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Home , Production control room

Television studio A is an installation in which television or video productions take place, either for , for recording live to tape, or for the acquisition of raw footage for post- production. The design of a studio is similar to, and derived from, movie studios, with a few amendments for the special requirements of television production. A professional television studio generally has several rooms, which are kept separate for noise and practicality reasons. These rooms are connected via , and personnel will be divided among these workplaces. Studio floor

The studio floor is the actual on which the actions that will be recorded take place. A studio floor has the following characteristics and installations:

• decoration and/or sets • cameras (sometimes one, usually several) on pedestals • • lighting rigs and the associated controlling equipment. • several video monitors for visual feedback from the production control room • a small public address system for communication • A glass window between PCR and studio floor for direct visual contact is usually desired, but not always possible

While a production is in progress, the following people work in the studio floor.

• The on-screen "talent" themselves, and any guests - the subjects of the show. • A floor director or floor manager, who has overall charge of the studio area, and who relays timing and other information from the director. • One or more camera operators who operate the television cameras, though in some instances these can also be operated from PCR using remote heads. • Possibly a teleprompter , especially if this is a news broadcast Production-control room

The production control room (PCR), also known as the "gallery" or Studio Control Room (SCR), is the place in a television studio in which the composition of the outgoing program takes place. Facilities in a PCR include:

• A video monitor wall, with monitors for program, preview, VTRs, cameras, graphics and other video sources. In some facilities, the monitor wall is a series of racks containing physical television and computer monitors; in others, the monitor wall has been replaced with a virtual monitor wall (sometimes called a "glass cockpit"), one or more large video screens, each capable of displaying multiple sources in a simulation of a monitor wall. • A , a large control panel used to select the video sources to be seen on air and, in many cases, in any monitors on the set. The term 'vision mixer' is primarily used in Europe, while the term 'switcher' is usually used in North America. • An audio and other audio equipment such as effects devices. • A , which creates the majority of the names and full screen graphics that are inserted into the program • Digital video effects, or DVE, for manipulation of video sources. In newer vision mixers, the DVE is integrated into the vision mixer; older models without built-in DVE's can often control external DVE devices, or an external DVE can be manually run by an operator. • A still store, or still frame, device for storage of graphics or other images. While the name suggests that the device is only capable of storing still images, newer still stores can store moving video clips. • The 's station, with waveform monitors, vectorscopes and the CCUs or remote control panels for the CCUs. • In some facilities, VTRs may also be located in the PCR, but are also often found in the central machine room • Intercom and IFB equipment for communication with talent and crew Master-control room

The room houses equipment that is too noisy or runs too hot for the production control room. It also makes sure that wire lengths and installation requirements keep within manageable lengths, since most high-quality wiring runs only between devices in this room. This can include:

• The actual circuitry and connection boxes of the vision mixer, DVE and character generator devices • camera control units • VTRs • patch panels for reconfiguration of the wiring between the various pieces of equipment.

In a broadcast station in the US, master control room or "MCR" is the place where the on-air signal is controlled. It may include controls to play back programs and commercials, switch local or network feeds, record satellite feeds and monitor the transmitter(s), or these items may be in an adjacent equipment rack room. The term "studio" usually refers to a place where a particular local program is originated. If the program is broadcast live, the signal goes from the production control room to MCR and then out to the transmitter. Other facilities

A television studio usually has other rooms with no technical requirements beyond program and audio monitors. Among them are:

• one or more make-up and changing rooms • a reception area for crew, talent, and visitors, commonly called the green room.

Set construction

Set construction is the process by which a set designer works in collaboration with the director of a production to create the set for a theatrical, film or television production. The set designer produces a scale model, scale drawings, paint elevations (a scale painting supplied to the scenic painter of each element that requires painting), and research about props, textures, and so on. Scale drawings typically include a groundplan, elevation, and section of the complete set, as well as more detailed drawings of individual scenic elements which, in theatrical productions, may be static, flown, or built onto scenery wagons. Models and paint elevations are frequently hand-produced, though in recent years, many designers and most commercial theatres have begun producing scale drawings with the aid of computer drafting programs such as AutoCAD or Vectorworks.

The technical director or production manager is the person responsible for evaluating the finished designs and considering budget and time limitations. He or she engineers the scenery, has it redrafted for building, budgets time, crew and materials, and liaisons between the designer and the shop. Technical directors often have assistant technical directors whose duties can range from drafting to actually building scenery.

A scene shop is often overseen by a shop foreman or master carpenter. This person assigns tasks, does direct supervision of carpenters, and deals with day-to-day matters such as absences, breaks, tool repair, etc. The staff of a scene shop is usually referred to as scenic carpenters, but within that there are many specialities such as plasterers, welders, and scenic stitchers. Scenic painting is a separate aspect of scenic construction, although the scenic painter usually answers to the technical director.

There is also usually another person often referred to as a jack of all trades, or as a Fred-John. He or she doesn't specialize in a particular aspect of construction, but is skilled to some degree in most.

Filming location

A filming location is a place where some or all of a film or television series is produced, in addition to or instead of using sets constructed on a movie studio backlot or soundstage. For example, the television series 24 is filmed primarily on location except for some scenes which are always filmed on the same sets.

On location is a term used to describe the filming on such a real site. The term is often mistakenly believed to mean that the production is being filmed on the actual location in which its story is set, but this is not necessarily the case.

Pros and cons

Location filming has several advantages over filming on a studio set:

• It can be cheaper than constructing large sets • The illusion of reality can be stronger - it is hard to replicate real-world wear-and-tear, and architectural details • It sometimes allows the use of cheaper non-union labor or to bypass a work stoppage in the US. Canadian locations such as Vancouver and Toronto are known for this. • It sometimes allows "frozen" currency to be used. The 1968 movie Kelly's Heroes was filmed in Yugoslavia using profits that had been made on movie exhibitions in that country but couldn't be exported. Its disadvantages include:

• A lack of control over the environment - passing aircraft, traffic, pedestrians, bad weather, city regulations, etc. • Finding a real-world location which exactly matches the requirements of the script • Members of the audience may be familiar with a real-world location used to double as a fictional location (such as Rumble in the Bronx inexplicably showing the mountains outside Vancouver in the background of an urban Bronx-set scene) • Taking a whole film crew to film on location can be extremely expensive

Location filming can provide significant economic development benefit to an area because local cast and crew use facilities such as catering and accommodation.

Practicalities

Location filming usually requires a , and locations are usually chosen by a Location Scout. Many popular locations, such as New York City in the United States, and the Isle of Man in the United Kingdom, have dedicated film offices to encourage location filming, and to suggest appropriate locations to film-makers.

In many cases a second unit is dispatched to film location scenes, with a second unit director and sometimes with stand-in actors. These locations shots can then be edited into the final film or TV program alongside studio-shot sequences, to give an authentic flavour, without the expense or trouble of a full-scale location shoot. NYPD Blue, for example, was filmed primarily in Los Angeles, but used second unit footage of New York City for colour, as well as featuring a small number of episodes filmed on location with the cast

Chroma key

Chroma key compositing (or chroma keying) is a technique for compositing two images or frames together in which a color (or a small color range) from one image is removed (or made transparent), revealing another image behind it. This technique is also referred to as color keying, colour-separation overlay (CSO; primarily by the BBC[1]), greenscreen, and bluescreen. It is commonly used for weather forecast broadcasts, wherein the presenter appears to be standing in front of a large map, but in the studio it is actually a large blue or green background. The meteorologist stands in front of a bluescreen, and then different weather maps are added on those parts in the image where the color is blue. If the meteorologist wears blue clothes, his clothes will become replaced with the background video. This also works for greenscreens, since blue and green are considered the colors least like skin tone.[2] This technique is also used in the entertainment industry, the iconic theatre shots in Mystery Science Theater 3000, for example.

The process

The principal subject is filmed or photographed against a background consisting of a single color or a relatively narrow range of colors, usually blue or green because these colors are considered to be the furthest away from skin tone.[2] The portions of the video which match the preselected color are replaced by the alternate background video. This process is commonly known as "keying", "keying out" or simply a "key". Green is currently used as a backdrop more than any other color because image sensors in digital video cameras are most sensitive to green, due to the Bayer pattern allocating more pixels to the green channel, mimicking the human eye's increased sensitivity to green light.[5] Therefore, the green camera channel contains the least "noise" and can produce the cleanest key/matte/mask. Additionally, less light is needed to illuminate green, again because of the higher sensitivity to green in image sensors.[6] Bright green has also become favored as a blue background may match a subject's eye color or common items of clothing, such as jeans, or a dark-navy suit.

Blue was used before digital keying became commonplace because it was necessary for the optical process, but it needed more illumination than green. However, it is also further in the visual spectrum from red, the predominant color in human skin.

The most important factor for a key is the color separation of the foreground (the subject) and background (the screen) – a bluescreen will be used if the subject is predominately green (for example plants), despite the camera being more sensitive to green light.

In analog color TV, color is represented by the phase of the chroma subcarrier relative to a reference oscillator. Chroma key is achieved by comparing the phase of the video to the phase corresponding to the preselected color. In-phase portions of the video are replaced by the alternate background video.

In digital color TV, color is represented by three numbers (red, green, blue). Chroma key is achieved by a simple numerical comparison between the video and the preselected color. If the color at a particular point on the screen matches (either exactly, or in a range), then the video at that point is replaced by the alternate background video. Clothing

A chroma key subject must not wear clothing similar in color to the chroma key color(s) (unless intentional), because the clothing may be replaced with the background video. An example of intentional use of this is when an actor wears a blue covering over a part of his body to make it invisible in the final shot. This technique can be used to achieve an effect similar to that used in the Harry Potter films to create the effect of an invisibility cloak. The actor can also be filmed against a chroma key background and inserted into the background shot with a distortion effect in order to create a cloak that is marginally detectable.[7]

Difficulties emerge with bluescreen when a costume in an effects shot must be blue, such as Superman's traditional blue outfit. In the 2002 film Spider-Man, in scenes where both Spider- Man and the Green Goblin are in the air, Spider-Man had to be shot in front of the greenscreen and the Green Goblin had to be shot in front of a bluescreen, because Spider-Man wears a costume which is red and blue in color and the goblin wears a costume which is entirely green in color. If both were shot in front of same screen, one character would have been partially erased from the shot. Background Blue is generally used for both weather maps and special effects because it is complementary to human skin tone. The use of blue is also tied to the fact that the blue emulsion layer of film has the finest crystals and thus good detail and minimal grain (in comparison to the red and green layers of the emulsion.) In the digital world, however, green has become the favored color because digital cameras retain more detail in the green channel and it requires less light than blue. Green not only has a higher luminance value than blue but also in early digital formats the green channel was sampled twice as often as the blue, making it easier to work with. The choice of color is up to the effects artists and the needs of the specific shot. In the past decade, the use of green has become dominant in film special effects. Also, the green background is favored over blue for outdoors filming where the blue sky might appear in the frame and could accidentally be replaced in the process. Although green and blue are the most common, any color can be used. Red is usually avoided due to its prevalence in normal human skin pigments, but can be often used for objects and scenes which do not involve people.

Occasionally, a magenta background is used, as in some software applications where the magenta or fuchsia key value #FF00FF is sometimes referred to as "magic pink".[8]

With better imaging and hardware, many companies are avoiding the confusion often experienced by weather presenters, who must otherwise watch themselves on a monitor to see the image shown behind them, by lightly projecting a copy of the background image onto the blue/green screen. This allows the presenter to accurately point and look at the map without referring to monitors.

A newer technique is to use a retroreflective curtain in the background, along with a ring of bright LEDs around the camera lens. This requires no light to shine on the background other than the LEDs, which use an extremely small amount of power and space unlike big stage lights, and require no rigging. This advance was made possible by the invention of practical blue LEDs in the 1990s, which also allow for emerald green LEDs.

There is also a form of color keying that uses light spectrum invisible to human eye. Called Thermo-Key, it uses infrared as the key color, which would not be replaced by background image during postprocessing.[9][10] Even lighting

The biggest challenge when setting up a bluescreen or greenscreen is even lighting and the avoidance of shadow, because it is best to have as narrow a color range as possible being replaced. A shadow would present itself as a darker color to the camera and might not register for replacement. This can sometimes be seen in low-budget or live broadcasts where the errors cannot be manually repaired. The material being used affects the quality and ease of having it evenly lit. Materials which are shiny will be far less successful than those that are not. A shiny surface will have areas that reflect the lights making them appear pale, while other areas may be darkened. A matte surface will diffuse the reflected light and have a more even color range. In order to get the cleanest key from shooting greenscreen it is necessary to create a value difference between the subject and the greenscreen. In order to differentiate the subject and screen a two-stop difference can be used, either by making the greenscreen two stops higher than the subject or vice versa. Sometimes a shadow can be used to create a special effect. Areas of the bluescreen or greenscreen with a shadow on them can be replaced with a darker version of the desired background video image, making it look like the person casting the shadow is actually casting a shadow on the background image instead.

Another common, related, problem is lighting the subjects in a manner that is complementary to the scene being keyed in behind. Attention has to be paid to matching the direction of lighting and the color balance in the background. Any spill of the chroma key color will make the result look unnatural. Even a difference in the focal length of the lenses used can affect the success of chromakey