NFL Films Opens New Jersey Complex

NFL Films has opened a 200,000 square foot, state-of-the-art film and television studio complex at Bishops Gate Corporate Campus in Mt. Laurel, N.J. The expansion will help the company increase business opportunities with non-football clients.

The new complex houses all the necessary film craft areas - cinematography, processing, music, graphics, et al - under one roof. The studios were designed to address the particular production needs of NFL Films. Nearly 300 craftspeople create more than 400 hours of original NFL programming annually, distributed across 30 domestic networks and 200 countries, the Internet, home videos, DVDs and CD-ROMs.

This facility is ready to transition to hi-def television production. It can shoot on 1080p/24 fps, Sony HDC900 and HDC950 Hi-Def cameras, and has film-to-tape transfer (16mm and 35mm) and video editing capabilities. A 60 x 80-square foot shooting stage has dedicated video and audio control rooms as well as a scoring stage for a 72-piece orchestra.

The complex will house the NFL's digital assets. It contains the world's largest sports film archive, with more than 100 million feet of football action dating back to 1894. The archives are stored in a 3,500 square-foot, temperature-regulated vault with one-foot-thick concrete walls and ceiling. NFL Films is transferring those images into a digital format where they will be stored on a proprietary multidescriptor searchable online database for full-motion video.