ITV News - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: ITV News (/showthread.php?tid=166)

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RE: ITV News - JMT1985 - 03-06-2023

(03-06-2023, 06:25 PM)chris Wrote:  I thought it became totally green screen with the relaunch of News at Ten in 2008, and they created the platform virtually.

Not from what I heard from someone who worked there from 2005 to 2015 - he said the platform was real but movable, so for News at Ten, you could have the complete curved backdrop and just the desk platform in the middle. 

And then came February 2009 when the turned all the other bulletins into the same style as the News at Ten set, so the platform for walking was removed altogether.

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RE: ITV News - Stuart - 03-06-2023

(03-06-2023, 07:08 PM)thomalex Wrote:  I must admit I had no idea the studio was entirely green screen. I knew some of it was but assumed the pillars/walls and the wall with the screen were all physically there with the green screen just filling in the newsroom windows. It's very convincing!

They had an entirely VR studio from the time when the ITV News Channel was still around up until 2005. About an hour before the national bulletins from the 'Theatre of News', they would decamp to the fully VR studio which included the obviously fake platform.

Sometime after the closure of the channel in 2005, they moved the national bulletins into the fully VR studio with a mixture of good and bad virtual set designs.

I always rather liked the one in 2008.

   

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RE: ITV News - JMT1985 - 03-06-2023

In the ITV News Channel era in the "Theatre of News" - the main news studio was based in Studio 2, with Studio 1 the complete green screen VR studio.

As mentioned above, before each national news bulletin from ITV, the news channel would move into Studio 1, which was always a nice way for presentation fans to see if they could spot the difference, and you could.

First the desk was different, a more whiter and brighter desk than the one used in their main studio - also there was no reflection of the video wall on the desk which always signalled that this was Studio 1.

Also I remember they had a problem with the cable connecting the news desk - as Studio 1 was a plain VR studio, they simply plonked a desk in the middle, but the cable which was needed to connect the table was usually "hidden" under a bit of cloth which stood out like a sore thumb on screen.

They also used the ITV London Tonight studio, usually for the 9.30pm - 10.30pm hour at weekdays

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RE: ITV News - Bluecortina - 04-06-2023

(03-06-2023, 05:46 PM)AaronLancs Wrote:  Am the the only one who is riveted with this sort of discussion? Just me then.

Also, given the shots of the studio being a green screen environ. Has it always been a green screen since 2004 or has a blue screen been used.

I was never a fan of green screen as opposed to blue. It always seemed to be blue then for some reason green seemed to become flavour of the month. In analogue terms blue gives the largest signal for the keying equipment to work with (chromakey etc works on colour-difference signals not the actual colour itself) and green pretty much gives the smallest so I never really quite knew why the change. Of course today’s cameras are more sensitive overall and digital signal processing techniques have transformed what can be done.

But of course nothing is perfect, we were watching NaT the other night with Julie wearing a pale pink jacket and as I pointed out to my wife - I’m afraid the green spill has caught them out again with a distinct green tinge down the right hand side of the jacket. Very subtle but it was there and probably only me at home noticed! Lens flare etc is the devil of a job to control in small studios with lots of uniform background colour, I often sense Tom Bradby’s face colour is unnaturally pink rather than ‘Coco the clown’ brown as as a result of excessive flare correction. Needs must I suppose.

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RE: ITV News - Bluecortina - 04-06-2023

(01-06-2023, 10:43 PM)London Lite Wrote:  No, they replaced it with recorded footage from before they left the South Bank.

Just for your info, when ITN first took over ITV’s local news provision in London a camera was installed at 2nd floor level on the NE corner of the building to feed a live picture of St Paul’s etc over to GIR. I think ITN had some rudimentary control over it. At South Bank we were occasionally asked if we could nip out to it and get rid of spiders etc. I’m sure they had a DVD back up too.

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RE: ITV News - mcrdev - 04-06-2023

(04-06-2023, 09:46 AM)Bluecortina Wrote:  I was never a fan of green screen as opposed to blue. It always seemed to be blue then for some reason green seemed to become flavour of the month. In analogue terms blue gives the largest signal for the keying equipment to work with (chromakey etc works on colour-difference signals not the actual colour itself) and green pretty much gives the smallest so I never really quite knew why the change. Of course today’s cameras are more sensitive overall and digital signal processing techniques have transformed what can be done.

I was taught blue was the preferred colour in analogue composite days as it was the smallest contributor to most skin and hair tones, allowing for a better key. The switch to green came with analogue component as there is more detail available in the derived green signal than would be in the blue signal - the benefits of the extra detail outweighing the more challenging key generation required.

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RE: ITV News - Stuart - 04-06-2023

(04-06-2023, 09:46 AM)Bluecortina Wrote:  I was never a fan of green screen as opposed to blue. It always seemed to be blue then for some reason green seemed to become flavour of the month.

I thought that originally with the introduction of colour TV, they tended to use yellow as a CSO key for background screen inserts. Then it was changed to blue, then later to green as there is a greater contrast to the talent if it's surrounding them entirely.

Of course, you can use any primary colour as a key. ITN used to have a red background curtain option for CSO purposes when they first moved NaT into the basement from Studio 3. I don't know if they ever used it, but I've seen a picture that shows one was present. I'll look for it.

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RE: ITV News - Spencer - 04-06-2023

Could the move to green rather than blue screen have mainly been because people tend to wear more blue clothes than green ones, so it creates fewer wardrobe issues?

I remember when BBC Weather initially switched to green while at TVC, the quality of the keying looked really poor in comparison to when they were using blue.

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RE: ITV News - Stuart - 04-06-2023

While looking for a picture of a red CSO curtain option in one of the basement NaT studios at GIR I found this lovely video from much later. It's a bit fab from a pres point of view for me.

I never understood why it didn't last long. The daytime and evening news also had a different virtual set background colour and character . . . why did someone think a vitual underground car park was better?

This was the last one from this virtual set, and they did a lovely sweep of the VR environment at the end. I'm sure this is a copy of my own recording that I posted on YT, but hey, who cares as it's safely stored on TVL.

https://youtu.be/_S_G3FTWuko 

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RE: ITV News - bilky asko - 04-06-2023

(04-06-2023, 09:46 AM)Bluecortina Wrote:  I was never a fan of green screen as opposed to blue. It always seemed to be blue then for some reason green seemed to become flavour of the month. In analogue terms blue gives the largest signal for the keying equipment to work with (chromakey etc works on colour-difference signals not the actual colour itself) and green pretty much gives the smallest so I never really quite knew why the change. Of course today’s cameras are more sensitive overall and digital signal processing techniques have transformed what can be done.

I'm sure I've read before (likely on TV Forum) that digital camera sensors are much more sensitive to green, making it the better colour over blue for keying, and being part of making it easier to light.

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