Paralympic Achievement: Whisper Gears Up for Channel 4's Epic Paralympics Coverage

Paralympic achievement: Whisper gears up for Channel 4's epic Paralympics coverage By Heather McLean, Editor

Thursday, August 19, 2021 - 12:47

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Channel 4 has designed a studio at its headquarters in Leeds, UK, from which it will host a party-style Paralympic show

Production company, Whisper, is gearing up to bring Channel 4's Paralympic 2020 coverage to British viewers from 24 August, with the Opening Ceremony that is taking place in Tokyo.

With over 300 hours of TV to produce for the broadcaster's linear offering over the Channel 4 and More4 channels, and a brand new microsite that will allow fans to view over 1,000 hours of sports coverage over 16 live streams, Whisper has its work cut out.

When SVG Europe spoke to Whisper's technical director for the Paralympics, Richard Bainbridge, he was in Tokyo waiting for staff that had been working on the Olympics to vacate their studios at the IBC so the Whisper team could move in and set up. Meanwhile, Matt Roberts, Whisper's executive producer for the Paralympics, was at the Ealing Broadcast Centre, Timeline TV's broadcast facility situated within the iconic Ealing Studios in London, starting to ramp up operations for the production, setting up edit suits and commentary booths as equipment arrived on site.

Ramping up production

The production for Channel 4 is working across three locations from Tokyo, Ealing, and also Leeds, where the broadcaster has a studio ready to bring the celebratory atmosphere of the Games straight to fans' living rooms.

Roberts said: We're just working through running orders and things like that now. So over the next couple of weeks we get the [Channel 4 presentation] studio in Leeds, which is the Steph's Packed Lunch studios. We'll be in there putting our set in and most of our production staff will be joining us [then].

By doing [this production] with a central hub in the UK, there are definitely advantages. I'm sure the pandemic will have changed how these big events are done forever more, so there are a lot of advantages as well as the disadvantages

Over the weekend of the 21 and 22 August we will do lots of tech checks, with rehearsals Monday 23 August and then live with the Opening Ceremony on the 24th, so we're deep in the midst of it, basically.

Timeline is supplying all the technical equipment for Whisper in the UK. Timeline TV's unit manager for the Paralympics, David Harnet, is on site in Ealing helping Whisper to set up two main galleries plus an additional dedicated athletics gallery, plus eight edit suites and five commentary booths.

So it's a big operation, notes Roberts. We've got a Channel 4 gallery, and because we're live on More4 we'll have a Timeline TV OB truck in the carpark, then we have a small sub mix gallery for athletics because you get a variety of feeds out of athletics, so we'll be making our own composite feed to make sure we feature the British athletes more predominantly in that.

Whisper is ready for the Paralympics, with its set up in the IBC in Tokyo ready to go

Multiple options for creativity

Whisper is using some of the ways of working it developed during lockdown to aid it in the production of the Paralympics for Channel 4. Bainbridge says: We'll be bringing in a number of those techniques we've used to do remote productions [for the Paralympics], so actually I think we're in a much better place. And I think if we tried to do [this production in this way] this time last year, it would have been a whole different story, but a lot of the newer ways of working are tried and tested now and becoming the norm. [Remote production] is where I think everyone was heading anyway, but [the pandemic has] just sped up the experience.

Roberts adds: What we're doing with having a studio in Leeds and various positions in Japan via a centre in Ealing is actually gives us a whole load of other options that we wouldn't have had in the past, you know, to be able to get friends and family in, to reflect on it in this country, but also to go instantaneously to Tokyo or to the velodrome, has opened up a whole new level of opportunities.

There are challenges around it, like traditionally we'd all be on planes now to Japan and an awful lot of work would get done in that last couple of weeks in the IBC, adds Roberts. Whereas this way, a lot of people will be coming in from home, they've got to take their kids to school on that Monday morning or whatever, whereas traditionally, when you're all in one place that makes things a lot easier. Communication is going to be very important to us and remote presenters, and the time difference will be a challenge as well, but we're able to produce a huge amount of output for Channel 4 from this remote base and by having the kind of facilities Timeline's been able to provide.

By doing [this production] with a central hub in the UK, there are definitely advantages. I'm sure the pandemic will have changed how these big events are done forever more, so there are a lot of advantages as well as the disadvantages, says Roberts.

Whisper is working across three locations for this Olympics with its set up in Tokyo shown here at the IBC, plus the UK-based galleries and more in Ealing, and Channel 4's presentation studio in Leeds

Global crewing set up

There are 80 people in total in Japan, down from the original plan to send 250. This team includes commentators, production staff, presenters, VT editors, and camera people. There are 130 crew in Ealing, plus a further 45 including talent in the studio in Leeds.

Continues Roberts: The bulk of the production now gets done in Ealing, so all the producers who are putting the films together and the edits of the action will be here in our eight edit suites. All

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