Notes on studio equipment, camera work, lighting, sound and the daily coordination of newsrooms and live shows.
The blog collects practical writing for studio managers, producers and crews. A new article appears about once a day, covering planning, equipment care and the small routines that keep a production steady.
Sound Workflow
A practical walk through microphone allocation, desk setup and pre-broadcast audio checks, written for studio managers who want fewer surprises once the red light goes on.
Equipment
Before choosing how to track cameras, lenses, monitors and cabling across your studios, work through these questions on bookings, maintenance records and ownership of the data.
Camera Movement
Helen Marsh goes through the errors we see most often when dolly, jib and robotic moves are planned for a programme, and how to keep the plan honest on the floor.
Pricing
A plain account of how scheduling for daily bulletins is priced, which parts of a newsroom set the figure, and what to have ready before asking for a written quotation.
Customer story
Marcus runs a weekly live entertainment show from a small studio. This case shows how a single shared running order changed the way his gallery, floor and technical crew worked together.
Lighting
As the evenings draw in, studio lighting needs more careful planning. Helen Marsh sets out how to organise plots, rig schedules and cue lists for news sets and live shows this season.
Sound Workflow
A plain-words explanation of gain staging, the habit of setting levels at each point in the audio chain, and how it keeps a broadcast clean from the first microphone to the gallery output.
Equipment
A plain comparison of two ways to keep cameras, lenses, monitors and cabling accounted for across studios, with a recommendation for crews who share equipment between programmes.
Behind the scenes
Daniel Prewett walks through how a dolly, jib or robotic camera move goes from a producer's request to a shared plan the floor crew can rehearse and trust.
Newsroom Scheduling
Producers ask us one question more than any other: how do you keep crews, studios and gallery time lined up for daily bulletins? Here is how a workable plan is built and held.
Company news
A look at how the gallery coordination tools handle a live running order, so that directors, vision mixers and technical staff all read from the same page when the show goes to air.
Lighting Design
Priya Nair walks through the three documents behind every lit set, and how the platform keeps plots, rig schedules and cue lists consistent for news sets and live entertainment shows.
Audio Workflow
Helen Marsh sets out the questions worth answering on microphone allocation, desk setups and audio checks before you choose how your studio manages sound.
Equipment
Tom Ashworth walks through the slips that most often undermine studio equipment records, from vague booking notes to cable bundles nobody owns, and the habits that keep them in check.
Pricing
A plain account of how camera movement planning is priced, which parts of a programme add time, and what to tell us first so the written quotation matches the work.
Customer case
A short account of Imogen, a bulletin producer who brought crews, studio time and gallery slots into one daily plan, and what changed in her first autumn of using it.
Live Production
As the evenings draw in and live schedules fill up, a few small changes to how the gallery shares one running order can spare directors, vision mixers and technical staff a great deal of friction.
showlixir supports television studios in Salisbury and beyond with equipment, crew and schedule coordination.