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Building a small Home Grading room on a budget?
Hello friends,
I am at a point where there seems to be just enough work to pay for some improvements to my home office / grading & editing room. I am mainly thinking about possibly painting the walls grey, proper lighting and definitely adding some decent blackout blinds for daytime work. Thus far I have graded at night with some back ambient light in the room but it seems that clients or directors might want to come in during the day and obviously it will be a problem. I have included some pictures so people can see the room during the day and night. In that the curtains are blue and i am in front of two big windows i get not only sunlight but also a blue cast in the room when the curtains are drawn. I have seen some champagne colored black-out blinds at crate & barrell or Ikea but at any real post environment I have worked in they are always black or charcoal colored…i am on a budget but still want to get the right thing.
I am in Manhattan so also debating getting a consultant to do this for me as I imagine they exist here but I am on a budget so don’t really think that its possible as I am a relative new comer to grading having only been doing it for a couple of years here and there and just don’t have enough high paying work or client following to afford this expense yet. I also never had my Dreamcolor properly calibrated but have done plenty of research to get it setup well and its fairly new (5 months). If I were to get enough clients or directors in my room I would also consider bringing the Panny VT25 50″ plasma in my living room into here maybe above me along with a small couch or something for a better theater environment – If i did this I would pay someone in NYC to come and calibrate both monitors to match rec.709 so they are in sync.
I have read threads here about grey paint and think I basically understand what I will have to ask for at home depot but I am also curious about black out blinds, ambient lighting and any other suggested elements of a cost effective little grading environment. Of course broadcast/web work vs. film work presents another set of questions but regardless I thought I might just try to get some opinions based on the photos I am including.
Any help or advice would be great!
Thank youMy setup:
*MacPro 12-core 2.66 GHz / 250GB SSD OS / 32GB RAM / 8TB Internal RAID0
*BMD Decklink Extreme 3D+ / HDLINK3D Display Port > HP Dreamcolor
*Dual 23″ ACD (which don’t match each other :(not sure how to do this properly as they were different builds a few years apart possibly)
*Nvidea GT120 & 285 (did this with plan to move from Color to Resolve when i could afford it and get a Wave panel as well to be able to use Resolve).
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5 Replies
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The room looks like it’s about the same size as mine, though your room is a lot taller than mine.
I’m not sure there’s an IKEA around, but I guess there’s something similar somewhere around you. I bought a 2m worth of roll up blinds for the one (huge) window in my office. It cost me only $55 and completely shuts the light out. Well spent money, and gave a totally new mood to the room. It feels “professional” when you enter the room.Now my only problems is arrangement. Where do I put the sofa? Where do I put my work desk? Shall I rather have chairs for the clients and toss the sofa?
Limited space means limited options.
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What i use is folding curtains with aluminium blades.
It gets most of the light but i sure will add some total black rolling system with rails that is 100%
light stopping.I would also consider using FSI with sdi.
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Margus
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I have done this out in here Brooklyn, using daVinci and the wave, duvatine, with grommets on hanging hooks, to keep the footprint down, as it’s my living room that transforms into a studio everyday. Clients love the home theatre experience, and I sit adjacent to the couch with the tangent wave. Hard to explain exactly how its setup, but I love it. Honestly I feel like I’ve built myself the best grading experience that I’ve worked in, so far. And I’m really starting to feel that grading on a small screen distorts how you grade, and never want to do it again.
But then, I managed to hide all the equipment in a closet, spent a lot on cables and cable management, and completely hacked a nice dining room table to be my grading station that transforms into a regular looking corner office when I’m not working, and me and the wife are home. The main 50″ plasma goes from a grading monitor to the regular home theatre tv with a flip of a switch.
Joseph Mastantuono
Online Editor – Colorist – Post Consultant
Brooklyn based finishing at reasonable prices
917.969.1583 -
Joseph are you able to expand on the cables you mentioned for the closet relocation of your tower?
Would love to get ours out of the suite however have found very little info out there regarding this process.Many thanks,
j
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Thank you for the responses thus far awesome help guys!
The room is a rectangle btw and is roughly 19Lx9Wx9H
While I am facing windows walter, if I draw the blackout curtains closed that issue seems to be eliminated no?
So I ended up going to Lowe’s and found a pair of $22 each 99% blackout blinds in black. Not sure of this link are the exact ones but same brand and seems to be them. pretty cheap and less work I think than buying fabric and velcro or clamping them onto window frames…luckily there were already curtain rods to use! These were black 84×52″ blackout blinds on sale at Lowe’s.
https://www.lowes.com/pd_127466-710-X28005984ZBG_4294788365+4294788765+4294965416+4294883726+4294820031_116_?productId=3284450&Ns=p_product_prd_lis_ord_nbr|0||p_product_quantity_sold|1&pl=1¤tURL=%2Fpl_Other_4294788365%2B4294788765%2B4294965416%2B4294883726%2B4294820031_116_%3FNs%3Dp_product_prd_lis_ord_nbr|0||p_product_quantity_sold|1&facetInfo=Style%20Selections|Other|Yes|84.0
I would like to get some better ambient lighting for the room however as I have read here and various other resources about placing special lighting in specific locations in a grading room…doing this on a budget however is my concern. If you look at the pics of the one ambient light I have behind me coming from track lighting it is not proper at all – any suggestions? I of course would not use the chandelier you see in the pic either as its right above where I am sitting and casts and warm light onto the monitors. I know some small 6500 neutral lights behind my monitors on the floor as suggested but in that I am right up against windows with blackout curtains not so sure what will work best.
Right now I have a second computer chair for a client / director to sit next to me in while looking at the Dreamcolor – i think this makes more sense in that there is no plasma on the wall.
In terms of getting an SDI solution such as FSI – I definitely contemplated it but I just don’t have the 5K to make that purchase – if enough work comes in to pay for it its a no-brainer really as I am very nervous using the HDLINK & Dreamcolor combo for critical work – there is no solid support from BMD on how to properly setup with this monitor – everyone has different answers and ultimately the best one is that I should have someone come in and professionally calibrate it to rec. 709 as well as my Panny VT25 while they are at it.
Cable management is something I would like to do too – they really are unsightly and would love to get some ideas for this. One thing i came across basically was someone who had plastic rip tie everything to the underside of his desk.
Any other thoughts are welcome and again thanks for the feedback!
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