black curtains

[Todd Terry]

For these kinds of sound/blackout needs, one of the easy/fast/cheap things to do is hit your local Harbor Fright Tools and pick up some of their large moving blankets.

They are quilted furniture pads, in various sizes, black on one side and gray on the other.

We’ve used plenty of times to pull double duty and block windows in a room that was also too acoustically live.

They are not quite the quality of real Matthews sound blankets… but do pretty much the same job. And last time I checked a Matthews blanket is $50+… whereas these Harbor Freight pads are about five or six bucks apiece.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Mark Suszko]

And Harbor Freight prices are lower than the local U-Haul trailer place, which also sells or lensd blankets like this. For hanging them, HF has some great tarp-grabbing clips in the back of the store, near the ropes and etc.. ,

[Todd Terry]

I forgot about that source, but Mark’s right. You can get furniture blankets at U-Haul as well, if you don’t have a Harbor Freight Tools in your city. BUT, they are more expensive than the ones from HF… and I think most of them are blue, not black.

Or, you can get them online…

https://www.harborfreight.com/40-inch-x-72-inch-movers-blanket-47262.html
https://www.harborfreight.com/72-inch-x-80-inch-movers-blanket-66537.html
https://www.harborfreight.com/72-inch-x-60-inch-movers-blanket-93156.html
https://www.harborfreight.com/36-inch-x-40-inch-movers-blanket-93162.html

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Craig Alan]

Thanks all,

How does Duvetyn 16 oz compare to sound blankets in terms of light and sound control? The windows we are tying to cover are much larger than the blankets and the installation will be semi-permanent. So decent looking would be nice.

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Dave Johnson]

Duvetyne won’t do much for sound issues since its intended for lighting and is, therefore, not nearly as thick as the moving blankets Todd & Mark suggested. I suppose you could use many layers, but that’ll get expensive. Unless you buy it in large rolls, Duvetyne is relatively expensive because it has to be fire retardant to be used with hot lights … not sure, but my guess is that moving blankets aren’t fire retardant.

[Mark Suszko]

If they are semi-perm, what I’d probably do is build a wooden frame to tightly fit the window space, then staple the blanket into that, put a plastic film on the side that touches a window, and cover the whole thing with matte black cloth from a sewing supply store, so it looks like a stage flat or art canvas. You can make you own fire retardant by soaking stuff in a borax solution, but better to check the regs with your fire marshal’s office to see what’s legal. I always recommend Rose Brand in NYC because they can sell you certified fire proof or fire-retardant cloth.

[Michael Easparam]

Have any more information or photos?

A velour type curtain absorbs sound quite well and is very attractive. 16oz would be the minimum, and much heavier is available if you have the cash. This blocks light very well. The thick nap of the curtain is what helps with the sound. Ignore the 8-12oz “supervel” or “velite” which is a fake velour and very thin.

After choosing a good fabric, then you need to choose a sewing style. Flat curtain will be cheaper but not so attractive. By adding fullness to the curtain (pleats, etc) then you are not only adding more fabric to block the sound, but it looks much better.

Have someone like Rose Brand or Dazian actually sew the curtains to look like window shades or whatever. If you need more sound absorbtion, place 1″ thick fiberglass insulation panels behind the curtains (this is tightly compressed fiberglass, not the pink fluffy stuff). Do not have the drape lay right against the fiberglass. A 1-2″ air gap between them will actually block just as much sound as both the fabric and the curtains.

[Craig Alan]

Thanks All,

Michael, this was what I had gathered from searching for sound absorbing/light blocking material for a studio. But info was hit or miss and I thought the cow folk could help. I had found the Rose Brand site and they seemed to recommend their commando cloth (16 oz). I forwarded the link to the people who will be trying to budget the “studio” make over. The windows are very large and there are quite a few of them so I doubt we can afford anything thicker than the 16 oz. Do you have a link for the fiberglass panels?

Dave/Mark, The Rose Brand site mentions the fire retardant issue and although there is a lot about this old building that is not up to code, for new additions through funding, it must be.

Todd,
I’ll probably try to order a bunch of sound blankets in a regular yearly order and use them where needed to help with the sound. It’s pretty bad though. If we get a drop ceiling put in, it will help. Not sure of funding.

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Todd Terry]

Hey Craig…

If your room sound is that bad (sounds like it’s more challenging than I thought based on the first post), you’d be well advised to hire a good acoustic engineer to come in and do a little bit of consulting. There may be a lot of opportunities for improvement that don’t readily meet the eye.

The ceiling, especially, in addition to (or sometimes in place of) the drop-ceiling acoustic tiles there might be some opportunities to use some different material… or occasionally vertical tiles rather than horizontal… that will improve things.

Case in point… there is a large venue in our city…. it’s actually a museum, part of the Space and Rocket Center. A couple of years ago they built a new facility, it’s one big room about the size of several gymnasiums put together (I’m not sure exactly how big it is, but it has a complete real Apollo-era Saturn V rocket lying on it side in it… so it’s huge). It has a high smooth ceiling, polished concrete floor, and about a zillion square feet of glass windows all the way around it. It should be an absolutely horrible room for acoustics… but they host on-stage events in there and the sound is clear as a bell. The guy who does their sound is also our occasional audio engineer, and told me how he calculated exactly where to put these vertical sound baffling panels hanging up in the ceiling to handle the problem. It’s really quite amazing considering the enormity of the room and the relatively small amount of panels that it took to fix it. He just knew exactly where to put what and where.

That might be worth the investment for you.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Steve Kownacki]

I too use Harbor Freight for blankets and gizmos. Can you tackle this as 2 issues? Sound and light. Block the windows with a roll of landscape plastic, 20×100′ roll at Home Depot is cheap. It’s also VERY lightweight compared to duvetyne.

Then control the sound nearer your subject – packing blankets on the floor and c-arms close to the talent. Any cheap/free rug scraps work too – a few spring clamps on a c-stand and hoist ’em up. If you block the sound close by it won’t create the echo.

What are you specifically trying to shoot? If you have really wide shots, it may pay you to dub in the audio where the closely-placed sound control is removed in the wide shot.

Steve