OT: Studio and Office

neb wrote on 5/1/2007, 3:41 PM
Hello all,

The organization i work for will be building new offices soon (in the next several years at least). I work for a camp with about 20 people on staff, so the office will be housing all of us. Our jobs range from video/web/design (thats me) to administration, to more typical camp stuff. We are in the planning stages of this and are just gathering ideas. Obviously there are lots of constrains, but i am trying to put together a sort of proposal that my office would double as a small studio space. The main thing it wold be used for is shooting interviews, hopefully often on a green screen.

So, im looking for some advice and ideas. I have never worked in a studio space, or even really know much about it, so i dont even really have a good place to start asking questions. So any advice would be great.

A few specific questions:
What is a good amount of space given that i will mostly be doing interviews? Minimum space?

How much space to the side of a person/backdrop would i need for lights?

What are some good working distances that somebody should be from the backdrop, particularly a green screen?

I know that is all very general...but any help would be great!

Comments

ushere wrote on 5/1/2007, 4:23 PM
no idea where you are?

be that as it may, if your organisation is serious, then you really should call in a professional designer.

space to do interviews? one, two, panel? never to be used for anything else in the future? a lot of variables...

lights? ceiling rig, permanent fixtures, hot (tungsten), cold (led), soft boxes? again too many variables, and no idea of budget.

green screen. now there's a can of worms that's not only dependent on your lighting set up, but the equipment your likely to use; cameras, live or to tape, etc.,

and i haven't even started on power circuits, cable runs....

good luck, but for peace of mind, grab a pro....

leslie
rs170a wrote on 5/1/2007, 4:29 PM
First of all, here's an excellent article on shooting interviews from an industry pro.
The Art of Shooting the Video Interview
I've learned a lot from Bill over the years and can say that he knows what he's talking about.

In the article, he says that he prefers the room to be 20 ft. long but says nothing about the width.
Based on past experiences, I'd make the width 20 ft. as well. This will give you a fair bit of room to move around with a single interviewee or to add multiple subjects or cameras if desired.
This will also give you plenty of room for doing chroma key work, even if it's full body shots.
Chroma Key Basics for DV Guerrillas is a good article on setting up for shooting chroma key.

Try to get at least a 12 ft. high ceiling. If you go with ceiling-mounted light fixtures (as opposed to being on floor stands), this will allow you to get decent angles on your lighting.

BTW, I've shot interviews in huge rooms (studios 30 x 30 or bigger) as well as very small ones (doctor's office that was 8 x 8, if that large) and I prefer the large spaces :-)

Mike

edit: I just read leslie's response and he's right. If at all possible, talk to an industry pro (and NOT an interior designer who knows nothing about TV studios).
neb wrote on 5/1/2007, 4:38 PM
Ushere,
Thanks for the thoughts! I would love to have a pro involved, but i dont know if that is possible.

I should have given more context in the original post, so here is how this would be used.

When it comes to interviews there are two basic needs 1st is for interviews of campers. These are short (all of this is single camera) only one person. Basically we are just getting them to share about their week of camp. What we do right now is have a couple hours during one day that we shoot interviews. But what we would rather do is have a place (my small office/studio) where we can leave a small light kit (3 lights max) and a mic set up so we can easily shoot a few interviews everyday the during the week.

The second is for promos where we have staff talking about there programs etc. These are more scripted and less often. The room would also possibly be used for some VO stuff.

All of this would be for tape, edited and used.

As for the future...i dont know, we are a summer camp and retreat center, so the main thing that we use video for is promotion and as part of some of our programs, we are not doing huge productions. If someday we have a need for more then we would consider how to modify/build/etc. I can see doing more with multiple camera work in the future, so that is a consideration for sure.

Rs, Thanks for the links, 20X20 seems reasonable for the space i may have to work with...ill read the articals!


ben