About
A Cambridge consultancy that writes down how good studios work, so other teams can use it.
From studio floor operations to written guidance
premixra was founded in Cambridge in 2012 by Helen Marsden, who had spent years in television studio operations. The company grew from a simple observation: studios depend on knowledge that is rarely written down in a form others can use.
Helen saw the same pattern in many productions. A crew would solve a problem during a busy rehearsal, the fix would live in one person's memory, and a few months later the problem would return. Writing the solution down, with the exact settings and the reason for each, seemed a modest idea. It became the basis of the company.
The first work was workflow review: following a programme's signal from camera to control room to output and recording where time or clarity was lost. Clients found the written results useful beyond the immediate problem, because they gave new staff something to learn from and gave managers something to plan around.
Over the following years the team widened to cover the areas that most often cause trouble on a studio day. Camera configuration, stage lighting, audio and video synchronisation, and training for control room staff each gained a specialist who writes and advises within that field.
Our address at Mill Lane Yard in Cambridge is a working office rather than a showroom. Most of the work happens in our clients' studios and gallery spaces, where we observe, measure and talk with the people who run the equipment each day.
What has stayed constant is the form of the result. We deliver clear documents with named settings, labelled diagrams and plain explanations. A good guide should still be readable when the author is unavailable and the production is already under way.
What guides the way we write and advise
Studio work leaves little room for ambiguity. A vague instruction on a live production is an instruction that gets misread. The principles below explain why our documents are written as they are and how we approach a visit to a studio.
Clarity
Clarity means choosing the word a studio crew already uses and sticking with it. We avoid long introductions and put the action first, so a vision mixer or lighting operator can find the step they need in seconds, even while a rehearsal is running.
Accuracy
Accuracy means we measure before we advise. A latency figure, a colour temperature or a cable path is recorded as found, not as assumed. Where we are unsure, we say so and describe how to check, rather than offering a confident guess that might not hold.
Craft
Craft shows in the small details of a finished document: consistent labelling, diagrams that match the real rack layout, and steps in the order an operator would perform them. We revise our drafts with the people who will use them until they read naturally.
How our way of working took shape
The company's approach was not designed in one sitting. It developed from jobs, questions and corrections, and each stage added a habit that clients now see in every project we deliver.
Founded2012
premixraToday2026
Starting from the studio floor
Helen's background in studio operations set the first rule: begin by watching how the studio really runs. Before recommending anything, we sit with the crew, follow a rehearsal and note the habits that are not in any manual.
Writing everything down
Early reviews showed that advice given aloud was soon forgotten. We moved to written deliverables for every job, with settings and reasons set out so that a later operator can understand what was done and why.
Adding specialists
As requests widened, the team grew around specific skills: lighting and camera layouts, audio and sync investigation, and training material. Each specialist writes in their own field, and they review one another's work for consistency.
Training the next crew
Clients kept asking how to get new staff up to speed. That led to briefing documents and training notes for control room roles, which now sit alongside our reviews and guides as a regular part of our work.
Our work in plain figures
- 2012Founded
premixra
- 5Service areas
Studio Workflow Consulting, Camera Configuration Guides, Stage Lighting Planning, Audio Sync Audits, Control Room Training Material
- 4Team profiles
Helen Marsden, Oliver Pearce, Priya Nair, Daniel Whitcombe