Television Productions at Elstree Studios are currently topping the TV network ratings and dominating the weekends on ITV and BBC.
On Saturday night live on BBC 1, Elstree Studios is the home for Lets Dance for Sports Relief produced by Whizz Kids. It's staged in George Lucas One at Elstree Studios. It's a live TV show with an audience and a host of celebrities.
On Sunday night live on ITV, Elstree Studios is the home for Dancing on Ice produced by ITV. It's staged in George Lucas Two, again a live TV show with a large audience.
Elstree is becoming increasingly popular for live TV shows for the Networks, other TV shows recently at Elstree have included of course Big Brother for Initial and Channel 5, live Celebrity Who Wants to be a Millionaire for Victory Television and ITV, The Exit List for Victory Television and ITV, Michael Buble for ITV, and sequences for Eastenders for the BBC.
The Studios have recently installed extra Broadcast lines, increased Broadband capability, extra Power feeds and larger Stage aprons (the bit at the side or front of the Stages) to accommodate the ever increasing size of the outside broadcast trucks being used.
"The TV shows made at Elstree are becoming increasingly more sophisticated" states Roger Morris the MD of Elstree Studios. "Dancing on Ice has a fantastic set, two Ice Rinks have been installed and they use one of my favourite technical devices a railcam."
Apart from the fact that Elstree has ideal TV friendly stages suitable for these large prestigious shows, it also has close proximity to Central London and the North London catchment area is great for audiences and easy to get to for crew.
Elstree is presently looking at how the Stages can be further enhanced for TV production. It already has the advantage that it was the former London ITV home for ABC television so a number of the stages are already TV capable with TV style lighting grids and TV floors. It is intended to increase the flexibility of the lighting grids and install new TV capable floors in other stages. Elstree is also in the process of planning to build another super stage, which will be one of the largest in the UK on the unused 4 acre area at the back of the Studios.
50% of the work undertaken at Elstree is TV, the other work includes feature films such as the multi award runaway success "The Kings Speech", "Hyde Park on Hudson" with Bill Murray, "Sherlock Holmes a Game of Shadows" with Jude Law and Robert Downey Junior, "World War Z" with Brad Pitt, "Kick Ass" and numerous others.
!I am delighted that Dancing on Ice is returning to Elstree Studios, the flexibility of the Staff and facilities perfectly suit the ever changing needs of a show such as ours and without doubt Stage 2 is the best place in the country for the huge scale of our ice world". Glenn Coomber Executive Producer Dancing on Ice.
"Elstree Studios is a great location for Big Brother; we have a complex technical set up within our new Big Brother Village. We have more than two live transmissions from the Studio every day, 7 days per week. We have very large audiences for Big Brother and it's easy for them to get to by public transport. This is also an ideal location for all production and technical staff." Sandra Smith Head of Production Big Brother
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