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Anthony
Grimani is president of Performance Media Industries in Fairfax,
California.
As a change of pace this month, I thought it might be nice to have an
object lesson of sorts. Lately, it seems like I have been inundated
with projects where people want to install front projectors in
applications where they have no business going. Case in point: I was
recently handed a design where the ceiling was white, the walls were
light green, and the floor was light beige. Optical design for a
high-performance screening room requires a special skill set, but there
are some basics that everyone should understand.
The Rubik’s Cube of Color
For this little object lesson to work, you’re going to need the
assistance of a PC with an Internet connection and Microsoft
PowerPoint. (If you don’t have the latter, perform a Web search for
“free PowerPoint Reader” and download the viewer from Microsoft.) Once
you have the necessary hardware and software, go to www.pmiltd.com/downloads.html and
download the PowerPoint presentation file under Optical Illusions. Open
it, and switch to Slide Show mode (you can just press F5).
The first slide should be a large cube consisting of multi-colored
tiles set against a black and white checkerboard background. (If you
don’t see this slide, make sure you are viewing in Slide Show mode.
Press the Up Arrow Key repeatedly until you see the cube.) For this
part of the lesson, take particular note of the dark brown tile in the
top of the cube and the light orange tile in the side facing you.
They’re definitely not the same color, right? Press the Down Arrow Key
once to advance to the next slide. A black mask has covered everything
but those two tiles. Look at them now.
No fair! We changed the light orange tile to brown...right? Wrong. The
light orange tile was brown all along—exactly the same color as the
brown tile in the top. Your eyes were deceived into believing the tile
was orange because of all the other colors surrounding it. When they
were removed, your eye was able to tell that both tiles are brown.
Here’s the application to screening room design. If the walls are
bright or light colors, they will have the same effect on the screen
that the cube of color had on that brown tile. The colors will look
wrong to the viewer’s eyes even if they measure correctly on scopes and
meters. There’s nothing you can do to compensate for this except to
change the color of the room.
This begs the question: What color should the room be? Everyone knows
black or very dark gray is the correct answer, but no client will go
for that. So target three things: dark, neutral, and flat. Color is OK
in a screening room, but make sure it’s really dark or tends toward
neutral gray (e.g. blue-gray), and by all means use flat, not gloss
paint. I have found that dark blue works well, perhaps because green
and red influence skin tones. (Skin tones, which tend toward yellow,
are comprised of green and red light.)
Dynamic Range ‘Checkerboard’
Back to the slide show. After reading the text on the next slide, move
on to the two slides that are solid white and solid black. (Note: You
must connect your PC to a front projector for this next part to work
properly.) Pay special attention to how bright or dark the black field
is. Now, advance to the black and white checkerboard slide. Look at the
luminance level of the black tiles. Are they just as dark as the black
field? If you’re viewing on a front projector in a light-colored room,
the resounding answer will be NO!
The black tiles will look less dark than the black field. The light
from the white tiles is bouncing off room surfaces and landing back on
the black tiles, washing them out.
The lesson here is that light-reflective room surfaces ruin dynamic
range, which is the difference between the brightest white and the
darkest black that the video system can produce when displaying actual
program material composed of light and dark content. If a client
insists on light-colored walls, you’re really better off switching to a
very large plasma or LCD monitor. Don’t hesitate to tell them that,
either, because it may be more in line with what they want. Generally,
people who truly want screening rooms don’t mind the dark look.
Hang on to Your Cookies
Now advance to the last slide. What you should see is a checkerboard
pattern with offset black and white tiles. (Don’t stare at it too long
or you may get sick.) The horizontal lines running between rows of
tiles are not parallel to each other...or are they? Shift off axis to
one side of the screen or the other. Magic! The horizontal lines now
look parallel.
What does this teach us about screening room design? Actually, nothing.
It’s just a cool optical illusion. However, it does emphasize the point
that your eyes can be fooled. What you put around the picture and in
the room with the picture have a major impact on the picture. You can’t
arbitrarily take a room, throw in some nice projection hardware, tune
the image, and assume it’s going to look right. Just as with acoustic
design, the room matters. It matters a lot.
