NEWS

ELECTION NIGHT 2005 WITH THE BBC

For the 2005 UK general election, Studio 1 at Television Centre became the hub of the BBC's coverage. This idea was carried through by the studio director with production designer David Laskey, who created two giant 'windows', looking out over the central courtyard of Television Centre, as a key feature of the two-level set. These windows were, in fact, high brightness rear projections supplied by displays specialist Anna Valley.

Behind each of the two main areas on the studio floor - for the programmes anchor and interview sets - was an eight metre high 'window', extending to the upper level of the studio. Each window used two live locked-off cameras, one above the other, out in the courtyard. Corresponding to each camera was a pair of 10,000 lumen projectors beaming onto rear projection screens built as part of the set. A total of eight 10,000 lumen projectors were deployed.

Anna Valley also supplied BBC Resources with 19 plasma displays, again used as set elements and consistently in-vision.

Mark Holdway of Anna Valley commented, 'A general election results programme is a massive technical challenge on many levels. We were delighted to be able to realise the vision of the director and designer by providing projection and displays which met the programme budget and performed flawlessly throughout.