BBC’s The Beat – Filming Live Sessions

“Results never stop feeling special”

We’re no strangers to filming live sessions for BBC’s The Beat (see our BBC promo page here), but seeing the results never stops feeling special. Last week’s session with Billie was no exception, and with 60,000 views in 6 days, the public seem to agree.

Filming in a BBC Radio Studio

As you may or may not know, the physical space in a Radio studio is relatively small. So one of the initial challenges with filming live sessions in the studio is being able to physically set your cameras where you want them and then to film in a way that doesn’t feel crowded.

Using an array of flexible tripods, cameras and lenses, we were able to set up the three angles that we wanted: complementary reverse angles and one head-on (from a higher position to avoid the many, many displays and monitors – did we mention there’s not much space?).

The Look

With space being a premium, lighting becomes much more restricted than usual, but filming at night means the lighting can be more controlled, and the smaller space means you can bounce light easier if needed. However, the aesthetic of the piece really doesn’t want to be overly lit and too far removed from what it is: an intimate, live acoustic session.

Once set up, it has to remain ‘live’, which means no second takes, so it’s important all camera movements are coordinated. This often means we use subtle, out of eye-line, SAS-like hand gestures, which we don’t fully understand what they mean, we just know not to re-frame our shot just yet.

The promo videos we’ve created are for the BBC Radio show, The Beat, and hosted on their YouTube channel. All of the promo videos we create are used to promote the BBC Introducing scene in Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln and Leicester, as well as nationwide.

You can find out more information on Billie through her facebook page.