STUDIO FACILITIES INDUS TRY.
NEW TECH In partnership with Arri, Roe’s demo studio is built for testing the LED and camera behaviour
Studio, studio, where art thou studios?
We look at how studios across the UK, and beyond, are evolving to sate the demand for more and more content
WORDS. Chelsea Fearnley
T he production landscape is from streaming giants. This is especially being felt in the UK, which is currently packed with Hollywood productions, including Mission: Impossible 7 , Indiana Jones 5 and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ; and TV productions such as Dungeons & Dragons, The Witcher and Star Wars: Andor. Netflix and Disney, two major users of British film infrastructure, have struck long-term deals with two cornerstone UK film studios – Shepperton and Pinewood, respectively. The so-called ‘golden age of content viewing’ was further supercharged during the pandemic, as people were changing – or it needs to if it’s going to keep up with the ever- increasing demand for new content
confined to their homes, with not much else to do. During the height of lockdown in the UK, it was revealed that Britons spent 40% of their waking hours watching TV and there were nine million new subscribers to Netflix, Amazon and Disney+. Lockdown viewing also helped make the BBC’s Line of Duty the most- watched drama this century. However, the shutdown of studio productions for extended periods of time means that TV companies are now struggling to keep their libraries stocked with fresh content, resulting in an unprecedented boom in demand for studio space. “Pressure to secure studios and filming space is even more competitive than usual,” confirms Grace Downer, marketing, PR and events manager at Elstree Studios.
37. NOVEMBER 2021
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