Set Design

The Jump

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The look, from ESPN Creative Services, uses a unique blend of teal, gold, dark blue, red and tan to form a variety of shapes and layers inspired by the straight lines and curves on professional basketball courts. 

In many of these sequences a certain layer “opens” to reveal a layer below. Other reveals include “flipping” and rotating segments and and segments that rise or fall.

Other accents include hashmarks and a 3D basketball element.

Thew new look also features typographic poster style graphics for each NBA team that feature team names that repeat both diagonally and stacked. 

This “repeating” style is also used in other elements, including with the show’s logo as a fullscreen transitional background.

‘The Jump’ creates sophisticated look packed with basketball imagery

Similar looks can also frame cutouts of players along with oversized versions of their names and team logos behind them as OTS-style graphics. 

While the look is new, the show has retained its condensed logotype. 

Rachel Nichols continues to host “The Jump,” with the show now serving as the pre-game show for the network’s weekly marquee NBA game.

It continues to be produced from the network’s Los Angeles facilities, which were recently updated to include a “Los Angeles-centric” look.

“The Jump” continues to use the set it debuted in 2016.

ESPN’s ‘First Take’ heads west, helps debut new studio in L.A.

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Since its acquisition, AT&T renamed the division WarnerMedia and split it into three groups.

Entertainment properties TBS, TNT and truTV have been combined with HBO. All live programming, including CNN, HLN and Turner Sports is under another division, while TCM and Cartoon Network have been bunched with the company’s film division.

While the Turner name inspired the acronyms TNT and TBS, the letters no longer officially stand for anything.

Situated in an area known as Techwood, the campus includes the original building with a white columned facade used as headquarters for CNN and what was then known as CNN Headline News. 

CNN moved out of Techwood in 1987 to what became known as CNN Center, but Turner, TBS and related operations remained at Techwood, which was expanded over the years, including the more modern office building the sign was removed from.

So far AT&T hasn’t done any major layoffs in its Atlanta operations, but they are expected in 2020, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

Meanwhile, starting in 2004, Time Warner and CNN expanded its New York City presence when it moved into Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle.

The company reportedly paid $520 million for the space in the building.

In 2014, the company sold the space for $1.3 billion with a leaseback option.

The New York facility gradually become a prominent production hub for the network — with CNN Center in Atlanta showing up less frequently on air.

Today, no regularly scheduled daily programming originates from Atlanta. Instead the network’s New York and Washington, D.C. facilities are used.

HLN’s “Morning Express” still originates from Atlanta, as does weekend programming on CNN. Productions from Atlanta will also pop up on CNN when the network carries the CNN International feed overnight or during breaking news.

In May 2019, CNN and Time Warner moved from Time Warner Center to a new skyscraper in Hudson Yards that it had purchased. It eventually sold off the floors it owns for $2.2 billion but, as part of the same deal, retained a leaseback option through at least 2034. 

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The series of teases that air at the top of the broadcast, known internally as “headlines.”

As it has for some time, the broadcast runs a series of video clips with anchor Lester Holt’s voiceover running over it and a banner graphic under it.

The broadcast’s standard format then cuts back to Holt, on camera in from of one of Studio 3A’s video walls, for a final tease before the open runs.

Previously, the video wall graphic was typically a topical image that filled the entire visible area of the video wall. 

Starting Thursday, Oct. 24, 2019, however, the broadcast switched to a blurred depiction of the newsroom near Studio 4E.

The broadcast uses a similar view of the newsroom as a generic background.

On the left side of Holt are a series of small square and rectangular images with laser line borders inspired by the broadcast’s overall look and feel.

These graphics are still topical — such as the wildfire and holiday shopping ones used Thursday and Friday — but don’t cover the entire video wall like before.

The stack of images also have a slight “scrolling” animation. 

On the right side of Holt, meanwhile, is the show’s logotype.

The format wasn’t used Monday through Wednesday because Holt was anchoring from Los Angeles — from outdoors on Oct. 21 and 22 and the network’s Los Angeles newsroom Oct. 23.

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The claim came during a campaign speech in Pittsburgh — where Trump did correctly mention that a wall is not being built in Kansas.

Later, Trump tweeted that he “kiddingly” made that statement about Colorado, pointing out he thinks all states will benefit from the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

NBC’s graphics team, meanwhile, helpfully came up with a map showing just how far Colorado is from Mexico — though social media users were quick to point out that Colorado does border “New” Mexico.

Though “Today” did label Mexico prominently and featured thin lines representing the borders of both countries and statements, it was a bit hard to tell exactly how far Colorado was from the border between the U.S. and its southern neighbor. 

In fairness, NBC has had its own share of geographic trouble over the years — one time eliminating the state of New Hampshire from a map completely and another mislabeling Indiana as Ohio.

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The segment starts with the presenter standing on a virtual globe with a fleet of storms with “tracking” rings around them.

The view then switched to the network’s studio, with the globe graphic on the video wall behind her — and an augmented reality circular cloud formation coming out of the floor — as the talent begins zipping up her jacket. 

The reason for that jacket soon becomes clear.

Next, the segment switches to a wide view of a portion of the set that now appears to be set up on the roof of a building as a storm approaches.

Explainer text is inserted into the header of the “set” while, as the “storm” causes power failures, the video walls on the set flicker. 

Next, a 3D model of a billboard with more key facts falls over thanks to the wind, as rain and weather begin to “destroy” the Azteca Noticias set, with the walls and header breaking off and flying away.

The segment ends with the set magically back intact along with additional floating 3D text.

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This segment features meteorologist Chris Warren and starts at the very beginning of what causes a flash flood — raindrops.

Warren then appears standing on a sidewalk of what appears to be a typical street — standing on one of the round “daises” that also, as the virtual flood waters rise, conveniently “repels” the water and gives him a dry spot to stand on.

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One of this elements takes advantage of the camera suspended on cables above the field, powered by SportsMedia Technology Corp. camera tracking with a Skycam to incorporate AR elements in sweeping views of the stadium.

In the example featured here, taken from “Saturday Night Football” game of the week on ABC, the network inserts oversized diamonds with team logos while also inserting player imagery over the stands that are revealed using diamond “unfolding” effect.

The diamond motif is continued with a trio of shapes showing the ESPN logo as well as the two teams sparring in that night’s contest. 

Similarly, swaths of color with diamond reveals are inserted on top of the field — though notably does not appear “under” the marching band on the field, though the effect is mostly preserved thanks to semitransparent gradient edges.

The effects and augmented reality are handled by Vizrt’s Viz Engine, while Girraphic worked with ESPN and ABC on the design.

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The segment started in the studio with the video wall showing an American flag and old style map before zooming out to show a segment of the studio set “sitting” in a virtual environment depicting one of Columbus’ ships.

The view then shifts to a dramatic view of the studio’s glass topped anchor desk — complete with coffee mug — before it’s transformed into the surface of the ocean with another view of a 3D ship.

Viewers are then taken on a 360-degree spin around the ship showcasing different weather and times of the day.

The camera pulls back, revealing the boat as a “ship in the bottle” model sitting on top of the anchor desk along with a scroll and scope.

Next, the camera dramatically shifts toward the studio ceiling where a virtual sky fills in, serving as a “portal” to outer space and the moon.

On the way, a Wright Brothers-inspired plane and jet fly by — both nods to human exploration and discovery. 

The view then “comes back” to Earth, with floating 3D models of the moon and Mars floating in front of the anchor. 

A flash of light transitions the view to a rocket hurling through space and landing on a 3D recreation of Mars’ surface.

The segment finishes with the small segment of studio placed between an oversized versions of one of Columbus’ ships and a human habitation on Mars.

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The studio is about a city block away from Studio 57, the normal space “This Morning” uses, and the network aired an interstitial segment of anchors Gayle King, Anthony Mason and Tony Dokoupil walking through the labyrinth of the CBS Broadcast Center.

Meanwhile, all three anchors wore a green ribbon — a symbol of mental health awareness, throughout the show.

That ribbon was incorporated into the title card along with a “Stop the Stigma” banner set in Verdana with blue and green accents.

Similar graphics were used on Studio 43’s various video walls and panels.

CBS brought in risers to accommodate a studio audience with an area rug in the middle that served as a standing and seated home base for the anchors and in studio guests. 

The normal CBS Sports anchor desk was wheeled back in front of the two story video wall, with a “This Morning” logo fed to the LED ribbon on front of it, forming a sort of credenza.

CBS left the two wood paneled walls that typically sport a sports logo blank, with a duo of green ribbons installed in the archway above — a place also often reserved for sports logos.

The backlit graphic “windows” in the space which depict a blurred sports arena, were left in place, but conveniently the green and blue hues in the imagery matched with the on set graphics.

CBS also switched to a special green ribbon bug that alternated between the show’s name in a green and blue gradient box and the “Stop” logotype.

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In each segment, the seamless video wall behind Ginger Zee (or, in one case, Rob Marciano) changes to a monotone map with a “target” effect that highlights a specific state where a weather event is taking place.

The segments are branded as “GMAAR Weather.” 

The camera then pulls out as a white wireframe quickly fills in with satellite imagery powered by Google Maps.

Different layers, including a headline banner, city labels and other key facts can be added and removed as the weather patterns are explained.

Other layers include animated depictions of wind flow, sinking air, tornados or storms that the forecaster can interact with.

Each segment typically explains multiple weather concepts on the 3D map, which floats in the air at approximately table height and labels and other text floating above that.

All of the segments are captured using a handheld camera, with the operator often moving in close on specific cities or areas as the meteorologist discusses it. 

It’s worth noting “GMA” doesn’t use the AR every day — instead saving it for when there’s a significant weather event taking place in the country that can be effectively illustrated with an interactive virtual map rather than an ordinary weather map.

That said, the shape of some states, such as New York and Florida, seemed to work better.

In fact, Zee even “tucked” herself into the Long Island Sound while giving a play by play of the windy patterns facing New York.

Meanwhile, Montana and New Mexico didn’t quite have the same impact, with the 3D model of the state looking more like a generic flat map segment since the state borders here aren’t as distinct.

“GMA” also wisely drops the ticker (at least in select markets), bug and any lower thirds during the segments, ensuring that the full screen is available for the map.

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