Europe, Gearhouse Broadcast, Customer Driven, Technology Focused, Best of Breed
"I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!"
Client: Granada
Programme:
Gearhouse Broadcast's Australian office provided technical and production facilities for the hit TV reality show, "I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" A technical team were supplied to provide onsite support including Dennis Dovale from Gearhouse Broadcast appointed as Technical Manager working with three Senior Project engineers. The company worked with Granada months in advance to plan and prepare for the series.
State of the art project fly-away facilities were provided and formed the basis of a large control room with two switching areas. The first was for the 24 hour camp cut and the second was the live presentation and recording of the challenges. All technical areas were integrated into five side by side porta cabins, creating a 12m x 15m technical building. All broadcast facilities were housed within this area enabling better protection from the excessive dust and better control on air conditioning.
Broadcasts
Three shows were broadcasted per day, the two main presented shows were ITV1 and ITV2 and a new streaming room was developed to broadcast nine hours of live camp program to ITV2 daily
Technology
Thirty-five camera's were provided, nine VTR's, two Soundcraft 48 channel audio desks, seventy two channels of Sennheiser radio receivers and twenty five transmitters, eight racks of monitor gallery, Sony DVS-7150 and DVS-7350 vision switchers, seventy two port Telex Adam Comms system and Probel 64x64 video & audio routers. Gearhouse Broadcast supplied thirteen night shot 0 lux camera's, four of which were controlled by hot head, these gave the production team the ability to film the contestants throughout the night and capture any movements they thought could not be seen. The entire camp was lit by infra-red lighting which gave the impression of absolute darkness, but not to the camera.
Cabling was a critical part of the production due to the wildness of the location, incorporating 10 km of triax camera cable, 20 km of video cable, 3 km of audio multi way and 2 km of 50 pair data cable. Cameras were 667m from the control room to the Camp and 450m to the studio.
According to Jane Smith, Production Manager from Granada, "Gearhouse Broadcast Australia was involved from the inception of series one in planning the technical specifications, because nobody else has completed a live jungle-based show before. Audio was initially a problem, by the nature of dense forest and lots of water but the audio crew have been sensational with hunting down issues and solving problems. The resulting programs have been achieving excellent technical grades from transmission in London as well as our very high viewing figures, and the volume of programming really tested the system to the limit."
Gearhouse Broadcast offered consultancy in terms of camera types and lenses for specific areas, and had to adapt to the ever-changing requirements. The second series was based on those final specifications and the technology has moved forward quite considerably. Size, was an issue in determining how the production could be carried out so the custom-built production gallery and control room area provided by Gearhouse Broadcasts fly-away systems provided the most effective option housing 17 technical and editorial staff. The main tech building housed 34 staff during the live show.
According to Managing Director for Gearhouse Broadcast Australia, Graham Elliot "There is a huge learning curve in this type of terrain, and with a show that continually changes, it has taken a creative means of approach to supply the level of diversity Granada require and received from Gearhouse Broadcast Australia. We are pleased to have won the contract again and view it as a testimony to the relationship we have built with the Granada team over the last year."
