News time

I was recently, thanks to my buddy Dominic, inside a news channel's studio. Quite an eye opening experience for me. While I had expected a staid, serious and huge place, I actually found a young, vibrant, dynamic hole-in-the wall (figuratively speaking, of course!) and apparent mayhem ruled the roost.

A studio is made up of 3 different sections - there is the ingress room (a place where reporters file all their video reports and where graphics designers make up cool graphs, designs, charts etc), the processing section - where a) someone writes up a script while watching the uncut report b) another person decided on the layout of the video and the graphics c) yet another matches the voiceover to the video d) a whole host of people edit the news item. Finally there is the airtime room, which is connected to live feeds from the studio (panel discussions, commentaries, VJs etc, as well as all to the edited items from the processing section). Incidently this is also the area where the commercials are scheduled in between the news items.

The studio(s) is actually one room with barely standing space for 3 people. Pretty anchors, eminent experts, news anchors are all shot there (on camera!) on a black background. After that the editors in the processing room put these people in front of whatever the appropriate background would be, and voila! you have a wonderful ring-side view of the action.

But what I really admire about the place is the order in seeming pandemonium. People rushing about here and there (1 sec before going live on camera), shouting out stuff and transforming in a moment into grace personified!!
Truly smoke and mirrors stuff...

As always, here are some photos to describe what mere words cannot...