Private Cinemas: Form vs. Function

In this podcast Walt Zerbe, Sr. Director of Technology and Standards at CEDIA and Host of the CEDIA podcast talks with Peter Aylett of Officina Acustica, Roddy Abbot of Cinema Build Systems and Nic Black of Sigma Design Company about the conundrum between all of the other design trades and home owner wishes and how they would negatively affect the function of the room.  There's a great discussion across lots of subjects including first hand experiences where challenges were presented and how these designers mitigated them.

Podcast Transcript

Nic Black  0:03  
is the CEDIA media, CEDIA podcast. So the designer and the architect, they come up with this amazing piece of glass, which was floor to ceiling running right down the side of the wall, which, of course, from my point of view, is an immediate red flag. It took me probably about three months to actually persuade, ultimately, the client, that this wasn't such a such a good idea. And the only way I managed to persuade him was to take him to one of my previous cinemas and sit him down. And after 20 minutes, he went, I completely get it. This is what I want. And I understand that That's complete nonsense, that I was even in the design. Why was it in the design? So of course, all of a sudden, the architects can getting it in the neck, so to speak. And funnily enough, the glass wall was removed. And again, at that point, the client realized that he couldn't have this third party in dictating what the room was going to look like. He basically said, it's your box, it's your room. You do everything, because this is what I want you to deliver for me, and I trust you to do. So

Walt Zerbe  1:07  
hello and welcome to another CEDIA Podcast. I'm Walt Zerby, Senior Director of Technology and Standards, and your host for the CEDIA podcast, and this week we are talking about a subject that is very near and dear to my heart, but one that was not my idea to do as many podcasts are. I'm open to all kinds of ideas on podcasts, because great subjects come from lots of people, not just for one person, and my good friend Peter Aylett. I was saying, hey, you know we should do podcasts on something? And Peter said, Yeah, you know what? Why don't we do a podcast on private cinemas, and the whole the whole conundrum of form versus function. I said, that sounds great. So I said, Who else can we have to help us do that? So we have two other great gentlemen that have joined the cast, and the first is Robbie Abbott, and the second is Nick black. So Peter, I'm gonna have you announce yourself. Everybody knows you, I'm sure, but, and if you don't shame on you, but I'm gonna have Roddy start off first, and then then I'm gonna hand it to Peter. So Roddy, tell us what you do and what your company is, and maybe even also why you're interested in this subject.

Roddy Abbot  2:19  
Okay. My name's Roddy Abbott. I currently run a company called cinema build systems. We officially launched cinema build systems about six years ago, but prior to that, I'd been an integrator for some in the region of 1314. Years previous to getting into this industry, which I got into by complete accident, I'd studied product design at university, so I was at a slightly different outlook on things, where, during our installation life, wherever we had an issue with the product we couldn't source, I'd quite often just look at, well, can we make it? Over time, we got to a point where we'd actually developed more products than we could actually install, and we realized about five or six years ago, we're no longer an install business. We're actually a manufacturer, and that's, that's how cinema build came to be. And ultimately, the last few years has been refining product, and the nice feedback we tend to get is that when installers get product in their hands, they can tell it's been designed by someone who actually knows what the application was. And that's kind of really how we got to where we are in a in a very brief nutshell, there's, there's another eight hours of storage we could go into. But for for now that that sort of gets us to where we

Walt Zerbe  3:50  
are just now, okay, I love that being coming from product the product side, as well being a product manager, I know all too well when products are designed by engineers versus when products are designed by product people like, is it installable? How's it work? Is it nice to use? Has it met the needs? So that's That's music to my heart, so I'd love that. Yeah, Nick, let us know all the same stuff. What's your why are you here, and what's your company, and what you do, and all that stuff.

Nic Black  4:19  
Okay, cool. Hi. So yes, I'm Nick black. So I have a new business in the UK, actually, which I've been kind of setting up over the last year, called sigma design. And I suppose sigma is an attempt to effectively bring together all the parts that I suppose offer my clients. You know, some of the parts, I suppose, in a kind of simplistic term. So my consulting work, with my consulting hat on, I am a lighting designer. I obviously design private cinemas, and I have a kind of skill set which is very broad, most of which has been gained from my previous world, which was running. And operating a company in the UK called pyramid AV, who were very active senior members, multiple award winners in terms of cinema design, lighting controls, etc, etc. So my, I suppose, experience spans around 30 years in the industry, and I've worn so many different hats from being, you know, in the early days, at the kind of front end of kind of live music production. So I previously, originally pyramid was an events production company. So I was rigging the lights in the stage and doing the sound and all the things you would expect, which then evolved over time with the AV industry as it kind of grew up, we stopped hiring equipment, started installing equipment. So we were not only fitting out spaces with AV equipment, and we had a lot of experience both in the commercial world. So I suppose my experience comes from, you know, high end residential, commercial environments and a lot of kind of specific environments that are kind of unique to what we do. So, yeah, bit of a catch all kind of description of what I do. But these days I specialize in light and design and cinema design.

Walt Zerbe  6:08  
Okay, you probably know a lot about ground loops, right? Yes, sadly, yes, yeah, you work in some harsh environments when you're doing that, that big sound stuff, and you get all kinds of crazy stuff, but yeah, all right, Mr. Aylett from I gotta say it, because I love saying it. Officina Acoustica, love that company. I would like you to just give us a little intro and then introduce this subject. Please. You

Peter Aylett  6:36  
say it better every single time. Walt, thank you. My name is Peter Ayler, and my day job is I'm a partner at a Italian company called Officina Acoustica. We make a product that we call acoustic interior design. So effectively we pre, pre make modular fit out systems for pretty high end entertainment spaces, all pre made in Italy and then just bolted together on site like a big fat Meccano kit. I'm also a self confessed cediaholic. I spend way, way, way too much of my time volunteering for CEDIA, and I'm currently very, very privileged to be the global Chair of our 10 which is CEDIA Standards Committee, and I also chaired the working group that wrote the RP 22 immersive audio recommended practice. And whilst, whilst we were talking RP 22 RP 22 is is all about function. It's all about performance. It's all about a set of recommended practices for the engineering that needs to go into these rooms to consistently make them at really, really high level of performance, but do it predictably and in in my main job, which is we do a certain very limited amount of rooms ourselves. Most of the time we sell through a global network of dealers. But when working on projects ourselves and working with dealers. There is always, as I'm sure, every single professional on this listening to this will have also encountered, how should I put this a negotiation during the design stage for the things that we want to do, from an engineering perspective, to bring engineering integrity to the room versus the things that the design team and the client often want to bring in because they think it looks nice or or it's cool. So the idea of this podcast was, was really to talk about form versus function. What do we mean by function? It's not just the binary of, you know, function, like a light, does it switch on? You know, with a light, sure it's got to switch on, but that light's also got to be beautiful. So you have binary, does it work? Function, and then you have the experiential how is this enhancing my life? Part of it, and it's exactly the same with cinemas. The binary function, functionality of the room is just a list of features. But it's not enough just to have sound and just to have picture. Those happen on a on a technical spectrum, and the better we deliver them, the better the experience. And you know, my my first rant of the day, my first bugbear, because Walt said there's going to be a few, is as as an industry, we love social media, don't we? We love posting photos of of really nice looking rooms. And an integrator or a distributor or a manufacturer will post some photos of a really nice room on the internet, and they'll get all the replies, Oh, what an amazing room. You've done a great job. How fantastic. And I'm just looking at these photos thinking, I have no idea how fantastic they are. It could be a picture of a Ferrari where it's got no engine in it. It doesn't it doesn't work. What? The all the electrics have been, have been stripped out. So I think, as an industry, we need, we need to talk more about the experiential elements of the rooms we build in terms of technically, how well do they perform? Of course, do they need to look great? Sure. Do they need to meet the needs of the customer in terms of space and seating and functionality and flow around the room and look good with it absolutely. But they've also got to work well, you know, the hidden stuff underneath has also got to be done with integrity. So my idea of this podcast is just to talk about what are the challenges we face as an industry when talking to clients and architects, interior designers, that that side of the equation, versus us, the technical bods trying to deliver the most incredible experience to our customers. I'll just finish off by I was I was chatting with one of our customers on WhatsApp the other day, and I came up with a phrase that I'm actually quite proud of. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, quote, unquote here, cinemas should be a temple to the content, not a temple to distraction. And you know what I'm what I'm trying to say is, so many rooms are built that when you walk in there, it's, wow. This looks amazing. But when the lights are off and you're playing the content, all the stuff that looked amazing with the lights on when you walk into the room and now just a distraction in your peripheral vision when you're when you're viewing the content. So you know, let's, I'd love to have a chat about what are the strategies we can use when we're talking to customers and architects and interior designers to just try and find that balance in the middle. I always like pushing that balance towards the distraction free end of the spectrum, but we can't always win that battle. So how might we do better in having those conversations with clients, interior designers and architects.

Walt Zerbe  12:04  
Yeah, good introduction. Anyway, one quick question before I kick off, maybe with another question, and that is in the CEDIA standards world, we are trying to develop our the work that we do for what we say is a 97% so we're calling that like the majority of the industry. So the rest of that percentage are people that that, you know, are already well educated, well studied, and do great stuff. So would you say, Peter, that this is a 97% problem?

Speaker 3  12:34  
I'd say it's 100% problem. Oh, you know, I'd, I'd, okay, I'd put myself in the 3% not the 97% and it's a conversation that we have every single time the conversation happens, and when you, when you get to the 97% I'll, I'll give you an example of some of the things that trouble me. And this, this is just a personal view, starscape, ceilings. I mean, what are, what are they all about? What value do they add to a cinema? They don't add to the content, they just add distraction, and more to the point they add expense and they add hassle to the ceiling build, and that that extra money that that was spent on developing that starscape ceiling could have been spent on the audio visual and the acoustic side of things to improve the immersiveness of of that room. Now, if a client wants a starscape ceiling, okay, you know, if they absolutely insist and demand it, then that's something we might need to do for them. But there's so many things in our world that we just kind of think, Oh, it's a cinema, so, you know, or a theater, as the Americans call them. So it needs a proscenium. Well, I'm sorry, this isn't 1930s vaudeville anymore, with actors and dancers on stage. It's, it's a cinema, cinema recliners, yeah, sure. Really, really comfy. But not all cinemas need cinema recliners. So I think there's, there's a lot of things as an industry we kind of do because maybe we feel that's what it what's expected when we're talking to a customer about a cinema or theater. But I would, I would just argue that a lot of those things that that we do because they're expected. And this is true for the 3% and for the 97% that money will be better put on, uh, creating a temple to the contents, rather than creating a temple to even more distraction.

Walt Zerbe  14:36  
All right, sounds good. Let's hand it off to Roddy and Nick. What are your thoughts so far and listening to all this jib jabber by my friend Peter,

Speaker 2  14:44  
interesting on that first point, there was a while, quite a while back, a friend and I had been our thing was just to go to the cinema to watch film every now and again. And one of the times we'd gone to a brand new. Two mainstream, cutting edge cinema that had the latest, you know, HDR specs, Atmos, everyone like that. And it was a complete black box when we went in, the visuals and everything were amazing. But the for me, the downside was we felt like we were cattle, just going through a process. It was just a soulless space. And again, the video content, the audio content, was was, was outstanding, but as an overall experience, we just felt like we were pushed through consumer we then one week, went to an older Art Deco type cinema. And when we got there, the first thing we had was, it was sofas. We sat down. We were brought a gin and tonic. Nice. When I looked up into the back, there was cherubs all around the back of this building. There was even Starlight ceilings. And the again, for me, the thing about a starlight ceiling is it's obviously there for when you come into the room and experience the environment, as opposed to something necessarily you would have during the movie play. But it also gives a sense of space in a small room. So that's why we quite, quite like them. But in this other cinema, the whole experience up to the point of them putting the movie on was phenomenal. It was 10 times better. We felt so much more engaged when the film came on. I wouldn't have been surprised if it was actually a VHS tape they were using, and I think the system may have been stereo. The sound was awful. The picture was terrible. And but as an overall experience, we felt more about that one than we did about the stunning audio visuals, and that sort of started me on a bit of a journey of, why can't we have both? And that's, I guess, what we try and have as as a company is so so we tend to, you know, we appreciate a pure black environment will give you the best contrast. You know, less distraction, but it's the balance, which is, I guess, what this whole conversation is about

Walt Zerbe  17:14  
that's really interesting, Roddy, because you just brought in the suspension of belief, the suspension of disbelief, part of this discussion, which we didn't really put in the very beginning, you were more just into the content because of the space, and you are completely consumed by the space, even though there were no visual distractions. You were you just felt wrong in that space. And I know we've brought this up on the podcast before, but I believe rich and Peter went to a mono, black and white presentation of a movie in Silicon Valley, and it was one of the most immersive experiences they've ever experienced. So I kind of wanted to say it's not just about the resolution and the picture and all that. It's a whole formula, right? Which is where you're going. Roddy, so Nick, you want to chime in on that one.

Speaker 1  18:04  
I think it's kind of interesting, really. Because, you know, when I kind of put together a design for a cinema, you know, at the end of the day, the start of the discussion is often, how do you want the room to look and feel? Because my experience has very much been that the client's buy in is driven by a whole bunch of different factors, and whether you like it or not, you know, there's obviously that kind of element that needs to be considered in terms of the decor, the room style, you know, the setting and so on, so forth. So I try and take a kind of fairly balanced view. I totally get the, you know, the desire, or the drive to kind of create the most immersive experience you can with the least amount of distraction in terms of the room. But exactly what Roddy has just said, it's a sum of parts, ultimately, where you've got an experiential kind of, you know, kind of point in time where you enter a room, you get the look, you get the feel, you feel comfortable. It's got a sense of place. You know why you're there that builds excitement. Doesn't always work, but ultimately, if you can find yourself in the kind of scenario that Roddy just described, which is he's suddenly kind of feeling very much at home, very much kind of welcome in a comfortable space, he's got all the things around him, whether it's a gin and tonic in his hand or a kind of really nice decor that's enveloping him prior to the point at which he enters into the actual movie. I think I'll probably subscribe to kind of trying to find that kind of balance, but equally, agree entirely with Peter's point of view, which is, if you've got a given budget for a room and you're trying to maximize, maximize that budget on behalf of the client, it's quite difficult to actually just really kind of force through the fact that you're going to want to spend as much of that budget on the actual the technology and the presentation and the way in which so that's kind of brought together. So I kind of sit a little bit on the fence with this one, because I've designed black rooms that are entirely immersive. And if I had my way, it would always be a black room that was acoustically perfect and everything that comes with it. But in the real world, it doesn't work. That way, of course, you know. And going to the star ceiling point of view, I totally get that one as well. And you know, Ronnie, you

Walt Zerbe  20:06  
guys are split on that one here? Well,

Speaker 1  20:08  
I think so. But you know, Ronnie, you know your view is right? You know, it can create a sense of spaciousness and a lovely effect. And, you know, and I've taken clients to kind of cinemas that I've done in the past with star ceilings, and the kids are going absolutely crazy because they want the star ceiling, and then suddenly that becomes, like, top of the design brief, we have to have a star ceiling, and everything else becomes secondary. So I get it, you know, one, one

Speaker 3  20:32  
of the things we've done on one cinema, and we're currently doing again on another two, I hate to say a kind of star ceilings, but have done very differently. Rather than using a conventional fiber optic star ceiling, we're using a couple of planetarium projectors. I was going to ask that we managed. We managed to find some fanless ones so that that does give a sort of a very dynamic, dramatic effect. But then when you switch those off, there's app, there's absolutely zero compromise. You've, you've, it's basically projecting onto a black ceiling. So it's not, it's not bright and in your face, but it's kind of a gorgeous swirling Galaxy effect. Wow, rather, rather than just fixed stars. And another, another thing we often do is, which you know, to me, gets you, gets us closer to the balance, is we do what we call a mullet design, mullet, as in the 1970s haircut by many British footballers, which is business up front, party at the back, and that that's often what we do with room designs, from, from, from the primary seating looking forward. It's very clean. It's it's very distraction free. It's very restrained when you enter the room, when you look at the back of the room, party, yeah, not knock your socks off in terms in terms of design. So I'm, I'm certainly not advocating that a black hole is always correct in our new demonstration facility, one of the rooms is an absolute black hole. You know, as distraction free as we can make it upstairs is a lot slouchier, funkier, more more casual, to sort of show both ends of the spectrum. But that, you know, I think, I think there's, there's ways that you can introduce really clever design and introduce dynamism into a room, especially using lighting. That means you you walk into a very, very vibrant environment. But once all those lights and those those features are off, you are then in a much more distraction free environment, which is a temple to the content.

Speaker 2  22:42  
And one of the, one of the things I've seen as well, is it doesn't need to be the whole room. And exactly as you're saying, and I know Nick did a really nice designer, I think, a couple of years ago, where almost the front horseshoe of the room was black, and then it then tiers to lighter as you get back. You know, because, again, the room has different functions. It has the function of the environment and the function of the display. In my eyes, the interesting thing as well is the client and what their expectations are. One of the best cinemas we sold was actually to a very wealthy time poor individual, and we the initial meeting. We were all given five minute allocated time slots to meet this client by the architect. We're all stood in a queue. Yeah, stood in a queue outside this room. And you know, the plumber had gone in front of me, and I think the electrician had been in. I got in there, and then I was introduced by the architect as this is Roddy. He's going to design the cinema room. And the client just said, I don't have time to watch movies. And the architect looked at me and basically, sort of said, well, thanks for coming. And that was it. And I said, if I, if I could just get two minutes of your time. I said, I can appreciate your very time poor. You're up against it. And the client was like, You have no idea. And I said, with that, it's because you're obviously incredibly busy, and you know, you've no idea. And you know, what I expect that comes with is a huge level of stress. And the client just said, you just couldn't even fathom the stress in my life. And I said, what we can offer you is a space in this home where, when you come after that week, you walk into this environment, and as soon as you walk in it, there'll be a breathe out, because we're going to put some beautiful lighting and ambience in the space. There's going to be a quietness to the space. We're going to put you in the comfiest seat you've ever sat. You're going to pick up a glass of whatever you like, and then within five minutes of pressing play. You've left that outside, and then the client went, I need that space. Yes, now to all of us, that is a cinema room, but fundamentally it was about how that space helped or enhanced their life, and I guess it was ultimately a decompression chamber for them, almost like a spa. And with that, it was important for us that from the minute they walked in the room, there was that ambient lighting. There were soft, warmer tones, and, you know, just a gentleness and soothing effect to the room. And we took a lot of inspiration from spas for the room, so it was the absolute antithesis of your conventional performance cinema where there was a lot of very light colors in the space, but the calming effect that had, you know, and then it turned out it became the client's favorite room in the entire house. So I guess it's also just defining the client, because our clients, I don't think, are movie enthusiasts, they tend to be high net worth time, poor individuals that need somewhere to escape. We, I live in a very rural, rural part of Yorkshire, and we do no business within a 5200 mile radius around us, because people tend to work in the country, go to the pub for a pint and actually have quite nice, stress free life, so they don't really need to escape from and they're also very rural, so technology to them as the devil. That sounds

Walt Zerbe  26:27  
great. What you just said, go to the pub for a pint.

Speaker 2  26:32  
Yeah, yeah. But again, it's, I think we sometimes look at the cinemas function as a way of digesting content in the best possible way. But sometimes it's it's more than that. It's about a space that can take you to a different place, both, you know, psychologically and environmentally. So,

Walt Zerbe  26:54  
yeah, so Roddy, you had a real challenge. You you had five minutes in front of somebody, they were like, I don't need you. And then you were able to quickly say, you do need me. And then after that, I assume, did you then run that build, and you didn't have big issues within the architect or the interior designer, because you kind of had carte blanche to say, look, I'm supposed to design this, this wellness, kind of a space that also performs to a level I just want it was, I was going to ask a question like, and you can answer this after, and everybody can who is the who's the hardest to turn like, like, Who do you fight with the most? Is it the homeowner with preconceptions? Is it a designer? Is it an architect? Is it all the above? And I guess you need a set of tools in your box to try to deal with all these different people, right? So, Roddy, were you in charge of the space? Then that ended up being great, or was it a battle till the space was done?

Speaker 2  27:55  
No, we just took the space in effect. I guess, being Scottish, we tend to just if we're doing it, we're doing it. Ultimately, for us, we, the interior designer wasn't even brought into the space. We just said there's a technical ability we have that we need to have control over. If you start specifying fabrics, you're going to specify something that would look maybe fantastic on a sofa and a curtain, but it will not work with environment, because it needs to do more than just be pretty. It's, you know, a membrane for the room, ultimately, so we had a technical spec for the fabrics, and also, because we were in charge of the build, we also didn't want to make our life hard by having non suitable materials used and specified and and we'd started off with a technical spec of the room and the amount of people that were going to be in it dictated where speakers were going to be very readily. The build of the room, because it was an old property that we couldn't go into walls meant we had speakers protruding. And this is the way we approach it with all of our dealers now, is put your technical spec together with speakers, acoustics, furniture, the room, kind of designs itself after that, because we're just creating a shell around that. And I've also found the more challenging the space, generally, the more successful the room, because you get shapes and forms appearing that you wouldn't have designed for if you ask most people design a room, they'll draw a rectangular box with flat walls, and it's actually incredibly boring. And if you look at any part of design that is interesting. It tells a story. If you look at, you know, a house that's been developed over the years, or maybe a building or a barn or a pub, it's the story. It tells where you can see steps that have appeared different ceiling heights. It tells a story of it. And I also think that's great, whether it's column. In a room, or angled wall sections or changes of level. So for me, it's very much exactly what this topic is about. The Form follows the function. Yeah, so to get them and again, we didn't get too tied up on the equipment spec, simply because, with the nature of our systems, we said, if we want to upgrade speakers to higher performance, we can remove a panel or remove some fabric, swap out the speakers. If we need to improve the specification of amplification, of processing, that's a box getting swapped in a in a cupboard, same with a projector. And it was someone that had actually, it was actually Dean from richer sounds gave me a great term A while back, given that we manufacture projector screens, he said, marry your screen, date your projector. So we've always had the mindset that the equipment itself, as long as it's all in the right position, it's not a big deal to change it later on, because, as we say to our clients, when we hand over the system, that's the start of the relationship, not the end of it, and that system will grow and envelop over the years. I mean, if we look at any systems that went in five years ago, the AVRs or processors really are probably wanting to be replaced now, the projector probably is looking to be updated now, whereas a lot of the expense in the room fit out, possibly the fabric might change color. But if the if the form of the room was done from a logical process, then it shouldn't date. The things that date, in terms of design or or turn generally, tends to be things that are not ornamentation. They're there for no real purpose than to be there. That's what dates so, so, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  31:51  
ceilings, Roddy, obviously

Speaker 2  31:52  
you can always turn you can always turn the light engine off. Yeah, absolutely. It's just

Speaker 1  31:57  
listening to what you're saying that Ryan's, we have a project I've got ongoing at the moment, which has been a bit of a long haul in terms of design, but it was kind of interesting, because it probably ticks a lot of the boxes in terms of what we're talking about. We were, this is a new build in the UK, and we were brought in, ultimately by the client, but we were very quickly handed over to his interior designer, stroke architect, and immediately, when we looked at as part of the project, was a decent sized, you know, cinema room, or to be cinema, and they'd done a full set of renders, and exactly as already saying, you know, all these wonderful fabrics and everything else that went with it, but slap bang down one side of the long wall we're talking probably, I think It's nine meters long, this room, the wall abutted the guy's private garage. So his brief was, I want to be able to see all my car collection. So the designer and the architect, they come up with this amazing piece of glass, which was floor to ceiling running right down the side of the wall, which, of course, from my point of view, was an immediate red flag. It took me probably about three months to actually persuade, ultimately, the client, wow, that this wasn't such a such a good idea. And the only way I managed to persuade him was to take him to one of my previous cinemas and sit him down. And after 20 minutes, he went. I completely get it. This is what I want, and I understand that That's complete nonsense that I was even in the design. Why was it in the design? So of course, all of a sudden, the architects can getting it in the neck. So it was me. And funnily enough, the glass wall was removed. And again, at that point, the client realized that he couldn't have this third party dictating what the room was going to look like. He basically said it's your box, it's your room. You do everything because this is what I want you to deliver for me, and I trust you to do so. And that was a great little kind of journey that kind of just meant that I could iron out it was obvious problems and take over and be independent within that given space. Yeah,

Walt Zerbe  33:55  
Nick, that's that's really wild. And what's especially wild is you didn't give up. You, you, you did. You waited three months to say you were basically saying, I'm going to get you to change your mind on that glass. And it so it just says to me, you gotta have some tolls in your box to be able to have these conversations with people that are dead set on things, to try to get them to and not get fired. Be like, Okay, I don't want to work with you because I want my glass. Sorry, but

Speaker 1  34:23  
it's it. But it's just sort of, it's always, always with these things about education, isn't it? Because at the end of the day, as client, as we've already said, you know, these clients don't, quite often know why they want that room. It's kind of like it's on the plan. Somebody's put cinema room or media room or whatever it's defined, and the client goes, All right, you've made me a space for Well, I'm not sure. Do I need this space or whatever? And of course, through the process of our interaction with the client, whether it's kind of taking them to spaces or giving that give them that education, or just simply down to you can't have that there, because it stops us putting a speaker. And that means then there's going to be a compromise, and it's just about educating and telling people. People, where are the compromises? Let them make those kind of informed decisions on the back of your expert advice, and nine times out of 10 in mind. My experience, we tend to kind of get our way, but you have to go through that patient process and let people understand why. You know,

Walt Zerbe  35:15  
so at this point, I'd be remiss to not be throwing a softball to Peter about a toll that we can use, that we can all use, to help with these discussions, which is something you already talk about to everybody. Peter, right, so you it's RP 22 and I don't want this cast be about RP 22 but, but you rightly teach that you can use this to help with these discussions, right?

Speaker 3  35:38  
Nick, Nick, perfectly said it when he said it's, it's all about education, because one one of the issues we have with with customers, and I'm I'm not someone that generally asks customers what they want. I like to go through the options with them, and then they can make an informed purchasing decision, and I, and I will not give them any bad options. And to me, the issue is that most of our clients that come to us, they have never, ever, ever experienced a really, really, really great entertainment space. They've been in entertainment spaces, but they're probably, you know, not always, probably not very good. And As Nick said, to take customers into a really incredible immersive environment, and then sit them down, let them experience it once they've gone, wow, then begin to go into the detail of all the different things that have to come together to give them that more often than not, the the penny drops, and the customer says, Okay, I I get why you're now telling me that that that and that and not and not a particularly good idea. And my I always start the conversation off with with clients or design teams or whoever, with a discussion around, well, let's talk about all the things you can use this room for. Because, to roddy's point, when we say cinema, people are making the assumption that, oh, okay, you know, so I might watch one movie once a month. I'm going to spend $200,000 on this thing. That's really bad value. But if you can talk about all of the different things a room can be used for, and again, to roddy's beautiful point, this is going to be a beautifully lit room. It's going to be the quietest room in the house. It's going to have its air handling considered with the correct amount of air changes. It's going to, you know, be humidity controlled. It's going to be the perfect place to go into pour yourself a glass of your favorite beverage and fall asleep to your favorite music reading a book. You know you don't. You don't. These rooms do not always have to be used for Arnold Schwarzenegger driving through walls in a juggernaut at reference level, they just become these most beautiful, considered quiet spaces, that there's spaces where the kids can be with their friends and don't don't have to go out. It can be a yoga space. The space between the front row of seating and the screen can can be a yoga space. Gaming is challenging with projectors due to latency, but you know, there's, there's ways around that. And so I think the more we can talk about all the things that these spaces can be used for, the more we're going to win the value conversation. And when we show people, when we demonstrate to people, what performance really is. You know, my my car analogy for this is, many of our high net worth clients have have driven and experienced the finest cars available to humanity, but they've only ever experienced a Hyundai i 10 of cinemas if, if we let them experience a five series BMW of cinemas, wow, their perspective changes, if We let them then experience a Ferrari of cinemas, again, their reference level changes. And one analogy I use with with customers, especially when I'm talking about seating, is you've you've come to me asking me to build a sports car of a cinema, but because of all the seats you've told me you wanted, I'm forced to give you a bus because, you know, quite often adding seats means adding roads, and every time you add a row, unless you've got huge amounts of height to the room, your projection geometry means that the bottom of that screen is just going to come up and up and up, and the screen's going to get smaller and smaller and smaller. So I often talk to customers about the bell curve of distribution of how many people are in the room. And if you build someone, let's say a 12 seat cinema, I suspect that 90% of the time there's never more than four people in there. The other seats are just occasional. Seats so often we're asked to make design compromises on the altar of a few extra occasional seats that then compromise those four beautiful seats that are used 90% of the time. They are always compromised. There's nothing, there's nothing we can do about it. And this, you know, to me, this isn't this isn't ignorance from the customer. This isn't an interior designer and architect trying to be awkward. Generally, architects and interior designers have the best interest of their clients at heart, and I find that if you sit down with them, if you show them, and I will come on to your question in a second. What?

Unknown Speaker  40:39  
Yeah, good. I

Walt Zerbe  40:40  
was gonna ask it again,

Speaker 3  40:43  
if you, if you sit down with them and explain why you're suggesting these things most of the time, they're reasonable, and they get it. But to answer your question, the recommended practices are so powerful because when, when we talk about the technical elements that then come together to deliver the experiential elements of the room. We can use the recommended practices and say, Look, this isn't my opinion. I'm not just making this up. I'm not suggesting it so that I can just sell you lots and lots of expensive kits. Here are the recommended practices. Here are the four different levels of defined performance. The customer has come to me, and the brief is, I want the best private cinema in the world. And we're currently working on two projects, very expensive projects, where the brief is the best private cinema in the world. They have no idea what that means. They have absolutely no idea what that means, but I'm now putting level four in front of them for both audio, and we're beginning to talk about the draft video specifications as well. And that's, that's the technical level of excellence that needs to be achieved. Now let's work backwards from there. And it's, it's brilliant. It makes my life when I'm having conversations with customers so so easy. Because even if you can't achieve every single performance parameter and one performance parameter, we've, we've got three projects on with dealers in London at the moment. One of those is in a very sound, isolated basement, so it doesn't matter the other two. There's lots of adjacent spaces where noise would be a problem. We we're not suggesting reference level when we're not suggesting 16 hertz at 122 dB, that's just untenable. So what the Recommended Practices allow you to do is just have an informed discussion around all the compromises that you can make for these rooms and for these two rooms, they're going to be magnificent rooms, but reaching true reference level at 16 hertz is just not possible because we don't have the space we you know, sent central London physical space isolation. It's just, it's just not possible. So we're comp, we're compromising on that maximum sound pressure level requirement. But the the ability to have objective conversations with customers around industry, consensus, peer reviewed recommended practices is is absolutely golden. I've never had anything in my in my professional life that makes having these conversation as easy. Yeah,

Walt Zerbe  43:31  
the other thing I wanted to point out and make sure we got across is a level one or Level Two system doesn't mean it's a bad system, because you didn't reach level three or level four, right? If they're designed properly, they're amazing. So it's not about one is awful and the other is better. Is that fair statement? Peter,

Speaker 3  43:50  
it's a very fair statement. I suspect if most integrators around the world looked at the best systems that they've ever done and compared those to the CEDIA recommended practices. On many parameters, yeah, it would come out quite high. But on some parameters, I highly suspect it wouldn't each it wouldn't even reach level one. You know, one of one of those parameters, when we're talking form versus function is is noise, and we do everything possible to get the projector out of the room. Because, number one, you know, if you have a projector in a room, I just think it's ugly. You have this beautiful room, and then this technology, projector thing hanging from the ceiling. To me, come on, industry. We, you know, there's always ways to work around that. We we now have a lot of projectors sitting vertically behind the back wall of the room, then bouncing off a mirror. So it's taking it's taking up virtually no space. It's still accessible for servicing. All we need to think about is some sound isolation and critically ventilation. But then you you have a really. Discrete installation where you walk into a beautiful room and the projectors not there, but one of and you've you both Nick and Roddy have talked about it. One parameter that I suspect a lot of rooms will fail on is is noise floor. And you know, personally, I would much rather spend the money on making a room quieter than making it louder. Quiet is always appropriate. Quiet is beautiful. You know, to me, quiet is just the best thing you can do in one of these rooms, obsessing over that last three dB of sound pressure level at the top. Experientially, I don't think that makes anywhere near as much difference as making rooms really, really quiet.

Walt Zerbe  45:44  
All right? Um, love all that stuff. Um, Rod, Roddy and Nick question, Peter mentioned, a lot of these people have to experience something to help make that decision. How important do you think the demo is in getting getting your way in getting a cinema or a room designed the way it needs to be designed.

Speaker 2  46:06  
From our point of view as a manufacturer, it's obviously very important. But I think one of the issues, ultimately is a lot of dealer integrators haven't experienced a lot of these rooms, necessarily, and they're ultimately who are then feeding that information to the client. So it's a sort of top of the stream issue for us, where if they've not experienced it, then how can they either explain it, sell it, or appreciate the benefits. And we created a small cinema in our training space here. And when we first started doing training, all we were talking about was how to cut plastic track, screw it to walls and make fabric panels. A third of our day now is spent covering of the very basics of RP 22 and the room itself and how it should really sound. You know, things like we suggest when you're listening to the system, close your eyes. Does it sound like a person talking, or does it sound like a speaker? If we can understand the differences in how systems should sound and will sound, we don't have a chance to sell them. And I think dealer integration and training is a huge part of it, because ultimately, for us as manufacturers, they are our sales force going out to end users. And the same with architects, interior designers, you know, and of course, and clients, but from us, because we're one stage removed from the end user. For us, it's been actual dealer. Education is for us the big thing to then be able to go and do it. And I've said the ARPA 22 has had a huge impact on the industry already. We can see it with a lot of distributors, especially who are now kind of being forced to raise their game a bit. And yeah, I mean, it's just exciting to think at the industry could get to point within the next few years where it is a proper and again, I don't want to say it's not a proper industry, but it's a more matured industry where you know, if you look at adjacent industries, things like kitchens or vehicles, you could suggest to someone what's your budget or expectation, and you'd know exactly where to go with our industry, there isn't that yet. It's still, you know, a lot of uncertainty and a lot of unknowns for end users, which, yeah, I think, is where this helps and and where we need to push

Walt Zerbe  48:47  
to, yeah, Nick and Peter, you Roddy, just said something that kind of stuck in my mind here. Do you ever invite or need to put the architect or the designer in a room to get it? Have you ever done that?

Speaker 1  49:02  
For me? I've only done that a couple of times, probably because I generally been dealing with end users. Okay, I guess I imagine peace are probably much more so than I in that sense,

Speaker 2  49:12  
we did that on one occasion, and sorry. And from a commercial point of view, it was fantastic, because we ended up actually supplying two cinemas to the architect himself for houses he was developing, and because he then lived with it every project they were then doing as a practice, it was just a given that that client was going to get a cinema because of how much he loved his so I guess it's, You know, we were very lucky with most of what we've ever done. There's never been a master plan. We're very shoot from the hip, but on that specific one, by actually getting him there at the end of it, it then led him to go, I want one of these. And then, yeah, thereafter, he became our biggest advocate for actual private cinemas. And. Their projects. How about you, Peter,

Speaker 3  50:01  
I'm I'm always amazed with architects and interior designers, because my experience with the industry is, when they do presentations to architects and interior designers, they show them lots and lots of pictures of cinnabars that have been built. And I kind of think that's a bit strange, because architects and interior designers don't necessarily want to look through a catalog of other people's work. They want to be taught how to they can realize their design vision but still maximize the experience the customer is going to have in that room. And few months ago, I was in I was in Dubai doing some presentations for an old industry friend of mine, and I spent a day with with two sets of architects and interior designers, three hours in the morning for one set, three hours in the afternoon for another. And I had about an hour and a half content prepared, and then the other hour and a half, I just wanted to see where it went. And I'd, you know, take it wherever they wanted to go. And with both sessions, I don't know why. I'm surprised, because it's always this way they wanted to go down the rabbit hole of, technically, what, what do they need to allow for, for cinemas and it, you know, it's things like we talked about DCI contents. So the kind of content that you get in a commercial cinema is now available to high net worth individuals in their home. So when a movie comes out in the cinema on that day, you can watch it at home. It's expensive, but to a high net worth individual, that's fantastic. Now these projectors are not small. They're not the kind of projectors you can hang from a ceiling. They're not the kind of projectors you can just hang off the back wall. You need a separate technical space off the back of the room to put this projector in, and that's got to be you know, you might be able to get away with a meter and a half depth, but we always specify a minimum of 2.2 meters for those rooms. And you know, the architects and interior designers were really taken aback, because what normally happens, and I'm going to talk a bit UK centric. Here in the UK, we have the Royal Institute of British architects, Riba, and riba have something called the plan of works, which is architectural programming from effectively stage zero to stage seven. Now we're often brought in at stage five, which is kind of, yeah, access, accessorize the house, put, put a few things in, yeah. We can choose the taps at stage five, as long as the plumbing is there, you know, the the choice of taps can can wait. And Nick already mentioned it that you often in a house plan just have a box that's labeled cinema. And this box basically gets forgotten about until you're way into the project and someone thinks, oh, I suppose we better put some stuff in that box. Now, but what, what, you know, the this, these architects and interior designers, you know, I think their biggest takeaway was taught to us at stage two, which is concept. Now, stage two is before spatial coordination, which is stage three, and spatial coordination is when the floor plan gets drawn. So you know, their biggest takeaway was talk to us before the floor plan is even drawn, because then we can talk to the customer about the different use modes of the room. Talk about their seating requirements. Talk about their performance requirements. Talk about if they have a requirement to use that room at three o'clock in the morning at reference level, and not disturb the rest of the house. Throw all of this discovery into a pot to then basically come up with, okay. In order to deliver this to you, we need a box of interior size this, and on the back of it, we then need a technical space of size this. Once that's done, we then have the flexibility to work through the project and not be constrained by spatial coordination that just hasn't, hasn't been considered. So I think, I think the the architects and interior designer, if there's an architect and intercere designer on the project, it's essential that they have a really, really good appreciation of the decisions that need to be made in order to maximize what the client's having. You know another thing, if you look at a level four room, the amount of speakers and the angular separation between the speakers means that there's probably only two places in that room that the door can go. It can go on either side of the room, between the furthest forward surround speaker and the and the wide front you know, that's basically where the door's going. Anywhere else in the room there's either going to be a projector hole or there's going to be a speaker and. Now, you know, an architect doesn't know this, so they might put a door in to the back of the room or to the side of the room in a corner. It probably makes no difference to them at spatial coordination where that door is. You know, it's absolutely no hassle to them just to realign a few things and have a door into a room in a different place, but if they don't appreciate that, this is a thing, then it gets drawn and we have to deal with the implications, and we probably then can't deliver the level of performance we want to our customers. So to me, the biggest takeaway when talking to architects and interior designers is talk to us at the concept stage of the build, before the floor plan gets drawn, so we can give guidance on the spatial requirements of what we need. That's

Speaker 2  55:51  
really great. That could potentially be a great white paper that architects could actually access of the fundamental basics of cinema requirement. I'm sure there's probably something similar for garages and things with, you know, door aperture size for vehicles of certain sizes. And

Speaker 3  56:11  
Roddy, you know, I'm gonna say, as chair of our 10, consider yourself to work with me on on writing that, and because you're laughing, going, Ah, you've dropped yourself in it, Roddy, haven't you? Yeah, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  56:26  
you can join us, yeah. Do

Speaker 1  56:28  
you know what? In all honesty, in all honesty, I think the last few minutes of our chat has been really interesting for me, because my role, as I said at the start of this, is it's about being a consultant. You know, I've done my I've done my time of climbing ladders and building things and staying things on the walls or whatever else, you know, I've done decades of doing that. So my whole thing is about, as I say, education, everything we've been talking about, whether it's the value of taking people into rooms, you know, and a lot of distributors, again, you know, specific to the UK. You know, a lot of distributors have upped their game very much in terms of not just the technology presentation, but obviously the wraparound environments that go with it. And now, whilst each of them have a particular unique look and feel, at least there's somewhere for dealers to take their clients so that they can all sit down and experience something and then together, they've got a common purpose in terms of what they're trying to deliver. So I think so I think that's that's a great improvement. And, you know, as I said before, you know, taking people into rooms, I think, is probably the most successful thing that you can do. And equally, picking up on, on what Roddy was saying a minute ago was, you know, a lot of people, dealers, wise, don't really understand what the quality points are, because they've not experienced it for themselves either. So I think again, the education that comes from either dealers distributors, rather bringing dealers in and actually given the kind of education that they need. You know, I'm very privileged, as a lot of you guys are, as to having heard all manner of different types of sound systems and experienced all different types of things. So I've got lots of benchmarks I can refer to, and I can I can talk about them, but the majority haven't got that. So let's get people educated, whether it's the actual dealers as to how they deliver and the parameters in which they need to work, and alongside that, right at the very starting point, as Peter's saying just now, let's educate the people that actually designing the spaces. Let's get in as early as we possibly can, but they don't know the need for us to be there and be part of that conversation, then we've already kind of lost those first few steps of the process. So I think for me, if I was sitting here as a consultant talking to a client, I'd try and capture all of this discussion in that chat with that client.

Walt Zerbe  58:35  
Okay? And I think, yeah,

Speaker 2  58:39  
sorry. One last thing, and I think it's almost looking at the framework or platform in that, you know what you're saying there about a door position for a set type of room. You know, the less speakers are in the room, the more opportunities for door positions. So again, they could almost be templates to work from. But also, I think getting across to some dealers, one of the things we've had is a wee bit of pushback against RP 22 because a lot of dealers will be we don't have the budget for that, or this or that. And I think some of that comes from education or, you know, a mindset, but it's the ability to create a platform, a positional platform with a cabling infrastructure that actually that can be designed to level four or whatever it may not be level four capable hardware going in at that point, whether it's in the rack or in the room. But the more the message that this is something that can be built over time, as opposed to take it or leave it, you know, to a client, we've had success with that with I don't want to get too much into products, but masking has always been one of those products for people where it's a lot of money and it's either take it or leave. Bit. And when you say to client, a screen is 12,000 or 3000 they're almost always going to go with the cheaper one. What we developed was a modular way of actually adding masking to the existing product, so they can get the base product at the start and then add it on as an upgrade option, if after the first movie they go these gray bars are actually incredibly annoying, not a problem. We can now add that in and and it's actually less expensive now, because they've already spent the 3000 that's just the balance. And I think that's maybe a message for just RP. 22 in general, is it's, it's, it's a name for an end result. It's not necessarily we were starting off at that destination. We're starting off in that journey. And we can actually, you know, put higher SPL speakers in further down the line. We can put more power in the rack end further down the line. We can add a higher Lumen projector further down line. But as long as the fundamentals and positions and infrastructure all correct at the beginning, the client can then go there. And I just wonder if that's maybe a message that's worth getting across a bit more to dealers where it's either it's this room or that room. But if they know they can start there, they can actually build because again, the client, as soon as they install that more base level might go why not? Am I getting dynamicism and punch and effortlessness. Well, we need this. Okay, can we now upgrade that? As opposed to trying to convince them on that from day one, perhaps without the demo? That's just my little slight rant and take on it, of just, you know, talking about the destination, as you know, not the end result, but the journey. More. Yeah,

Walt Zerbe  1:01:45  
any last comments, anybody? This has been a great discussion. I've learned a lot. We could do a whole nother cast on this, because I've got so many other questions that have popped into my head based on everything else you all have said. Nick, any last words for on this topic?

Speaker 1  1:02:01  
I think I'm feeling like you. I think it has opened up. I've got equally, a whole bunch of points that I think are all just as valid. But you want

Walt Zerbe  1:02:09  
to give me a few. Are there some you really want to get across?

Unknown Speaker  1:02:12  
Well, no, I

Walt Zerbe  1:02:13  
think they've been touched on. Whether you just want to explore them more in depth.

Unknown Speaker  1:02:17  
I think it's more about that. Absolutely

Walt Zerbe  1:02:19  
Okay. Peter, any last comments? I think,

Speaker 3  1:02:25  
I think there's this. There's always chatter in the industry about how architects and interior designers are our worst enemies and make our lives a nightmare. I, I haven't found that. I, I've, you know, I've, I've generally found that if, if you're in control of the conversation, if you have the client in front of you, if you have the architects in front of you, and you're you're starting early, that everyone is really, really happy to learn, and everyone is working towards the same goal, which is an exceptional experience for the customer. Where, where things are always much harder is if you have to force people to unlearn things. So if you're brought into a project late, and there's already an interior design, as Roddy said, with furnishing fabric on the wall and one inch foam and carpet everywhere, and a, you know, a screen the size of a posted stamp and and speakers on the floor, you then look at it and it's it's so much harder to reverse engineer people's people's ideas and people's thoughts. So you know, to me as an industry, if, if, if we have one fight, if we have one thing we all need to try and and do, it's to educate specifiers and customers that we need to be part of the concept discussion of of the whole building and to integrate, you know, and I don't call them cinemas or theaters or media rooms. I genuinely don't know what the difference in a cinema in a media room is, you know, to me, it's, it's just an incredible space to spend, to spend time in, that you engineer to a certain performance level. So I like calling them entertainment spaces, but they're also relaxation spaces, they're gaming spaces, they're yoga spaces, they're just great spaces that we need to be involved at the concept stage of a of a project, so that we can get maximum value to that customer.

Walt Zerbe  1:04:24  
Okay? Roddy, any last comment?

Speaker 2  1:04:28  
Just I guess it's that balance between engineering and enthusiasm as well. I got into this industry ultimately because I was hugely into cinema and then got into home cinema. And it's just, I guess, keeping that balance between engineering it and delivering a space that is just fun, you know. And I think that's the thing is, RP 22 has come in as this incredible resource and Document. And but it's also to kind of keep across that these spaces are fun. They're not just, you know, we don't want to engineer the fun out of them. But on the same note, you know, if we look at vehicles, I just bought a Tesla recently, and it was the easiest thing I've ever bought. I literally picked the model, picked the engine type, picked one of five colors, picked two wheels interior, and then bought the most expensive car I've ever bought, and that's because I kind of trust them to know that the drive chains correct for that particular bit of kit. You know, for me, it was more about the outside color, and I think that's how end users visualize what we do, but we're very excited by the actual engineering that goes into it, and it's kind of just how we can maybe fold it up a bit more to make it easier for them to buy higher performance systems, ultimately, okay,

Walt Zerbe  1:05:59  
well, I Want to thank you all for giving us an hour to talk about this. I think there's again, great discussion, and this may lead to some other cast or white paper and homework. So see lots of great stuff happens when we do podcasts. So yeah, Roddy and Nick and Peter. Thank you so much for getting on here and doing this podcast.

Unknown Speaker  1:06:23  
Thank you, Walt, no problem.

Unknown Speaker  1:06:24  
Thank you, pleasure. Nice to see you. Yeah.

Walt Zerbe  1:06:27  
And I hope everybody picked up a few pointers here, and we've got your brain going. If you have ideas, love to hear them again. This podcast started by an idea, not mine, and that's how a lot of them go, and they're great. So I hope I see you all at the CEDIA Expo. Those that are coming to the to the show be a lot of great stuff to see, a lot of great demos to get into. And as always, I will ask you to please keep An open mind.