A Chichester production company designing audiovisual set-ups for broadcast studios and live events since 2012.
newstfy began in Chichester in 2012, when Helen Marsh set up a small company to plan audiovisual work for studios and live events. After more than twenty years in studio and live production, she wanted designs and written plans that crews could actually follow.
Early work was mostly studio layouts and lighting plots for small production teams. Many of them had equipment but no clear plan for how it should fit together, and little time to work one out. We drew floor plans, wrote run sheets and stayed on to help with first shows.
As word spread, requests grew to include live sound and event coordination. Daniel Okafor joined to lead audio, bringing experience in front-of-house mixing and studio audio chains. Priya Shah and Tom Harding followed, covering lighting design and camera systems.
The company has stayed small on purpose. Each project has a named lead who knows the venue, the crew and the schedule, and who is reachable before and after the job. That keeps decisions close to the work and cuts down on handovers between people.
We spend a good share of our time writing things down: signal flow diagrams, cue sheets, handover notes and short guides on subjects such as microphone placement. Documentation is not the glamorous part of production, but it is what lets a crew repeat a good show.
Today we work with online and television studios, festival organisers, concert promoters and companies putting on their own events. The scale varies a great deal, but the approach stays the same: understand the crew, plan clearly and check the details.
We write plans in plain language and draw diagrams that a newcomer can follow. Every department should know what happens next and who is responsible, without needing to ask three people.
Shows rarely forgive loose ends, so we build in checks and fallbacks. Equipment is tested ahead of time, and we agree in advance how problems will be handled when they appear.
Good audiovisual work depends on small decisions made well, from where a microphone sits to how a key light falls on a face. We give those details the time they need.
Our habits come from years on studio floors and festival sites. They are practical choices rather than theory, and they shape how we plan, how we communicate and what we leave behind when a job ends.
We talk to the people who will operate the system before we draw anything. A technician who has run a gallery for years often knows which button layout causes mistakes. Their views go into the design, and drafts are shared early so changes cost little. The result is a plan the crew feels they own, not one handed down.
A show runs best when everyone works from the same document. We produce run sheets, signal flow diagrams and handover notes in plain language, and update them when plans change. On the day nothing important lives only in one person's head, which makes a difference when someone is ill or arrives late.
We would rather a client could run their next show without us than depend on us for every one. Training, clear notes and tidy racks all serve that aim. Many clients still come back for bigger events, but they do so because they want to, not because they have to.
The studio layout newstfy drew up fitted our small crew far better than the plan we started with. The run sheets were clear enough that a new operator picked up the vision mixer in an afternoon, and the handover notes still get used.
Martin Ellery · Festival organiser, West SussexSound checks on the festival day ran to time because everything had been planned in advance. Daniel kept the stage crew calm and the mix was clean throughout.
Sophie Granger · Producer of a corporate awards eveningPriya's lighting plot worked both for the audience and the cameras, which is harder than it sounds. We changed very little on the day.
James Whitlock · Head of content at a small production teamTom trained our three operators on the new camera control system and left us with notes we still refer to. It made our first multi-camera show far less stressful.
