Televisa San Angel (originally Estudios San Angel Inn) is a motion picture and television studio located in Mexico City. It was originally built by Jorge Stahl as a motion picture studio, and in the 1970s would be sold to the Azcárraga family, which, through ownership of the Televisa networks, continues to own the studios. It is the headquarter facility of the Centro de Educacion Artistica (CEA) and the Videocine (formerly Televicine) motion picture production and distribution company. The network's Centro de Post Produccion is also housed at San Angel. Moreover, it is best known as a motion picture and television studio. It is the oldest movie and television production facility in Mexico and the most famous telenovela studio facility in Latin America.
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Televisa San Angel is one of two surviving motion picture studios in Mexico. The other, Estudios Churubusco Azteca, had been cofounded by, ironically, Televisa San Angel's current owners. The studio had been built by Jorge Stahl as a production facility; the earliest Mexican movie to credited with being filmed at San Angel is Mi Campeon, released in 1952. At least 60 different motion pictures would be produced at the studio until 1969. Telesistema Mexicano took over the facility in 1970; under the watch of the network and its successor, Televisa, the studio would become a leading production facility in Mexico. In 1979, Televisa's Televicine (now Videocine) motion picture unit was established; at the same time the network's Centro de Educacion Artistica was set up at the studio.
Mexico's first electronic character generator was installed at Televisa San Angel in 1980; it would be replaced in 1987 by a Chyron machine. When the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake struck down Televisa's Chapultepec studios, two programs that had originated there, En Familia Con Chabelo and Siempre en Domingo, moved production permanently to Televisa San Angel. Many Televisa contract players who had worked at Chapultepec began to work at San Angel at this time. Several of them have worked at the studios in both the pre-Televisa and modern eras of the facility.
Televisa San Angel is divided into 16 sound stages known as "Foros". As of 2007, three of them had converted into high definition. Each sound stage measures 900 square meters (9,687 square feet). The Centro de Post Produccion is the most advanced post-production facility of its kind in the world, and contains 10 editing stations. There is a wide assortment of microphones at San Angel, including lavalier, boom, handheld and headset microphones, most of them wireless. Most telenovelas produced at the studio use boom and lavalier microphones. An average of 15 telenovelas and several other television series, not to mention a handful of theatrical movie releases are produced at San Angel every year. Each studio contains three cameras a laptop computer. Televisa San Angel also contains five audio recording studios and three mixing suites.
Thirty different producers who have been with Televisa for years have offices at San Angel. These include Andre Barren Diaz, Pedro Damian, Guillermo del Bosque, Luis de Llano Macedo, Carla Estrada, Emilio Larrosa, Chabelo, Rosy Ocampo, Jorge Ortiz de Pinedo, Juan Osorio, and Enrique Segoviano.[1]
Televisa San Angel's main entrance plaza, Plaza Televisa, is dedicated to the producers, directors, actors and other personnel who have been with Televisa, off and on, for at least 30 years total. Plaques at Plaza Televisa honor many of these personnel. Most of the honored personnel are famous, including many actors as well as some of the aforementioned producers.