After its completion, a new multifunctional broadcast studio will provide a professional experience for TCU News Now students and other students within the Schieffer School of Journalism, TCU News Now Adviser Aaron Chimbel said.

FX Design Group designed the set in the high-definition studio to be versatile for a variety of programs and uses, Chimbel said. They will begin to install the last pieces Nov. 1.

“It will be very modern,” he said. “It really is designed to be multifunctional, to be flexible [and] to provide the ability for students to move around.”

Chimbel said that after completion, the studio will keep the three high-definition cameras and control room and include nine high-definition monitors. The customized design of the studio set will provide students with opportunities to use the space and equipment for multiple projects and programs.

The set will be installed by an FX Design Group crew and will be ready for use Nov. 8. Chimbel said it will include cameras for multiple shot angles, an interview set and a sidewalk view window.

“It’s great to have the new studio, but the set is what’s really going to make it stand out,” Chimbel said. “When you walk down there now, it’s a nice big room with really nice cameras, but once that set is in there it is going to blow people away.”

The Schieffer School built the studio as part of the $5.6 million renovation of Moudy Building South that began in 2009, Chimbel said.

FX Design Group Creative Director Bill Brown said faculty members worked with him and designer Tim Parsons to create the versatile space for broadcasting.

“The university invested a lot of time and money to create ideal studio circumstances, both in the equipment that they used but also in the design of the studio itself,” Brown said.

FX Design Group has worked to design and redesign broadcast sets for other universities, such as the University of Tennessee and the University of Central Florida, but Brown said he thought the set and the studio designed for TCU was newer and better.

“It compares very favorably to any other university I’ve encountered, and those include some pretty big ones,” Brown said. “So you’ve got yourself one beautiful, very functional space. And the university has also invested in the same equipment that would go in local stations around the country and has converted all of its operations [to] high-definition.”

Chimbel said that although the studio’s primary use will be for presenting newscasts within the Schieffer School, it will continue to allow collaboration with the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media.

Chris Blake, TCU News Now sports director, said students in the Multimedia Reporting and Newscast classes create the content for the weekly TCU News Now broadcast. Students in the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media handle the newscast production.

“We put together the content for it and edit the video, and the production side is done by one of the FTDM classes,” Blake said. “They run the cameras and the switchboard, the whole control room and stuff like that.”

Blake, a senior broadcast journalism major, said he felt the newscast would look more professional once the set is complete.

“With the monitors we will be able to add a lot with what we can show behind the anchors and stuff like that,” Blake said. “And I think it will be more like a real-world newscast.”

The monitors can be used to place background video, photographs or graphics behind the anchors, Blake said.

Chimbel said he was excited for the completion of the studio so student news anchors would no longer be limited to standing behind a stationary news desk.