KHON-TV will bring an end to its cryptic promos telling of something under construction when it debuts its new, more than $250,000 news set tomorrow at 5 p.m. with anchor Ron Mizutani at the helm for the unveiling.

Mizutani, Joe Moore and the rest of the anchor team have been rehearsing on the set, while the morning team will start on the new set Tuesday to give the behind-the-scenes crew additional time for “;tweaking during the day Monday and leave ourselves a little bit of breathing room,”; said Joe McNamara, president and general manager.

About six months in the planning, the set was designed by Florida-based FX Group, an Emmy-winning scenic design company.

“;They're one of the top set designers in the nation and literally in the world. They're in the process of doing a set in Dubai. They're sought-after,”; McNamara said.

Involving way more than just an anchor desk and stuff hanging on the walls, the new set design gives anchors and reporters about a dozen locations from whence to present news, weather, sports and interview segments, as opposed to the usual few. That likely means the newscasts will have the look of being more active, less sedentary.

It is also equipped with multiple high-definition LCD and plasma screens to allow the station to display feeds of news, weather and sports video and graphics.

The whole kit and caboodle was designed with HD in mind, but the newscasts won't be in high-definition come 5 p.m. tomorrow.

“;That won't happen for another three to six months,”; McNamara said.

A lot of stations get HD studio and field cameras first, “;but we felt that we really have to sharpen up the news set first,”; to give the forthcoming HD cameras better environs for viewers to see.

The new morning news set's colorful background was photographed by KHON videographer Justin Kanno, while additional “;scenics,”; printed on large-format printers and illuminated from behind, came from Photo Resource Hawaii in Kailua.

The station's new visual branding work was created by local boy Andrew Magpoc of Pearl City-based MM Pictures LLC. He has worked in a creative capacity for three of the four network affiliates in Honolulu as well as for Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions and other mainland companies.

New music also will lead into and out of the newscasts, produced by local recording artist, producer and talent manager Shawn Kekoa Pimental.

Months of behind-the-scenes work, back-and-forth coordinating and requests to tweak this or that just a little bit more have the staff excited, McNamara said.

The set was built in Florida and transported to Hawaii in pieces by truck overland from FX's facilities outside Orlando and then by Matson ship from the West Coast here.

The process was “;probably one of the touchiest things,”; McNamara said. It was finished Dec. 30 “;and it had to be in here last week, in less than 15 days.”; Matson helped coordinate the ground shipment and he followed it across the country. It arrived on the West Coast a day early.

“;Matson really stepped up and helped us out ... it was transported in record time,”; he said.

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Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Reach her at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).