Midtown Video designed and installed the lighting and hard set for a new University of Miami-based sports show featuring the Hurricanes football coach Mark Richt. We also provided a mobile rack for wireless audio and IFB for studio and control room communication.
Located in UM’s Hecht Center, the new television studio was once a nondescript campus office. Transforming the office, an 11’ x 12’ rectangle, into a studio required a feat of engineering and a leap of imagination. First of all, an average television studio measures about 20’ x 30’, which meant the team had a lot less space to work with. Second, the office came equipped with a tile drop-down ceiling, which was lower than 8’ high or about 3” lower than average. To convert the office into a working television studio with four on-camera talent and dynamic lighting, Midtown Video had to both find more space and create the illusion of more space.
This involved removing the drop ceiling – and with it many layers of 50-year-old insulation. After the plenum was sprayed with foam insulation and repainted, our team found another 1.5’ for pipes and lighting. UM Facilities installed new circuits for LED lights – about 24 studio lights and additional lighting on the set to illuminate hard elements (walls, columns, and bookshelves). Our team installed the mobile rack and ran fiber optic cables from the studio to the control room.
To create the illusion of even more space, set designer Jeronimo Velasco of Caudal Creativo, employed dark colors, brown leather chairs, and various textures – stone, wood, aluminum and acrylic – to create depth and contrast. A long, horizontal image in the center of the set, which can’t be captured in one camera frame, also makes the space seem larger. Lighting was installed with an artist’s touch: subjects in front are more brightly lit than objects behind and columns have built-in, angled LED lighting. To pull it together, one of the three cameras is outfitted with an HD 10×6 wide-angle lens.
The net result is an ESPN-style television studio where Canes fans can tune in to hear Coach Richt talk about their team and its winning strategies. The Mark Richt Show airs on Sun Sports/Fox Sports Network on Thursdays at 4:30 PM.
Go Canes!
