ITV News – Jim Mann

Scroll to 1:40 for extensive shots of the greenscreen studio, then overlayed with the virtual set and my virtual newsroom.

Although much more complex and developed than the main news studio design, these digital set designs were only used on the night of the election.

May 6, 2015

ITV News General Election 2015 Promo

One of the bigger projects that I have been working on so far this year, the ITV News General Election virtual set, in collaboration with the wonderful team at ITN. The design is an ambitious adaptation of the current ITV News set, originally launched in 2013. You don’t really get a sense of the extended spaces from this short promo, but we should expect to see plenty of revelaing shots from the Jib and Steadicam on Election Night, May 7.

I prepared the model and texture assets for the outer studio, which are imported into VizRT by ITN.

February 11, 2015

With virtual set design, it pays to hire a professional

If imitation really is the highest form of flattery, what should we make of it when, in addition to the imitation being embarrassingly poor, someone is trying to profit from it?

Recently spotted for sale on Turbosquid, is this tacky imitation of the ITV News set. Rather than pick the fake apart, I’ll just include a comparison shot (below) from the actual ITV News set, designed and prepared by a team of dedicated and experienced professionals.

The ITV News virtual set. An original set, prepared by a team of highly experienced designers (Lightwell, BDA/Jago Design/Lambie Nairn) together with a fantastic client, ITN.

The one detail I will mention is that the fake model uses 10,000 polygons, whereas the original newsroom model uses only 62 polygons, incorporates pre-baked lighting textures, and can actually function as a virtual set within VizRT – just one of the multitude of reasons why it pays to use a professional.