RHS CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW | BROADCAST STORY
The challenges of an OB usually lie around physical restrictions of the site itself IMAGES Timeline TV provided OB facilities for the BBC’s production of this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show. “The challenges of an OB usually lie around physical restrictions of the site itself eg. space and access for OB vehicles and crew, cabling in and around public areas, weather which can affect kit, always looking out for safety and making sure that things are kept safe as the event progresses and things change. There would be several planning and progress meetings for events such as the Chelsea Flower Show or the Royal Wedding. “After the planning and progress meetings with other stakeholders there is internal company logistics and external supplier planning that needs to be carried out. The amount of effort involved here is usually directly proportional to the complexity of the venue or the production. After the planning comes the technical preparation which again might be nothing other than what is done on site for routine OBs but scales up with the complexity of the production.”
THE FULL MONTY One of the things that Timeline particularly prides itself on is provision of full facilities for large scale events, such as the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show, one of the BBC’s biggest annual OBs. Timeline Television took over the OB contract for the show this year and provided all of the facilities, where previous OB providers typically brought in other companies to look after RF, talkback and edit systems. “The numbers of people we might use on a typical OB scales with the complexity of the job, number of cameras, sound sources/destinations, GFX commitments and EVS machines and hours of operation,” says Martin Sexton, Timeline TV’s Unit Manager. “Very long days sometimes have to be double crewed. Without counting production staff or talent, I would usually expect a ‘large’ OB to have 30-50 staff on site, but it can go into hundreds.
Projects undertaken in recent times include RF facilities for the BBC’s Arctic Live , 4K UHD OB truck facilities for BT Sport’s Rugby Tonight , which was the UK’s first regular studio-based UHD programme, and a complete broadcast service around BBC Music Day, a UK-wide annual celebration of music whose aim was to unite communities across different generations. RF facilities and fibre infrastructure were also supplied to the BBC as part of its Glastonbury coverage, while Timeline also provided a large portable production unit and ten RF cameras to deliver live coverage of the Henley Regatta. The production kit also facilitated graphics, commentary and replays from an eight-channel EVS, while the use of drone technology provided amazing live coverage of the event. Timeline has also designed and built studios for the likes of BT Sport in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and Racing UK at Ealing Studios.
DEF I N I T ION | SEPTEMBER 20 1 8 41
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