Sky 1’s new comedy and music spectacular Bring The Noise breaks with panel show tradition by taking inspiration for its set from concert arenas
Length 8 x 60 minutes; 2 x 60-minute compilations
TX 9pm, Sky 1, Tuesdays from 22 October
Commissioners Celia Taylor; Richard Ackerman
Executive producer Duncan Gray; Antonia Hurford-Jones
Producers Chris Little; Jordan Read; Tom Corrigan; Carol Baffour
Director Stephen Stewart
Production managers Dawn Webster; Hannah Peddar
Post house Sky Production Services
Bring the Noise, produced by Duncan Gray’s Twenty Six 03, is a new panel show for Sky 1, but was conceived as a music and comedy spectacular.
Sky wanted to make good on its commitment to air ambitious, fresh family entertainment, with a performance-based comedy entertainment series.
Creating the right set design for a show with this format has huge implications for its success.
Energetic Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson presides over proceedings in his first TV host role, while pop stars Nicole Scherzinger and Tinie Tempah head up two teams of three, with comedians Katherine Ryan and Joel Dommett as regular guests.
Each week, the two teams compete over several rounds of music trivia questions and games with musical set pieces, which include spoof video parodies and mash-ups. In the last round of each show, the teams compete in a musical performance battle.
The set was inspired by concert arenas and is designed to allow the audience to feel part of the action. Each week, they also get the chance to participate in some fun games and watch live performances from chart-topping special guests.
The decision on the final design was made collaboratively. Working closely with producers Duncan Gray and Chris Little, director Stephen Stewart and lighting director Gurdip Mahal was key to achieving a fluid and well-thought-out solution.
As the designer, it was important for me to ask the right questions about how the show works and understand the key format points.
Break with the norm
The main thing that decided the final look was Sky and Twenty Six 03’s determination to reinvent the feel of a panel show. They felt it was important to avoid the standard format of having the host in the middle with two teams either side facing an audience.
With this in mind, we positioned the teams together, facing into the performance area, allowing them to witness and feel part of performances, with the studio audience behind them.
As the show is all about performance, shooting it in the round with a large, central stage felt right. But creating a 360° set presents a very challenging shooting environment for cameras, so we needed to integrate hidden camera areas, camouflaged by the clever design of lighting and black areas, to enable the cameras to shoot the angles required without getting caught in shot.
It was also important to create what felt like a ‘real world’ space as opposed to a set. Central to this was a desire to break with the standard panel show format in which the audience is on one side and the panellists are on the other. Instead, we built a huge proscenium arch that feels like a dynamic structure, and put in smaller arches to frame the reverse shot, again reinforcing the idea of being in a real space.
It was important to create a large-scale environment. We wanted the studio to feel big, exciting and energetic, to encourage the viewer to want to be part of the environment as the show unfolds. The studio audience is integral to the show, so they are ‘wrapped’ around the stage and positioned in tiered seating behind the panellists and presenter, next to the live band.
Creating the mood
As the show requires a lot of flexibility visually, we have incorporated vertical strips of LED screens in different resolutions as a backdrop to the performance area, allowing bespoke content to be played in for each part of the show. This graphic content can switch the feel of the backgrounds, moving from a generic truss and lighting look for intimate comedy moments to more epic effects for the performances. The central performance stage also incorporates a mid- resolution LED screen.
The set was constructed offsite at John Frosts Scenery, which built the sets for the likes of Dragons’ Den, Big Brother Live and Stars In Their Eyes. The company’s attention to detail is excellent, and that is really important when building items such as the panellist’s desks, which are regularly featured in close-up shots.
Large elements such as the proscenium arch needed to be constructed in a way that enabled them to be transported to the set in regular-sized trucks. When designing a set, paying attention to the location of the joins and how items will be rigged is incredibly important.
There’s always limited time to build sets in studio, so how each element fits together on site has to be considered in advance to ensure that time is not wasted and the build runs smoothly.
Patrick Doherty is best known for designing big studio entertainment shows Strictly Come Dancing and Saturday Night Takeaway.
He has also worked on panel shows Would I Lie To You? and 8 Out Of 10 Cats.
For Sky 1 music show Bring The Noise, his brief was to rip up the panel show rule book and take it into a bigger arena, with live music performances from the teams, a house band and surprise guests.
Hear from Sky’s non-scripted commissioning team including James Quinn, Shirley Jones, Bill Hobbins and Richard Ackerman at the Broadcast Commissioning Forum on 4 November at Bafta
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