Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1196709
Reality sets in. ecause this show was to be reality based, it was essential to tour the top morning shows in , preferably during a live broadcast. I was fortunate enough to go to the number one and two top shows, The Today Show and Good Morning America. Many things struck me, and would find their way into the sets—the tight quarters, pedestrian dressing rooms spiced up with fan art, and the contrast between the shoehorned together backstage and the bright and glowing studio set. The high stakes atmosphere of the actual live show reminded me of witnessing the bridge of a battleship during critical maneuvers, with every manned station having a very specific task and function, and the cast and crew as serious as sailors going into battle. The Morning Show set. In designing the studio set, I looked at every morning-show set ever broadcast for reference. istorically, they are a hybrid of newsroom and living room, sometimes with unfortunate results. I wanted to emphasie a digital aesthetic, embracing forms and curves reminiscent of the symbols of apps and The Morning Show logo, the shape and graphic elements of which are designed into the freestanding pylons that make up the bulk of the scenery. They are essentially long light boxes with the graphic elements as Duratrans sandwiched between layers of lexiglas and solid neutral density material. In order to ensure that the Duratrans had the proper density and color saturation, a test pylon was built to make sure the colors weren't washed out. The director of photography also could try dierent arrangements of LD light panels inside. The pylons and their connecting arches make open-framed areas that delineate specific spots for dierent segments of the show. In the center is the host desk, which was dubbed the teacup because of its shape this is a morning show, caeine is required, a lexiglas compound curved form that, like a lot of things on the show, had to balance several conicting technical and aesthetic needs—the hosts appear in people's homes every morning and should be transparent in a certain manner, yet the table had to be strong enough to have multiple people lean, push and sit around or on it. ne of the show's consultants from The Today Show, after looking at the drawings and renderings of it, said it looked F D E G