History of Soap Sets

I remember reading that they'd shot some EastEnders scenes in HD as a test, and found that it made the outdoor set look very unrealistic.

I would imagine the Corrie set should look mostly fine in HD. It certainly looked okay when I went on the Granada Studios Tour and viewed it through my own eyes. I guess there might be a few tweaks they'll have to look at, such as the large printed image of Rosamund Street under the viaduct arch next to the Rovers, which even looks rubbish on sub-SD ITV1 via DSat.

Having said that, there have been suggestions that they may build a new Corrie set anyway if they move to MediaCity at Salford.

BBC Scotland's River City outdoor set is a steel framed construction with plywood facades, finished with a sand/glue mixture that makes it appear like sandstone tenements. Some of the shop interiors are filmed in on the lot, the rest being shot in the adjoining studio.

Its pretty impressive, even up close - but there's lots of things that give it away as fakery - such as drain pipes not connected at the bottom (even though they buildings have full roofs and caught rainwater does flow down the pipes). To the touch you can feel that its not real stone - but other than that it would look real even in HD.

From what I could see there were floors inside some of the buildings - I could see work lighting in them up on the second/third floors, and I know they've shot certain scenes from the insides looking out onto the street.

Over the years they've build an underground train station and a couple of other things - a cafe I think and something else, although I confess I stopped watching.

I heard the intention was to continue adding streets to the lot, to give more flexibility to River City and and to possibly allow another daytime drama to be shot there.

Although that might have been hogwash.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38180000/jpg/_38180696_soapset300.jpg
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Fun little game, google maps has an old photo of the site before the BBC took over...

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&sll=55.945884,-4.563403&sspn=0.018793,0.038967&gl=uk&ie=UTF8&ll=55.952978,-4.564015&spn=0.004697,0.009742&t=h&z=17

Whereas Bing maps...

http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=55.953236080686416~-4.563912078738213&lvl=17&sty=h&eo=0&where1=Dumbarton%2C%20West%20Dunbartonshire%2C%20Scotland%2C%20UK

Last time I checked Google Maps' aerial view of Pacific Quay was taken before STV's HQ was built, whereas the Street View (obviously) was filmed after. There's a nifty little thing on the iPhone Google Maps app where it zooms down into the aerial view and aligns itself to the Street View - and in this location created the odd effect of the building appearing from nowhere!

Given the way it was constructed, that's pretty much what happened!

Does anyone know where to find that video of the two guys who broke into the Eastenders set a few years back and had a wonder round the square?

David

With regards to Corrie moving to Media City, I read recently that there may be issues with seagulls at Salford Quays sh*tting all over the set and cast! Its also unrealistic to have seagulls in what's meant to be a district of the city centre!

Does anyone remember the failed BBC soap Eldorado ? It began in summer 1992 and some viewers disliked it to the extent of saying "Bring back Wogan". In summer 1993, Eldorado was axed.

Somewhere I was led to believe the film set was purpose-built at a cost of £10 million. Does anyone know whether or not that was true? What happened to the set when Eldorado was axed? I read in a TV magazine at the time "It can't be used for tourist accommodation as the walls are too thin". Was it sold to another production company, or just demolished?

Far as I know, it sits there to this day, empty, unloved and unused.

Here's the co-ordinates for the Eldorado set on Google Earth 36°37'38.88"N 4°45'26.98"W

It was built without plumbing, rendering it useless for any function other than a film set.

It did cost about £10M, but that would have covered its own costs in the end had it been allowed to continue.

It was quite good towards the end - but rubbish to start with.

I never thoughts it was THAT far south, its not even near any water!