Practical write-ups on studios, cameras, lighting, sound and live workflows, written by the people who do the work.
Our guides explain how studios, camera systems, lighting rigs and audio chains behave in daily use. New pieces appear about once a day, each aimed at engineers and producers who want clear, usable detail.
Camera Control
A practical guide to preparing a control room, matching cameras and setting remote heads, so pictures stay consistent from the first rehearsal to the last minute of a live show.
Workflow Audits
Priya Nair sets out the questions worth answering before you ask anyone to review your production chain, so the written audit you receive is useful from the first page.
Live Events
Most live production problems begin on paper, weeks before doors open. These are the planning mistakes we see most often in signal flow, crew roles and rehearsals, with plain ways to avoid each.
Sound
A plain look at how sound engineering advice is priced for television and live work, and which choices on your side raise or lower the figure on the quotation.
Case story
Dan needed a compact news studio in a rented unit with a low ceiling and a loud neighbour. This is how the layout, acoustics and cabling plan came together over one autumn project.
Lighting
As daylight shortens and the winter schedule fills, Priya Nair sets out how to plan studio and event lighting now, before rigs are loaded and rehearsal time runs short.
Camera Control
A plain-words look at shading, one of the trade's most used terms: what the person at the control unit actually changes, and why matched pictures matter across a whole show.
Workflow Audits
Two ways to examine a production chain, a review run by your own crew and a written audit from outside, compared for cost, candour and follow-through, with a clear recommendation.
Live Workflow
A look behind the scenes at how we turn a running order into signal flow diagrams, crew roles and a rehearsal schedule that a live production can actually follow.
Sound Guides
The question we hear most from producers: how to pick microphones and monitoring when speech and audience sound share one space. Callum Reid sets out the answers we give.
Studio Design
A look at how we approach studio design work in these weeks: what the layout, acoustic and cabling plans cover, and what we ask producers to settle before drawings begin.
Lighting Design
A look at the instruments, measuring gear and drawing methods behind our studio and live lighting plans, and why each one earns its place on the survey day and in the final paper.
Camera Control
Hannah Whitlock sets out the questions to settle on shading, remote heads and control room layout before choosing a camera control set-up, so pictures stay consistent from first rehearsal to the last
Workflow Audits
Audits often fail before the review begins: wrong scope, missing crew input, no rehearsal data. Priya Nair sets out the common errors and how to avoid each one.
Pricing
A plain account of how we price workflow planning for live productions: what the fee covers, which parts of an event push it up or down, and what to have ready before you ask.
Case Story
Callum Reid recounts a visit to a community choir recording in a stone-walled hall, and how small changes to microphones and monitoring made the sound usable for broadcast.
Studio Design
With shorter days and heavier schedules ahead, Priya Nair sets out what to check in your studio layout, cabling and acoustics before the winter run of programmes begins.
