Coronation Street First for Polecam.

How have new grip technologies impacted on production?

Polecam is a technology that allows a camera to be lifted up and moved around, similar to a crane but it is smaller and lighter and more mobile, this allowed Corrie to film a dramatic end to a major character from the rooftop of the Granada studios, normal cameras could not get the shots they wanted and the cranes could not get close enough.

Polecam is just one of the new technologies around and it has already had a great effect on a major show, this shows us that the future of filming is changing, in a good way with easier tools giving better images than ever before.

Advances in Technology - Format (Coronation Street)

Picture Format

From 1960-1969 the programme was broadcast in 405-line Black and White, it was displayed in 4:3 SDTV size, which was common of most if not all of the household in Britain.

In 1969 it was broadcast in 576i Colour in SD in 4:3 size until 2001 you could still watch it in Black and White however and 4:3 would still be common for a large majority of houses in the U.K.

In 2002 the size of the picture was scaled up to 16:9 SD because there was a huge rise in the amount of widescreen tv's in Britain, However it was still broadcast in 576i quality.

2010 saw the start of a new era for 'The Street', the HD era the picture quality was upped to 1080i High Definition but still on the scale of 16:9, it was broadcast on the ITV1HD channel and if you had a SDTV you could still watch the 576i colour version on ITV1.

What has changed with HD?

With the introduction of HD filming, many things have had more detail added, most notably are the chimneys on the houses, they used to be made out of fibreglass because the set couldnt support brick, however in HD you would notice the lack of texture, so in preperation for HD support was added for real brick chimenys to be added to the set.

makeup and set making will have been tightens up as any inperfection will now be noticed where as before you might have got away with a small blemish because of the poor quality of the picture.

What impact has HD had on production?

The switch to HD has made working on Coronation Street much easier, now that the cameras are filming straight onto 64GB HD SD memorycards the images can be cut and edited as soon as filming is complete, there is no waiting, for instance there is a editing vehicle on set so as soon as a card is full up the editing team can start work on the show immediatly, this is crucial for a fast paced production show like Coronation Street. This allowes the actors more time to get a scene right, and also the editors can take more time to get the perfect transition.

What is the impact of HD on Coronation street?

High Defenition has transformed the way the public watch Corrie, The shows first HD Broadcast attracted more that 500,000 viewers to ITV1HD channel on monday the 31st of May.

The change of Coronation Street has had a major effect on the amount of viewers, the Coronation Street sandwich in-between Britain's Got Talent both sides made nearly all other main channels viewer ratings were slashed considerably. This has given Corrie and also ITV a huge boost.

Advances in Technology - Sets (coronation street)

1960-1980

From 1960 through to 1967 all the episodes of Coronation Street were filmed in the Granada studios in Manchester. The houses were reduced to 3/4 scale and the actors had to walk slower than normal so that it looked real. The street was too big to be set up in one go, it was split into two halves the pavement and road was actually painted onto the floor, although it was small there were some dramatic episodes filmed on this small set, e.g. the collapse of no.7 in 1965 and the train crash in 1967.

in 1967 Granada made an outdoor set on some old railway sidings in central manchester, the transition from the studio to the outdoor set was made easier by linking it in with a storyline in which the raincoat factory and mission hall were demolished and new houses built on the street.

1968 saw the use of the outdoor set for the first time, the only real difference was that there was natural light on the street. The actors disliked the set and named it 'the coldest place on earth' because there was a constant wind straight down the 'street'. Granada preferred not to actually film on the outdoor set for two reasons, one - Filming outdoor was a lot more expensive than filming in the studio, two - The actors disliked filming on site due to the cold winds.

1980-Present

in 1982 there was a full scale set built in the Granada backlot, the cobbles ran in the right direction alongt the houses, The set was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II.

Because the new set was intended to be permanent Granada reclaimed Salford brick and the roof slates were ment to look real. However the houses dont have many interior walls and ones that dont take a major role in the show are used as store rooms for props and offices for writers.

The take away, betting shop and butcher shop are all built to be filmed in. The chimneys were originaly fibreglass because there wasnt enough support for brick ones, but in the preperation for High Definition tv they were converted to brick.

In 1989 the factory and community centre were demolished and were replaced with 3 new houses 2 shops a garage and a new factory. This was the brainchild of new executive producer, David liddiment.