Broadcast Sport speaks to Sky Sports’ director of creative output, Ben Wickham, about the studio, which will also be used on other major rights.“What we’re trying to do is show people something they haven’t seen before.”Sky Sports’ director of creative output, Ben Wickham has high hopes for its latest studio, which will debut with its flagship football programme, Monday Night Football, on 14 August. Manchester United will face Wolves in the Premier League that evening, and Wickham believes that viewers at home will have a new experience of the popular show.“If you’re watching Man Utd v Wolves, the studio will feel like Man Utd v Wolves. It won’t be a match caption in a Monday Night Football studio, it will live and breathe the colours of the teams but still have that overall Monday Night Football feel to it,” he told Broadcast Sport. This will be achieved through a completely new facility, that combines a virtual studio, LED volumes, and of course the now expected tactics board. There is also perhaps the most eye-catching addition, an LED screen in the floor, which can also be used by pundits for analysis and in combination with augmented reality graphics on top of it.It’s also important to note that while the studio will be Monday Night Football’s home, it will also be used for other sports such as tennis’ US Open next month - as well as other football programming such as Saturday Night Football.Pundits and presenters across these productions have been getting used to the new space over the last few months, with a movement coach, Polly Bennett, brought into make sure that they know how to use it. The studio allows for a more active presence, rather than sitting down throughout the shows - although that is also possible if desired.Wickham explained the thinking behind this, “Nev (Gary Neville), Carra (Jamie Carragher), Tim Henman and Martina [Navratilova], the people we have, they’re athletes and they’re used to being physical and moving. That’s how they tell their stories.“I wanted them to be able to do that. They’re not always sitting behind a desk or on a sofa. There’s a space for that, but there’s also a place for being more physical and kinetic.”The plethora of LED screens also allow for new visuals for analysis and more. Wickham said, “You have a big wide expanse to show things. We’ve also got a central screen which is a very standard aspect ratio, which we can integrate with the the floor to show video footage or analysis.“There are also portrait totems which allow you to do tables and teamsheets and hero photography. They’re all LED but they feel very different. They allow you to tell different stories in different ways.”Other new options are thanks to the virtual studio, which brings in a “fourth wall. which is a set extension to the back of the set so the camera can spin right the way around. At the moment we’re going to use that for promotional content.This area will be utilised more fully for the US Open. “We’re going to build out some of the Arthur Ashe Stadium in there as well, so that that will become over time a space where we can create really interesting and innovative set extensions and AR graphics.”The ceiling is also part of the studio, looking like day or night, or showing weather, depending on the conditions where the sport is taking place. Wickham described it as a “nod to sport architecture,” and believes it will make the viewer more immersed in the event.This brings flexibilty, while aiming to keep an identity to the studio, Wickham hopes. “Hopefully we’ve got the balance right and it’s neutral enough that we can keep making every sport look different year-on-year, but it still needs to be distinctively Sky Sports.“If we were to rebrand a show, it would feel like the rebrand not the studio. We’ll be very different for Saturday Night Football, and the US Open will be different again.”All this will be seen through five Grass Valley LDX 86n cameras, or a wire supported camera, the BatCam. Wickham added, “We can now fly a camera in and out of it, and drop in and use some of those amazing shots that you get a lot on entertainment shows or, crucially, in sports stadiums.”The famous touchscreen has also been upgraded with new data, and the added ability to create virtual replays within ten seconds of the action happening. This allows the viewer to see a play from any angle, which was possible before but took too long to generate to be useful mid-match.It’s taken Sky Sports 18 months since the concept was first created to bring this studio to life, with Wickham collaborating with Sky Italy on the project. Certain aspects have taken inspiration from the Italian branch’s own studio.The build itself took three months and the rest of the time was to, “give ourselves the time to learn the technology and what we’re doing, and also upskill the people who are in the camera team, the craft team, the production team.” The last three months have been testing and rehearsing with the studio.Monday Night Football will be using a crew of 28 with the studio, with smaller productions able to scale down to 20.After all this work, Sky Sports won’t want to be changing things up again any time soon, and Wickham explained that a lot of effort has gone into making sure the facility is as futureproofed as it can be. “We’re pretty confident that there’s nothing coming into the industry, whether that’s sports or cinema or anything, that we can’t do. Certainly for the next couple of years. We’re buying stuff that come manufacturers are actually struggling to work with, because it’s a bit too new for them.”Perhaps even more importantly, the creative side also won’t be exhausted any time soon. “I don’t think we’ll get bored at that studio visually for some time as well, because it’s designed so that it can, almost ad infinitum, keep changing and adjusting. We can change the canopy, the walls, the colours, the floor.”Overall Wickham has aimed to bring something novel to Sky Sports’ new presentation space. “We are using the technologies that we’ve had before, but bringing that to them in a way that hopefully is exciting and joyful, and genuinely does something that that you haven’t been able to see before.”Viewers will now be able to judge for themselves if that’s been successful.
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