Camera Guides
How to Plan a Three-Camera Studio Setup From Scratch
A step-by-step guide to specifying, rigging and checking a three-camera studio setup for a programme or presentation, written by the supervisor who sets these rigs up.
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Guides
Guides
Practical notes on studio cameras, lighting, audio and production workflow, written by the people who rig and run these systems.
Our guides cover the everyday decisions behind television programmes, live broadcasts and media events. They are written to be read before a shoot, and a new one appears about once a day.
Audio Engineering
Audio Engineering Checklist: What to Settle Before You Commit to a Sound Plan
A working checklist for producers weighing up audio support for a programme or live event: the questions about rooms, microphones, monitoring and handover that are worth answering before anyone is
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Interview Studio
Six Mistakes in Interview and Portrait Studio Setups, and How to Avoid Them
Most weak interview footage comes from a handful of avoidable setup errors: light too hard, eyelines off, backgrounds crowded.
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Lighting costs
What Broadcast Lighting Design Costs and What Moves the Price
A plain account of how lighting design for studio sets and event stages is priced, which decisions raise or lower the cost, and what to settle before you ask for a quotation.
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Customer case
What a gallery review changed for one regional programme team
A short account of Marcus, a producer whose weekly programme kept losing time between recording and handover, and what a written workflow review turned up in the gallery and the file chain.
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Live Events
Preparing Live Event Production for the Darker Months Ahead
Practical seasonal advice on vision mixing, graphics and signal routing for live broadcasts and media events as the evenings draw in, with checks worth making before the winter calendar fills.
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Trade Terms
What "Camera Matching" Means in a Multi-Camera Studio, Plainly Put
Camera matching is one of the most used phrases in a gallery and one of the least explained. Here is what it covers, why it matters and how we check it before a recording.
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Audio Engineering
Lavalier or Boom: Choosing Microphones for Studio Speech
A plain comparison of radio lavalier microphones and overhead boom microphones for studio programmes, with the situations where each works best and the option we usually recommend.
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Interview Studio
Behind the Scenes of a Compact Interview Studio Setup
How a small interview or portrait set is actually lit and framed, from the first walk-through to the final check on the monitor, told from the lighting desk.
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Lighting
Why Does My Studio Look Flat on Camera Even With Plenty of Light?
The question we hear most about lighting: a set can be bright and still look dull on screen. Helen Marsh explains where the problem usually sits and what to change first.
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Company news
What our workflow and gallery reviews now include
Our Workflow and Gallery Consulting service now closes every review with a written action list, ordered by how much each change helps your next production. Here is how the review runs.
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Live production
What we rely on to run a live broadcast gallery
A look at the vision mixer, graphics machine and signal routing we use on live event work, and why we choose them for clarity and recovery rather than novelty.
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Camera Checklist
A Checklist Before You Commit to a Multi-Camera Studio Setup
Priya Nair, our lighting designer, walks through the questions to settle before you decide on studio camera systems, from set size and lens choice to light levels and crew.
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Audio Engineering
Six Audio Mistakes That Cost Clean Speech on Air and in the Room
Daniel Frost goes through the audio errors he sees most often on studio and event shoots, from microphone placement to monitoring, and how to avoid each one.
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Costs
What an Interview Studio Setup Costs and What Moves the Price
A plain breakdown of what goes into the price of a compact interview or portrait studio setup: kit, crew time, set size and the choices that raise or lower the total.
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Customer story
A Lighting Plan Rebuilt Around One Presenter's Desk
Daniel Frost recounts how a regional programme maker, Marcus, came to rework the lighting on a small studio set, and what the new plan changed for the camera.
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