BBC Studioworks invests in post-production technology to support the glittering Strictly Come Dancing double whammy.
BBC Studioworks is providing studio facilities, post production services, and technical support for the award-winning celebrity dance show, Strictly Come Dancing and its companion show, Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two.
Strictly Come Dancing 2017
Returning to Elstree
Having supported Strictly Come Dancing since its inception, Studioworks has welcomed the fifteenth series of the major BBC One flagship Saturday night show back to its Elstree production hub. For the fifth consecutive year, the production will be hosted in the UK’s largest gallery-served stage, George Lucas Stage 2. The impressive 15,825 sq. ft. production space specialises in large-scale TV productions, comfortably housing the iconic 360-degree ballroom set and 750-strong live audience.
Studioworks will run a tried-and-tested technical workflow for the award-winning show, featuring a 11 camera set-up, including one 30’ MovieBird Technocrane, four pedestal cameras, a radio Steadicam, and four handheld/lightweight tripod cameras.
Studioworks’ Elstree post production facility, a scalable editing complex with 11 Avid Symphony suites dedicated to the show, meets the fast turnaround and varied editing requirements – handling up to 100 hours of training material each week. Rushes will be ingested, logged, edited, reviewed, and incorporated into the Saturday night shows. The results show is recorded on Saturday nights, and edited through the night and Sunday mornings for delivery on Sunday afternoons, ready for the early evening transmission on BBC One.
It Takes Two – Tapeless recording and shared storage solutions
It Takes Two, Strictly’s weekday sister show, will make history this year as it becomes the first show to transmit live from Studioworks’ newly reopened studio and post production facility at Television Centre, in London’s White City.
The 60 episodes of It Takes Two will be based out of the state-of-the-art Studio TC2, boasting a 3,340 sq. ft. production space to support a multi-camera set up, the dazzling set, and a 40-member audience which joins its hour-long Friday show.
During the Television Centre revamp, Studioworks upgraded to a complete tapeless and R128 compliant transmission chain, which allows for seamless connectivity and workflow streams between Television Centre and Elstree.
It Takes Two present Zoe Ball
It Takes Two will be recorded via Studioworks’ new EVS XS4K tapeless recording system, allowing the pre-recorded Tuesday night shows to be streamed in real time to a new 180TB Avid Nexis shared storage facility at Studioworks’ Elstree post production village. Posterity AS-11 recordings of live transmissions will be processed through a Vidchecker AQC system before being delivered to the BBC Archive.
VT content for It Takes Two will be edited alongside material for Strictly Come Dancing at Elstree and will be delivered to TC2 at Television Centre via diverse HD Baseband video line connectivity. Extra resilience is provided using ‘Send to playback’ file transfer by which content is sent via network infrastructure to the studio EVS.
“Our recent move to tapeless recording will maximise our clients’ valuable editing time and provide them with a secure and efficient solution in areas such as ingest and back-up. The market is increasingly moving away from tape technology, so this future-proofs productions that we facilitate at Television Centre,” said John O’Callaghan, Head of Studios and Post Production at BBC Studioworks.
The new series of Strictly Come Dancing premieres on BBC One on Saturday 9 September with the highly-anticipated pairing of the celebrities and their professional dance partners. The first live episode of It Takes Two kicks off on Monday 25 September.
