DMX fitted, making them of what lighting can offer and he tries hard a very easy and flexible addition for to increase awareness. He said he felt that dressing any short-notice location. The sometimes lighting in News got cut off batteries last for about 14 hours, so all from the rest of the lighting community, day in practical terms. and there was nothing more frustrating
Jamie Osborne, Lighting Craft Leader, than seeing News bring in an LD for a explained they tungsten rig as had to fight hard to have a they could not get the light Steel bande DeSisti 2ks d self-climbing hoists fitted with special project that could met in-house. Well, they easily have been certainly have levels required over the distances they the tools for the job now, and we wish had to work over in sufficient quality using them every success in the future. LED. There might be a time when this is not the case, but at the moment they have won the battle to keep tungsten in this one The STLD would like to thank Robert Horne and Jamie Osborne for studio. Even using LED sources as backlights to tungsten keys hosting the meeting; Mick Cocker and Matt Miles of Lighting Logic for proved problematic, which is why so much has ended up as their presentation and for helping to provide the lunch; and Guy Saich tungsten lighting. for his fascinating insight into the history of Broadcasting House.
There is quite a healthy rig in the studio, too, even some For more about Lighting Logic visit www.lightinglogic.co.uk
