A York production hub built around live television

Helen spent years as a studio manager, and she saw the same pattern repeatedly. A studio would be fitted out in pieces, with vision, sound, lighting and intercom each bought and installed on its own, and then the crew would spend months working around the gaps between them. trendreel was set up to treat the studio as one system from the first drawing.

That outlook shapes how we work. We start by visiting the room, talking to the people who will run it and watching a rehearsal where we can. Only then do we draw signal flow, camera positions, lighting plots and microphone plans. Each of those documents is written so the crew can read it on a bad day, not just admire it on a good one.

Our office is at Navigation Yard in York, and the work is done wherever the studio is: broadcasters' galleries, production company stages and venues that host live shows. We keep the team small so the people who plan a job are the same people who commission it and train the crew afterwards.

We prefer plain, well-labelled setups over clever ones. A router panel that a tired operator can understand at a glance is worth more than an elegant design nobody can fault-find. James Whitfield, our senior broadcast engineer, labels every cable and patch point as if someone else will have to repair it at speed, because eventually someone will.

The work does not end when the equipment powers up. We write run-sheets, hold rehearsals and leave checklists with the crew, so the studio keeps running the way it was commissioned after we have gone. Clients usually come back when they add a camera, change a set or move to a new room.