[AaronLancs]

Ah, the thing on the far left hand column at the end of the screen. Gotcha. I was looking at the monolith and wondering what you were on about.

[Spencer]

A nice little look around the studio here, giving a sense of how much space there is around the set.

x.com 

Quite a contrast to similar videos we’ve seen of smaller studios with the new set.

[interestednovice]

It looks great, and nice to see that there is plenty of flexibility for the future as the camera area is spacious enough to allow for a variety of different shots and movement of the cameras as required.

I was slightly surprised to see that they don’t seem to have any form of backing on the monoliths though; I would have assumed that some kind of panel covering (probably grey to match other set elements) would cover the back, just in case it was ever seen on screen in the future.

[Brekkie]

I thought the backing was quite neat actually compared to some studio screens. It's unlikely it'll ever be seen on screen.

[mcrdev]

There is a back to the monolith covering all the modules and interconnects. It would look a lot messier without that grey panel over the whole thing.

[Earlie37]

Southampton's is more noticeable because of the size of the studio floor; the cameras are set back for long zooms at the top of the programme, as there is space behind them to move (I suspect, but don't quote me) the new set is installed at 90 degrees to the previous one to give as much space behind the cameras as is possible.

Russ' video gives this away but the set is the same orientation as the old one. Just having an extra metre space from the set makes a massive difference on screen. It's possible to go crazy and open the studio doors to go even further back into the set storage area but there isn't really any need  

You'll also note all the tape marks to line up the cameras with specified shots from the official guide.

You may also have noticed that the screen from the old set is also being recycled to make a useful monitor for the crew as it's only a couple of years old.

[interestednovice]

There is a back to the monolith covering all the modules and interconnects. It would look a lot messier without that grey panel over the whole thing.

Oh so that is a back, I wasn’t sure if it was just the frame. Presumably they do need the vents to stop the screens/equipment overheating, so possibly there isn’t any way to make it neater.

It’s not that it looks bad, I realise I’m nit picking, but it is very much “behind the scenes” in appearance despite being part of the set. So you can pretty much never use the area behind the monolith in-shot on any of the new sets as it wouldn’t look right.

[Stuart]

A nice little look around the studio here, giving a sense of how much space there is around the set.

x.com 

Quite a contrast to similar videos we’ve seen of smaller studios with the new set.

Good find, thanks Spencer.

I suspect this is how Plymouth will look as they also have a similar sized studio and a lighting rig of the same height.

It all just seems such a waste of studio space around the outside of the set in some of these larger regional studios. It's not as though they're renting the space by the square foot - they own them, so why not use it to the maximum!

[AaronTV]

I think the only slightly disappointing thing about these sets are the quality of the ‘photo’ backdrops, which seem to look pretty dreary or blurry.

I guess you are always going to have this issue when blowing up edited footage/stills of a real backdrop across three large screens.

I wonder if they could have looked at something similar to Laura Kuenssberg’s show for each region, some kind of graphic based background with landmarks from each region? That way you don’t have to pick one backdrop from a huge region that will cover many different areas, the backdrop would reflect the whole region instead without being geographically accurate.

[mcrdev]

It all just seems such a waste of studio space around the outside of the set in some of these larger regional studios. It's not as though they're renting the space by the square foot - they own them, so why not use it to the maximum!

LED wall is expensive. High resolution with long intended life even more so.

Clearly the powers that be are trying to make a more uniform look across the regions (something that has been demanded on this forum and it's predecessors for many years). If this standard size is good enough in Leeds or Norwich, why should Plymouth and Southampton get significantly more money spent on their sets to make the same programme?