OT: What color are the walls in your bay?

This little boutique I've been freelancing for finally has the means to justify moving into some real office space. At the moment, the bay I'll be working out of is your general stale office white, but I've got permission to paint.

I know there's research out there about this but I can't find it. What colors work best in a bay and what's your preference? I was thinking a maroon maybe. Thoughts?

Depends on if you're planning on doing any color correcting. If not... go crazy. You want maroon? No problem.

However, if you're going to be color correcting anything, the goal is to have as neutral a background as possible. We have a "neutral grey" with daylight balanced lighting.

Mark

Nothing too intensive Mark. Just the usual balance issues using FCP. Quick and dirty.

Most edit rooms are neutral grey. Although I personally like Fuschia with sparkling gold accents.

But that's me

:-)

Mirror walls for some psydelic "Enter the Dragon"-type mindbending. Ho ho ho.

Mine are brown. But that is because they are covered particle board paneling. My home office...converted garage.

And I am renting so I can't really paint or tear them out. If I could I would go neutral grey.

derekmok wrote:

> Mirror walls for some psydelic "Enter the Dragon"-type
> mindbending.

That is SO last year.

Insight AND comedy. Whadda board, whadda board....

<<<We have a "neutral grey" with daylight balanced lighting.>>>

That's what we did. The monitors are all balanced for daylight (including the computer ones) and the wall at the edit console is, too. We have dimmable 5600K fluorescents back there (they don't change color as they go down).

The client side of the room is beige, off-white, and browns with warm, inviting tunsten lighting.

It all sems to work. Color corrections come out so the client likes them.

At the very least, it looks like we were trying to get it right and paying attention. That and the fresh bagels with fruit plate.

Koz

No thanx on the neutrals. I like a darker soothing room. My color corrections come out just fine in a darker background - and the client thinks its way cool & feel right at home.

I would paint every other wall terra-cota (medium / dark - tone on tone) then all around the room with 2 ft spaces between I would hang 4 x 4 fiberglass panels wrapped in soft thick purple fabric (sound absorption) - darker colors sort of like the comforter in this pic:

[www.santafedecor.com]



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

if i were you, id upholster the room rather than paint it (on at least a couple of walls). some kind of medium to dark grey, ultra low pile stuff. kind of like they use on amp cabinets. then you get light and sound absorbtion. then install a couple alternating recessed flood/spots in the ceiling.

Sometimes I feel like my edit room IS upholstered! Especially when I get some strange requests from some cllients...

Joey-

I cant disagree with you more. This maybe a subjective discussion but I don't think so. Warm tones are good for Client rooms but not or Edit rooms. Go with neutral grey in your edit rooms. Do what the hell you want in your client rooms.

you know, its funny. over the years ive been part of about 6 studio design/redesigns and one thing that always screws everything up is when you get too many opinions.

there will always be two half informed jackholes, spewing all this BS about the psychology of color... "red makes people angry, NO red makes people hungry. blue is soothing, NO blue creates anxiety" and they both read two seperate books claiming tried and true clinical tests.

although some of this, from a fundamental standpoint has its ground, but often it comes down to personal perception. case in point, probably 60% of the world would agree that blue is a "soothing" color. but it scares the hell out of me personally because as a kid my great grandmothers house was reported to be haunted and she had a bunch of blue stuff everywhere... so to this day, if someone serves me a drink in one of those translucent blue glasses i scream and run out of the room!

personally, i have found that when doing color sensitive work all that matters is that the colors in your peripheral vision dont conflict or effect your target colors.
this is why i almost always have a flat taupe/beige/gray desktop picture and a noticeably darker neutral wall behind my monitor(s).

other than that, IMO, youre just quibbling over semantics, so to speak.

oh, just to be clear i was not referring to anyone is this thread as a half-informed jackhole. strictly referring to the folk in MY personal past.

Mike,

This is important because I am closing off a room for an edit suite & buying paint. I am not familiar with any standards in regards to edit room paint colors (this is the first I am hearing of it) so you've got my attention. What do you think about neutral grey (how about a color name & / or number) on the wall behind the workstation & dark / warm tones on the rest? Aesthetically... I need to feel comfortable when I'm working for 14 hrs at a time staring at one wall. I've worked in yellow suites with tungsten lighting and I had a headache everyday after 10 hrs. As far as the work goes, I do 75% Motion graphics & Compositing / 25% straight Editing.

Thanx.

Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Don't know numbers or brands as they vary. A neutral grey is sort of a cool grey. It's not dark nor light. It's....grey. The grey I am looking at looks to be like a Pantone cool Grey 1 or 2 or 3 C. It's just there. Not real noticable color
I'm no expert here by any means. Koz might have a number

You could always take a chip chart to the paint store and get them to colour match that for you.

Wayne-
[ probably 60% of the world would agree that blue is a "soothing" color. but it scares the hell out of me personally]

This was my beef with a recent book release called "If it's Purple, Somebody's Gonna die." A valiant effort to quantify chroma and peg it into generally formulaic emotional values. I felt it was horse hockey. Filmmakers make up their own color universes, like Coppoola and his oranges, Hitchcock and his green hotel scenes in Vertigo, etc. Besdes, purple here might indicate death but in Asia, it says "here's a brothel," and elsewhere, it's for the clergy. I hope I haven't got that backward. It's a half-baked subject, I agree.

Concensus as I pick it up: if you intend to do serious color-correction, your walls should be 30-50% reflective grey. But, hell, mine are white, and with the lights dimmed they look sort of grey. Works fine. I also have a window when I want it. Take my little DVCAM studio for a VR spin from my website to see how I laid it out.

- Loren

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