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Building a Home Video Studio

A 12 part series of articles on the making of aviaTV.com

by Darren Smith, CFII/MEI

Beginnings

I had a dream to produce training videos and publish them on the internet for free. The idea came together when a co-worker made an odd comment to me. He was aware of all the books, the previous video and audio attempts, the website, and the invention of pilot tools. His comment was, "You're the next John & Martha." It resonated with that long term goal that was unspoken but not forgotten. In mid 2009, I decided it was time to make it happen. I was considering taking a teaching job in Missouri. I was unable to accept the offer due to the timing of when they needed me to start. But I wanted the job and it would have allowed me to make videos at the campus TV studio. It was another brush with the unspoken long term goal.

It was ok, because I had already decided it was going to happen. So when the job offer fell through, it became a home studio. I began immediately. Well, it's been a long process building a home video studio. Over a year, I have been working on the components in one way or another. It wasn't a full time effort in 2010 as I spent the year working on a personal educational goal which caused this project to slip to last place for my attention. Anyway, the timeline went something like this:

Aug2009: Purchased (ebay) the teleprompter laptop, a Toshiba M200 (picked up in person in Arizona)
Sep2009: Purchased (ebay) white, black, and chroma green muslin backdrops
Oct2009: Purchased the teleprompter tripod at an auction.
Nov2009: Purchased a very modern LCD based teleprompter system (driven by the toshiba laptop)
Dec2009: Purchased the audio equipment (Marshall USB & shotgun mics, Audio Technica lavaliers, Tascam headset & hand microphone, Mackie audio mixing panel, various lengths of XLR mic cables)
Jan2010 Purchased the studio lighting (1 2000w keylight softbox, 2 1000w fill softboxes, 300w yellow backlight)
Feb2010: Purchased the green screen stuff (the green screen itself, 2 kinoflow lights & stands)
Mar2010: Purchased (ebay) the acoustic foam wall panels & made the folding screen panels
Apr2010: Purchased (ebay) the studio video monitors, got the domain name, aviaTV.com
May2010: Made the Sandbags, designed the floor plan of the 10' x 15' space
Jun2010: Made the infinite white and chroma key green canvas backdrops
Jun2010: The Camera, a Panasonic DVX100B with Firestore FS100, arrives. A huge expense, but not as expensive as the editing Computer.
Jul2010 The main studio floor was prepped (see below). It included painting, electrical, ambient lighting.
Aug2010 Purchased the editing Computer. Phew expensive Mac based system with Final Cut Studio. The system boasts a disk storage capability of 18TB (yes Terrabytes - video takes up a lot of room)
Sep2010 Purchased an additional laptop to hold studio data and catalog the physical and digital assets.
Oct2010 Installed the green screen stuff, green screen lighting. Installed the acoustics.
Nov2010 Installed the infinite white background, lighting, and 3 additional backgrounds. Started installing the electrical components.
Dec2010 Installed the stage curtains, white & black. Installed softboxes, spot lighting.

The Floor Plan

Acoustic foam lines the walls.

Several kinds of backdrops are available, green screen, and infinite white. Muslin white and black are also able to be configured.

The green screen is fully configured with kino-flow type lighting for the highest quality green screen effects.

A chroma blue screen is available.

Daylight corrected fluorescent lamps light the backdrops and the talent.

Acoustic wall panel / room divider absorbs sound from the direction of the talent.

The non-linear editing system is situated on the other side of the room divider. It is able to catch the output of the camera live direct to hard drive.

There are studio monitors in view of the talent, camera operator, and at the video editing work station.

All the studio lighting could be on and running (an unlikely scenario) and still use a lot less power than a vacuum cleaner, or one of those 500 watt home depot work lights.

In preparing the empty room, the first thought that came to my mind was cleaning and painting. After 4 gallons of Behr ultra pure white flat interior paint ($80) my room was ready to go. I had also decided to put in two fluorescent lights in the existing drop ceiling ($50) so that when I'm not on camera, I can use the room to do the editing. Of course the room did not have baseboards, so I figured the commercial (rubber) baseboards were the trick. Total spent on baseboards $40.

I think I need new carpeting. That will be a discussion for a later time.

In building this home video studio, the foremost thought on my mind was cost effective results, i.e. the most bang for the buck. While it's not the perfect TV studio, it's an excellent home video studio. Many decisions were driven by the cost/performance curve and the value proposition. This led to some interesting choices. Over the next few pages, you'll see the decision making and the accomodations I made to get the results needed.

The first project was something small and relatively low cost, but important. It's something useful and needed in every video studio.

Total cost for this phase of the project: $170

Next: Sand bags >>

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Building a Home Video Studio

The Floor Plan

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