While Spectrecom's charity, university and hotel sector clients continue to benefit from the combined production and studio resource, the four new professionally outfitted sound stages at Waterloo have attracted all the major broadcasters as well as work from feature film and commercials.

The white / green screen fitted studios range in size from 200ft2 to 2,100ft2 and all feature u-shaped cyc walls. There are make-up rooms, green rooms and eight edit suites with FCP and production offices.

However a large amount of the studio's lighting and camera accessories, including track and dolly, tripods and radio mics, was hired in on a case by case basis.

"We were renting the kit as it was needed but as the studio business took off and we were getting a lot busier we realized that we needed to make a decision," explains Managing Director Andrew Greener. "Do we buy the kit outright and tie up all that capital straight away or do we spread the cost and make it easier to budget and forecast on each job?"

Following discussions with Fineline, Greener and fellow directors Sarah Aynesworth and Steve Milton chose the latter route and arranged to buy a complete studio shooting package, including a Sony EX1 camera, under a leasing arrangement organised by Fineline.

"The financial agreement brings down the overall cost and yet we have brand new kit which we will own in three years time," says Greener. "The arrangement is flexible so that we can add further purchases if we need to. Fineline understands what we need and the business we work in, they speak to all of the suppliers and they have helped us to keep the price down."

Greener is a committed environmentalist who has placed corporate responsibility at the centre of the company's activities. For example, he's ensured that the new studio incorporates a wealth of re-used materials and that electrical appliances are as energy efficient as possible, winning a Green Apple Environment Award for Best Practice in the process.

"We do as much as we can to protect the environment," says Greener, whose next investments could be cooler LED lighting and ventilation systems to reduce the studio's carbon emissions.

Recent productions at the Waterloo Film and TV Studios have included trailers for Strictly Come Dancing, DVD bonus extras for the Harry Potter films, and pick up's for An Idiot Abroad.

www.spectrecom.co.uk

Two years of hard work finally paid off for WTS recently as they completed a state of the art studio facility, in the heart of London's West End. In partnership with the Associated Press, WTS's purpose built 12th floor facility is unique in London, claiming the best views at any time of day or night.

First discussed back in 2008, the initial challenge was to find a location fitting AP's particular criteria. Fundamental to these, comments WTS MD Ofir Mor, was a stunning view. "We'd been looking for a while, and as soon as soon as we found this space on the 12th floor of New Zealand House we knew we'd struck gold." Built across the whole floor, there are five HD studios (two 3 camera, one 2 camera and two 1 camera studios) all blessed with stunning and different views of the London skyline.

"For lighter, entertainment based programming we would use the largest space - one of our three camera studios, which has clear views of Horse Guards Parade, Trafalgar Square and the London Eye. Business based programming can opt for the two camera studio with views of the iconic City Buildings including the Gherkin and the Shard. And with one eye on the Royal Wedding, to be on the actual procession route up from Trafalgar Square cannot be a bad thing," adds Mor

Sony HD camera channels, Evertz routing within the studio itself, and high-speed fibre connectivity to AP's Camden Headquarters as well as to BT Tower, give the flexibility to send and receive high quality HD feeds from anywhere in the world. Added to the technical specification of the five studios is a well-equipped green room, a voice over booth, two edit suites and a large hot-desk area for production to work in. Mor comments, "The equipment we required was all top quality HD equipment, but we saved money by not needing a chromakey screen!"

"Funding a complex deal like a studio build from scratch could have been a real headache," comments WTS FD Stephen Foot, "but it turned out to be a straightforward process. It helped that Fineline understands the industry and the market and the equipment."

The result is a busy studio complex, in demand by the world's top broadcasters enjoying first class facilities in Central London. Not bad for two years' work.

www.wtsbroadcast.com

Westminster Live is more than just a pretty face: as well as occupying an enviable position on London's Albert embankment, overlooking Parliament and the river Thames, the company also houses three studios and offers crewing, technical, editing and training facilities.

Westminster Live's Managing Director Victor Nikolaidis explains that his company's location has helped fuel the growth that sent him looking for finance to both expand and upgrade current kit offerings. The company used Fineline to finance the purchase of two Sony PDW 700 cameras, as well as the Telecast fibre kit and camera control units from DTS.

"We are getting more requests for HD production facilities," says Nikolaidis, "though I would hesitate to say that SD work is somehow shrinking. With the Royal Wedding and the Olympic Games coming up, we are expecting more HD requests, and it would be foolhardy of us to ignore the inevitable 'HD wave."

Nikolaidis believes the XDCam PDW 700 is becoming the de facto HD standard format, in almost the same way as DigiBeta in the past. And, as he also runs a facilities company in Germany, he sees the format sweeping the market in Europe too. "Quality and workflow are key," he explains. "The cameras not only produce excellent picture quality for all kinds of needs, including high-end, but the fact that a cameraman can hand the producer a disk at the end of the day makes life a great deal easier."

Westminster Live's new Telecast kit, meanwhile, enables the use of cameras in studio configuration, which is crucial as the company is seeing a lot of requests for live HD multi-camera work providing an archetypal London background. But the system also, says Nikolaidis, lends itself well to location shoots, with fibreoptics adding the option of shooting in locations where the camera-to-mixer distance can end up being quite sizeable. He is also having flight-cases made to allow crew to load, unload, and set up the whole system on location in double-quick time. The Vinten Osprey Elites provide an excellent 'smaller studio' pedestal option, Nikolaidis says. "They are heavy and sturdy enough to work smoothly in the studio, but still mobile and light enough to take on location." CVP's Darren Simpson also arranged extra steel 'bazookas', enabling cameras to be set 400mm higher than the normal maximum height of the Elite pedestal.

Westminster came to Fineline through a recommendation from CVP, "and the good working relationship between those two companies made the coordination of equipment and credit very easy. Also, and in our case very importantly: fast," Nikolaidis explains.

www.westminster-live.com

What do a brother and sister team with over 15 years' experience in creating videos for corporate clients do when spending time together? The answer is spend a year developing new video production technology and in July 2010 launching a new company – VirtualStudio.TV.

After spotting a gap in the market to meet the communications, social media, live streaming and virtual events needs of an organisation, the VirtualStudio.TV team created several production technologies to offer their customers fully customised branded 'virtual studios' for use in their videos. A green screen studio was needed and this was kitted out with two JVC GY-HM700E cameras and an LED lighting set up, all sourced from reseller CVP. The cameras are being used daily to film presenters in the studio and so far the company has provided its services to major brands including Microsoft and Easyjet.

Simon Malone, Director of VirtualStudio.TV comments on the choice of cameras; "We spent a lot of time deliberating between which cameras to purchase and this was mainly due to the specific nature of the work we carry out. As a bare minimum, we needed HD cameras with an SDI connection, but we also wanted value for money and a high quality output. As all our filming is carried out in a studio, the mobility of the cameras was not a major factor. Also, as all our recordings are captured and edited on site we were keen to get away from having to store shelves full of videos and opted for this solid state solution that enables us to record to memory cards or external hard drives instead."

Being a new business and getting finance for new equipment isn't always easy though, as the directors found out. "High Street lenders don't understand the equipment and use of it," Malone says. "The experience with Fineline was totally different. They have huge experience in the sector and understood exactly what we wanted to achieve and explained their requirements very clearly.

"We were told exactly what we had to do and what they needed from us, and we were really impressed by the very quick turnaround times. I would recommend Sam Baker and her colleagues to any business looking to finance new equipment, and VirtualStudio.TV will definitely be using them for our future equipment purchases."

www.virtualstudio.tv

One of the few constants in the broadcast industry is that of eternal change. But even for an industry used to a rapid pace of evolution, the step change up to tapeless production has been a difficult one.

"With such a long history of taped production being dominated mainly by one tape format, Beta SP then Digibeta, production companies and broadcasters obviously have reservations about going completely tapeless," explains Marc Irwin, UK Marketing Manager for Panasonic Professional & Broadcast IT Systems Business Unit Europe. "A series of ones and zeros in a file are a little difficult to sell as a concept. Even though everyone who lives in the modern world relies on computer data in almost every situation throughout their lives, the security in having that bit of plastic in your hand is undeniable."

Panasonic's P2 Live Experience Centre, which the company has recently opened at Shepperton Studios, is designed specifically to ease the fears of producers, DoPs and anyone else thinking of going the tapeless route, while at the same time showcasing the real benefits of the format.

"P2 Live shows potential users and customers the cost savings available using tapeless workflows along with the safeguards and security measures available," says Irwin. "It is dispelling fears by showing productions that they can safely, cost-effectively and at a very high quality shoot, post and deliver a programme with ease and reliability. It does this by live and with the support of other companies who have supplied equipment, in realtime."

The P2 Live Experience Centre is stocked with both high-end and handheld cameras, from the Varicam down to a handheld HPX-171, and is set-up so visitors can push the content through all the processes they'll come across in production and post. Other manufacturers, including Adobe, Apple and Avid, have supplied kit covering data storage, archiving, data management, software solutions and nonlinear editors. All of this is networked together, illustrating the potential of tapeless workflows by allowing visitors to follow some of their own material shot on the P2 cameras all the way from glass to glass.

"Our main aim is to bring together production, hire companies, owner operators, post and broadcasters," says Irwin. "If broadcasters and independent production companies will request tapeless workflows from hire companies or owner operators, then they will both invest. Currently everyone is waiting to see what will happen next. We are working hard to bring all these areas of production together so they are assured that it all works and can move over to tapeless with confidence. P2 Live is the major tool for this."

Of course, such centres are not cheap, and Panasonic approached Fineline to help fund P2 Live, which allowed it to stock the centre with what Irwin refers to as a "worthy fleet" of up to date demo kit. That is just a facet of the two companies' relationships though, Fineline also being a major partner in offering credit to purchasers of Panasonic equipment in the UK.

"Fineline are industry specialists and because of this can offer bespoke deals to our industry with a clear understanding of how it all works," says Irwin. "Panasonic benefits from this because we no longer have to employ specialist staff or an agency to deal with credit. This is a great tool for us to use as there is always a sympathetic ear for us to send customers towards."

www.panasonicpro-user.com

Shepperton production company completes new sound stage

"We provide the complete package, from the original concept to the finished product and then selling in the retail marketplace." says Lyn Beardsall, Director of Classic Pictures, a company originally established to produce programmes for other people.

Lyn explains the transition, "We took the decision to buy all our own kit so that we had the additional capacity to develop our own programmes as well as improving the facilities we provided to our existing customers."

Based at Shepperton Studios, Classic Pictures' facilities include over 4,000 sq ft of recording studio, edit suites and most importantly a fully equipped stage.

Lyn continues, "Having our own facilities means we can turn productions around very quickly, which is important when time and money is so critical. With our own stage we can re-create the feel of a concert or originate a concept. The area of our business developing concept-DVDs has really taken off and we have recently been working on programmes for artists as varied as Bill Wyman, Rick Wakeman, YES, Procol Harum, Nazareth, and Dionne Warwick

Chris Biggs from Fineline adds, "We have worked with Classic Pictures for six years and fully understand their business plan and their objectives. They are a hard working team that deserve their success. Financing their capital expansion has never been a problem."

Recently Classic Pictures has acquired additional kit including Digidesign ProTools for audio recording and editing, Soundcraft Monitoring Equipment, and an Audient ASP510 Multichannel Monitor Controller from Stirling Audio, and Sony DSR cameras and assorted broadcast equipment from Mitcorp UK Ltd. Michael Groom of Mitcorp commented, "The purchase was for ongoing productions and to complete their studio set-up. Mitcorp were able to specify and supply equipment from multiple manufacturers on time and to budget."

Taking a concept and turning it into a product on a shop shelf involves many steps from the original idea, shooting the programme, producing the graphics and sleeve design, authoring, marketing, retailing and distribution. Regularly being in the top ten of the UK's Music Distribution Companies has demonstrated the success of Classic Pictures.

Lyn says,"Fineline makes my life easy. When I want to invest in new equipment I make a single call and it is done. I can get on with my business. Other finance houses have approached us but inevitably require answers to a lot of obscure questions. Being busy people, we have better things to do."

www.classicpictures.co.uk