Building a studio for The Studio. - Dragon Image

Building a studio for The Studio.

Every studio is unique but the requirements are usually the same. 

This was the case with The Studio.

 

About The Studio

The Studio Incubator opened 1st March 2018 in the new Sydney Startup Hub.

The Studio exists to grow and strengthen the Australian media, entertainment, games and creative industries for the benefit of all and to create global businesses.

The Studio Incubator opened 1st March 2018 in the new Sydney Startup Hub. Level 6, 11 York St, Sydney (above Wynyard Station). Book a tour now to become a ...

The studio community provides a forum for representation and enhancement of the future of the media, entertainment, games and creative industries

The studio facilitates connections between industry and innovation; and provides pathways to employment through internships and mentor programs.

The studio is supported by our partners and sponsors. These relationships also bring opportunities to collaborate, network and attract funding.

Why is this important? Being surrounded and supported by the who’s who of these sectors is a critical step to shorten the process of execution and ideation.

Chantal Abouchar (CEO, Board Member) from The Studio visited Dragon image with an idea.

"I need a studio that people without experience can use" other wise known as turn key

The First Step – The Visit

The first thing we try to do is organise a visit. Depending on the type of studio that is being constructed this may include (like it did in this case) builders and architects.

One of the challenges was the fact that the space was a historic building.

About 11 York St, Sydney

 

Transport House, otherwise known as Railway House, this was constructed in the early 1930s as the administrative home of the New South Wales State Railways. The building was clad above the ground level with distinctive green terracotta tiles which were the colour of the railway carriages at the time. Green thus marked the building as belonging to the railways, and foreshadowed the use of the same green for Sydney's public transport network for a time, when buses, ferries and trams were also green. The steel and bronze components used in the building were manufactured at the railway workshops at Chullora. The construction was undertaken using day labour, a controversial decision in the middle of the Great Depression. 
When it was built, Transport House was considered to be one of the most modern in Sydney, with cutting edge design features. Much of the interior was art deco in style, the building was air conditioned throughout, and escalators, new in Sydney, ran down to Wynyard station below. 

 

 

Normally when designing a studio for general use the minimum space we recommend is 10m x 8m with 3m ceilings. With that being said most studios we build tend to be smaller.

“The studio we built for Huffington Post Australia was 6m x 3m x 2.4m ceilings”

in heritage buildings, a room within a room is normally built to protect the building. This was created by the builders that were already on site doing the renovation.

The Second Step – Construction materials

Because we weren’t doing the actual build we had to instruct the builders on what need to be done and supply them with the right building supplies.   In this case, studio curve for the studio construction and consult on the build. The Studios studio is around 10m x 10m x 2.7m ceiling very respectable considering its location.

The Third Step – Lighting

Before we even had the meeting Chantal had specified Soft so I recommended the LightPro StudioLine Ultra Soft LED’s here is why.

There are a lot of options on the market from high-end app-controlled lights to cheap plastic one with poor CRI (A colour rendering index (CRI) is a quantitative measure of the ability of a light source to reveal the colours of various objects faithfully in comparison with an ideal or natural light source. Or higher the number better). The requirements expanded to include a limited budget. If you ever go shopping, you will notice that price of some items increases expeditiously and when a product is 90% perfect the extra 10% cost more than triple. Lights are very similar. We picked a light that gave us a great quality of light with excellent cri Above 96/100 that could be controlled from the more traditional DMX systems. (DMX512 is a standard for digital communication networks that are commonly used to control stage lighting)

The studio we helped create is a large green space designed so that anyone could walk in and hit a switch and use.

The space still requires people to bring their own camera and Audio equipment but hopefully, we can help fill the need with the required training and equipment.

Full Equipment List

Lighting 

10 x LightPro StudioLine 2000XL 
2 x LightPro DN-100f LED Fresnals 
1 x LightPro UltraSoft 780C LED Light

Build

6 x Studio Wall Curve 1m
18 x Studio Floor Curve 1m
2 x Studio Curve Corner
1 x 20L Chromakey Paint

Other

1 x DMX Mixer
cables, safety chains, clamps and ceiling supports