Hi all!
I’m aware that many of you work from home these days, but I wonder what experiences (good or bad) you have with different room layouts, especially for the client-supervised sessions.
I’ve been in a couple of post-production studios and have seen many designs that all have their pros and cons. So when a few years ago I built mine, I decided to mimic the layout of the larger color grading suites; however, my room is only 25 sqm.
This means that I’m sitting behind the client. I have a 24-inch broadcast monitor just in front of me, surrounded by two 30-inch computer monitors. A friend of mine who is a photographer took a nice picture of the room so you can get a glimpse into my workspace. I love to work this way, and my clients got used to it mainly because they can’t see my reaction when they ask for the stupidest thing on Earth. But sometimes, I feel they are a bit frustrated that they can’t have eye contact with me, so I’m doing most of my client attended sessions standing with the desk raised; thus, I can walk in front of them for friendlier communication or pointing and explaining an idea on the big screen.
Overall this layout fits my needs: it’s ideal for color correction, okay for editorial and sound mixing work, but not so good when working in Flame. I used to put the Flame interface on the monitor on the right, but working this way is not too comfortable for 10 hours a day. So I decided to rearrange my monitors, and I replaced the broadcast monitor in front of me with a 42-inch giant display for the main software interface, moved the broadcast monitor to the left, and rotated the monitor on the right to portrait mode for mails, scripts and the Logik forum of course.
Now I have a setup that is great for Flame-work, super for editorial tasks – but not so ideal for color grading. I miss the big screen when grading, but everything bigger than a 24-inch monitor blocks it from my sight. Another problem I caused with this arrangement is that my clients now have zero visual contact with me.
I know there isn’t a single good layout if you perform different tasks on a daily basis, as well as I think all of us have to put into consideration that the number of occasions a client visits us decreases every year.
All in all, I started this thread to share some different layouts of the room we spend most of the day. What’s best for the artist that suits them in client-supervised sessions as well? Do you have fewer or more client visits now than in the past years? Good practices for setting up a room are very welcome, as well as bad ones to be avoided.
Keep safe!
Mor