Sky Sports
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Series / Lead Lighting Director for
🏆 Sports Specials 🏆
🎮⚽️🎮 FIFA eClub UK Final 2019
Game for Grenfall
This unique event was for and very much with the local community affected by the Grenfall Disaster, and was held at Loftus Road. This featured not only a comedy football match, but a Commentary Box on the opposite site in a VIP booth (complete with low ceiling and glass sloping the wrong way), and a musical performance on the pitch from various acts
(PICS TO FOLLOW)
Gamechangers Awards with David Beckham
The culmination of Sky’s Gamechangers series saw it move across the road for a one-off special in Studio 4/5, featuring a very special guest in a reconfigured set. And lots of whizzy flashy lights.
The 100 Launch & Draft
(to follow)
⚽️ Football ⚽️
From almost his very first day way back nearly 2 decades as a Freelancer, Richard was lighting studio shows that mostly consisting of between 1 and 3 people, generally sat at a desk wearing suits and discussing football. "..game of two halves…jumpers for goalposts…" and so on.
With so many matches across a myriad of different leagues and competitions of football from International to Local, with extended diversions into the Women’s, Rugby, and American versions of Kick-Ball as well, Surely, after such an intense and extended exposure, a detailed understanding of the “Beautiful Game” or a bunch of millionaires running around a cold muddy field in the rain would have rubbed-off on to him… Surely….
But, there is one long-running production strand that takes football very seriously.
Very, very, seriously.
And which, for a decade, Richard lit every single broadcast of. Very seriously.
Monday Night Football (MNF)
The Studio G version - The Original
Sky Sport’s Premier League flagship production, led by the pundits Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher, delivers unusually long and highly detailed analysis during the studio-based pre-, mid-, & post- match coverage, along with more cameras deployed than for any other match. This had four different iterations over Richard’s time, starting with the original Studio G production, first lit by Malcolm Reed (lots of MiStrip, Pixellines, a very unhelpful header, and an even more light-unfriendly £100k (back in 2011…) 103" Touchscreen…)
The first day that Richard was due to go solo on this production, it had half-way through the Rig, and very unexpectedly, the plug pulled for the rest of that season, when the original presenters (Keys & Gray) were very abruptly & very publicly sacked, after tapes of some of their long-running unacceptable off-screen behaviors were leaked to the Guardian..
On 30th April 2012, MNF had its highest ever viewing figures - and also the then-highest for any sporting event on Sky (until a free-to-air match during Covid) when 4.8 million tuned-in to watch Manchester City defeat Manchester United 1-0 on their way to their first top flight title since 1968 (I had to look that bit up).
The Studio F version - Simply The Best
The upshot of this success was Sky Sports putting their hand in their pocket, and giving the go ahead to move into the studio next door for Sky’s first-ever Million Pound Set.
World-leading technologies stretched the boundaries of what could be achieved in a live studio environment with the Mixed-Reality set from 2013-2017 in Studio F, powerfully led by Senior Director Duncan East and Executive Producer Scott Melvin, who listened to and then demanded - and got - the best out of every single person working on the show, every single time. Yes, that IS a green xmas tree on a green screen. Yes, Sarah did manage to get it to key, sort of. No, it didn’t go on air in that position.
MNF pioneered the use of giant interactive touch-screens for real-time analysis, with 2D and 3D computer graphics driven directly by the pundits controls - something that took the viewers a long time (and a lot of live mistakes!) to believe was actually true rather than pre-rendered. This was connected to incredibly detailed tracking and statistical analysis of every player in every Premier League (PL) match. They also pushed the limits of 3D graphics, with individual Hero / Walk-on clips of every PL player (shot on 2x 4k cameras, double-stacked on their side, at a time when HD was still a novelty for most people). This was mixed with insightful and fluff-free passionate commentary, to deliver an unprecedented quality - and duration! - of wrap-around analysis before, during, and after just one match. Even when it’s a subject you can have no interest in, you can still tell when its being done better than anywhere else!
The opening Team walkthrough with the Presenter (Ed Chamberlain then later Dave Jones) was particularly challenging technically - starting on a MCU hard up against a green wall, doing a walk all around the Green Screen area weaving in and out of life-size players, then the camera would reveal the real set outside the green area as well, and he would walk across to the main desk, going through the boundary between Real and VR - all in one shot, live. A tricky challenge with the technology of the day and a very low ceiling meaning couldn’t get the lights as far away as was need to avoid inverse square law problems.
Extensive used of dead matt black paint (real) and textures (virtual) were used to conceal the join between the Real and the Virtual, and a little LED strip was also used to hide the join. Trying to keep both the green and black floors free from dust was a nightmare, despite the entire crew being badgered to wear overshoes by the Floor Manager Frankie…the breakthrough came when Richard released what was needed was not trying to make Reality impossibly perfect, but to make the Virtual a bit scruffy. Sales of blue plastic shoes plummeted.
24x Motion Analysis cameras providing 6-D positional data to 3 cameras (first production run of Sony 4300 cameras) each with Ultimatte & Viz-RT graphics to give 360-degree VR and AR virtual set, together with the ability to weave through life-size player line-ups. This early real-time motion tracking system was, to put it mildly, a bit difficult. It required frequent recalibration to keep it tracking smoothly, which involved by walking round the studio waving a magic wand. No, really.
In addition, the VR keying requires significant light levels, but the small size of the studio made clean separation challenging, involving as much finesse with the green material as it did with the lights, particularly the floor. Eventually a real floor was used instead. The low clearance from the studio ceiling (it was a converted warehouses not a purpose-built space) meant that the inverse square law was just not your friend.
After getting that right, whilst simultaneously wrestling with an Octopus - the best way to describe the Ultimatte green-screen keying system, all looking good with a stand-in wearing jeans and t-shift, the fun then really started with the Talent in a £2k suits…which have subtly-woven silver sparkly threads, along with super shiny leather shoes…and so on, all of Which…picked-up bouncing green light…! So that’s lighting, set, and wardrobe all coming-down to Richard to address on the day (Sky does not have Art Directors or Wardrobe).
All the light used to even-out the green surfaces then had to be kept from bouncing out into the real set, which could not have the green key’ed out because of the video projectors and screens having …green… football pitches in them. A fully virtual set would been easier, but that would not have given Production a fully-usable environment that could (…and occasionally was..) be switched-to immediately for the next three hours should any of the Virtual elements fail.
If there was one thing that could be guaranteed, with all the bleeding-edge technology deployed across the board, was that something would fail whilst on-air every week. You just had to pray it wasn’t your turn for the gremlins to hit…And if getting all this kit working once wasn’t hard enough, the entire production, with all its temperamental parts had to be rigged from scratch every week, in just one day. An aspect that was a constant point of disbelief by technical visitors from other television networks from around the world.
The Studio 1 version - Time to share…
After spending 4 years out of the originally-commissioned 3 years in Studio F, the resultant savings, together with another couple of million pounds found down the back of a sofa, was used to combine MNF with efforts to address the increased competition coming from an unexpected new direction (BT Sport). This time, instead of moving next door, they moved across the road instead, and into a proper purpose-built studio instead of a converted warehouse (finally!). They built a permanent, dedicated, set, but with less bleeding-edge technology and specialist subcontractors, putting to bed the years of technical gremlins that had plagued the previous iteration of MNF since the start. And, once built, when it wasn’t being used, it was available for a whole host of other Sports Productions, each of whom were supposed to have their own unique area of the studio all instantly ready to go…
Well, that was the theory that was sold - The instantly ready aspect went straight out the window, together with being confined to unique areas, once the production teams got their teeth into a new space, with so many tempting possibilities compared to their previous decades spent stuck in glorified storerooms with a 3 chairs and a desk and maybe 5 shots possible. But I digress…
The money got spent on lots and lots of video walls and graphics hardware, along with large colour-changing backlit LED panels that gave each sporting strand their own unique visual identity. They even had enough money left over to build a similar-looking “little brother” set in the smaller Studio 3 nearby.
Moving across the road into Sky Studios also had the advantage that the Production Control Rooms and Studios can very quickly change their interconnections, allowing Production teams to set-up in one PCR whilst the studio is used by another, and then flip-over in as little as a single commercial break… provided everyone used the same or pre-prepared positions, as trying to reset lights, cameras, sound, set, in 3-5 minutes would be extremely challenging (didn’t stop it being attempted occasionally!)…that’s barely enough time to swap two sets of Talent (and their snacks) around!
Focusing back onto Monday Night Football, one of the technologies they retained exclusive use of (ish…was borrowed a few times by F1 and Golf) was the Virtual Graphics - this time round, the new buzzing technology was Augmented Reality (AR). This overlays tracked 3D graphics on top of the camera output, without any of the problems caused by having to key of Green surfaces whilst not keying off any reflected or bounced Green lights, so is a fraction of the cost. This is great…right up until the entire illusion is shattered when the camera moves the wrong way and suddenly something that was in the background is now on top of the foreground or Talent. As a consequence of decided they really only needed to track the Jib camera experimental and not bother with having Peds shoot the 3D sequences, they invested in the far simpler and cheaper N-Cam system this tim, which requires far less continuous correcting and no magic wands required. But only works on one camera, you can’t cut between two AR-equipped cameras. Which also saves on super-expensive Viz graphics machines.
STORY TO BE CONTINUED
- Studio G - The Original
- Studio F - The Best
- Studio 1 - The Longest
Gary Neville’s TV Debut.
Gary abruptly left Sky to go and coach Valencia mid-season. This did not go down well with Production, so when he came back from Spain a brief and disastrous career as a coach, there was a considerable pause before he was invited back to the studio, and when he did all was normal until the final part of the show, when the usual viewer’s tweets during the match were substituted by some hilarious, but very barbed, questions written by Production…which Gary took manfully took on the chin. The VR set can be seen to the left of the desk.
The longest version to date, thanks to Covid extending everything.
Other long-running football productions
Premier League :
SNF : Saturday Night Football
A late kick-off so a saturday match could be shown live (due to a strict FA rules about not broadcasting matches live at 3pm on Saturdays)
Pretty horrible set, partly due to the use of 5x Projectors (none of which were bright enough for their screen sizes, but were all repurposed from older projects), but mostly due to an enormous header. Ugh. Best forgotten really.
FNF : Friday Night Football
A very lively show before a single match. Kind of the opposite of MNF in approach.
Still got those Projectors, but the Header is gone, and instead we have a lot of Monolith lightboxes. With massive heavy steel louvers balanced on top. One of those productions where the grid height really wasn’t high enough.
FF : Football First
Goals & brief Highlights of everything played that day, late on a saturday night (basically, like the BBC’s Match of the Day)
Followed by a selected “Game of the day” in (almost) full.
Very unusually for a men’s football show, this was presented by Sarah-Jane Mee (in the days before she switched-over to exclusively presenting for Sky News.)
This later moved across the road and evolved into :
- MC : Match Choice
Using one end of the SNF / FNF sets, the studio dividing door could be hurriedly closed during the Ad break, provided cameras remembered to run their cables correctly about 11 hours earlier…
English Football League (EFL)
- The 3 divisions below the Premier League.
With (mostly) Dave Prutts.
…Enough said He’d probably love this effect though
Women’s Super League (WSL)
Pink Set.
No, really.
World Cup & Euros Qualifiers (WCQ)
All the qualifying matches... apart from England's.
Soccer Saturday (Supervisory LD)
The legend that was Jeff Stelling, Paul Merson, and of course…Chris Kamara.
Who else could make 4 hours of watching other people watch live football that you can’t…be so funny, or so accessible?
Quote (Before Richard's Time, but the Final Clip Just Has to Be Seen Again)
Jeff Stelling
We're off to Fratton Park, where there's been a Red Card, but for whom Chris Kamara...?
Chris Kamara
I don't know Jeff?
I must have missed that, you tell me...
Conclusion
Don't worry Richard, neither do most Referees!
🥊 🥊 🥊 Boxing 🥊 🥊 🥊
Ringside
Weekly boxing magazine show. Set in a subterranean basement. So deep underground in fact, that the moon shone upwards thought the slit windows - thanks an inherited not-very-thought-through early decision to put 2k’s on stands shining upwards. Hmmm….
Anyway, Fascinating psychology. Half-wires in all the 2k’s due exceedingly bright white shirts and very low studio ceilings (the inverse-square law strikes again). Packages that were consistently so late in being delivered that you’d start the day doing a Pre-recorded show, but by the time the tapes arrived, there wasn’t time to edit it all together and had to overrun and go Live anyway. A precarious and potentially tense situation, delivered into calm happiness by the loverly Sara Chenery directing.
Occasionally escaped Osterley and went on the road to various Arenas for this, too.
- The O2 Arena (London)
- Wembley Arena (London)
- Manchester Arena
- The Point, Dublin
The Gloves are Off
Face to Face build up for an upcoming pay-per-view fight.
Studio stripped right back.
Chairs backwards.
Black levels crushed harder than a newcomer’s dreams.
More time spent ruching the black drapes just right, and moving uplighters 1/2" to the left, than setting the keys.
Some times - a pair of best mates just doing their job - but the next time, you saw the air in the studio suddenly freeze solid from the tension and mutual hate. The mind-games began before they even turned-up, as they tried to put each other off-balance with schedule changes, resulting in recordings getting cancelled multiple times before happening, often at the very last minute. Even a sudden full-on punch-up in the studio once.
Oh yes, done right, the tension made those pay-per-view tickets flew out the door. For the Frosch vs Groves recording, Richard had promoter Eddie Hearn stood behind him watching everything unfurl, and as the tension grew and grew, his eyeballs were spinning like fruit machines jackpots…
🏎️ 🏎️ 🏎️ F1 🏎️ 🏎️ 🏎️
The F1 Show - Studio 6
The new sport that increased the workload high enough - and brough the budget - to recruit for a new LD position, raising the number to four in total, which over the next half-dozen years declined back down to two, and then, ultimately to none. Not that the workload got any lighter…
Sharing the studio with Soccer Saturday, in an inspired bit of set design by Jonathan Ryder-Richardson, the entire soccer saturday desk could be unclipped, detached, and wheeled out the scenedock door in a five minutes, replaced by some extra staging and a sofa.
The F1 Show - Studio 4/5
(Info To follow)
🏉 Rugby Lions Tours 🏉
(Info To follow)
Several versions of this over the years. The most interesting version was during Covid, where restrictions meant presenters and camera crews couldn’t travel to South Africa, so amongst other things, a green screen setup in Osterley had a real monitor in it, perfectly aligned to an identical monitor at the pitchside. Then lights were dotted-around to ensure the light on the presenter matched the live lighting outside - complete with angle and colour changes through the day! One of the very few times pointing a Multi-Colour version of an LED Source 4 at a presenter is an advantage (note highlights on the side of his head compared to the sun).
This turned-out to be so convincing that reports came in of people “down the pub” being totally convinced that the pitch side presentation was in face pitchside, even after it was pointed-out they had been in the studio 10 minutes earlier…
Another aspect to the success of this greenscreen shoot was that for once it wasn’t shoehorned into a tiny space with the lights only inches away. He’s about to bang on about the inverse square law - again!
🏈 NFL (American Football inc. Superbowl) 🏈
Various Superbowl overnight wrap-abounds, and some of thee regular weekly wrap-around coverage over the years.
Surprisingly, one of the most challenging - and least predictable - Sky Sports’ shows from a lighting perspective, despite or probably, thanks to being buried on a late night slot, Production has always been far more dynamic and spontaneous with talent rarely sat at a desk, often on their feet and very energised, plus cutting to and from the studio frequently with no warning thanks to US Networks inconsistency letting the world hear their DA (Director’s Assistant) feed - i.e. oft-times, nobody in the UK gets to hear such vital information as “break in 30 seconds” and the first you know is when the feed crashes into an advert. So lights up and cameras on the Talent for 5-6 hours continuously, and breaks have to be split.
Even more mysterious rules than non-american football, but some fabulous half-time shows for the Superbowls - and the opportunity to see what happens behind the scenes as to how those big complex stages appear in the middle of a field in less than 5 minutes : Answer, break them into large chunks, and get a lot of people to pick these chunks up at the same time. A LOT people … 500+ !
(More to follow)
🤿 🏊🏽♂️ 🤿 Bog Snorkelling 🤿 🏊🏽♂️ 🤿
…ok, that was a red herring. Red Herrings are often found swimming in peat bogs.
Other Sports also had Studio-based commentary from time to time, which richard help light, but are not of particular note, including:
- Golf (various, including some AR Specials for Ryder and Master’s Cups)
- Cycling
- NBA (Basketball)
- Various non-UK football leagues
- and more. Its all a blur tbh. Game of two halves. Jumpers for Goalposts.
Finally, in the early days, a number of occasionally fascinating discussion shows with famous former starts were recorded, before all Magazine and Chat Sports Shows were axed as part of cost-cutting measures in 2014
- Time of Our Lives
- Sporting Heroes
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p.s. …Sky Sports News was witnessed covering Bog Snorkelling one day, so, technically, Richard has lit people sat at a desk talking about Bog snorkelling. 🛁
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