New York State of Mind: Lightwell Builds ITV Sport's World Cup Studio

The studio sits on the 12th floor rooftop of a building in Brooklyn, open to the New York skyline. From the set, the view takes in the Brooklyn Bridge, the East River, and the Manhattan skyline beyond, with the Statue of Liberty visible to the south. It is, in short, an extraordinary location - and the brief from ITV was to do it justice.

The design was led by of our long-time collaborator Toby Kalitowski, and it's one of his most ambitious yet. Rather than a conventional enclosed studio, the space is genuinely open to the city. Natural light floods in throughout the day, shifting with the New York weather and the arc of the sun. That's a beautiful thing to work with - and a demanding one.

Our role has been to bring the design to life in Unreal Engine, building and integrating the virtual elements of the set so that they sit seamlessly alongside their physical counterparts. We've been in New York for the past two weeks doing exactly that: meticulously calibrating virtual lighting, materials and reflections to match the real environment at different times of day. Early morning light reads differently from the warm late-afternoon sun over Lower Manhattan, and every transition needed to feel natural and unforced. When it works, you don't notice it. That's the point.

The studio went live on Wednesday, 10th June, for England's friendly against Costa Rica - the perfect warm-up fixture to put everything through its paces before the tournament proper gets underway. The response from press and viewers has been immediate and generous. FourFourTwo called it "outrageous." The Telegraph described it as "extraordinary." We'll take both.

Projects like this one are the reason Lightwell exists. The challenge of blending virtual and physical production in a real-world location, with dynamic natural light and a view that the whole world recognises - this is exactly the kind of problem we've spent over two decades learning how to solve. We're enormously proud of what the team has delivered, and grateful to ITV Sport and Toby for the trust they placed in us.

We'll be adding a full case study to the Lightwell website soon, with more detail on the design concept, the technical approach, the creative team behind the studio and the production process. Watch this space.

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