Styling your cinema room
Picture Courtesy of Immersive Cinema Rooms
Why is this important?
You have plenty of options when it comes to styling - so it has to reflect your unique taste and style. You have to love it!
Here are some popular choices, but it’s your space, so don’t be afraid to mix and match ideas, or go completely off-piste.
A good cinema designer can work with you to deliver the perfect end result.
The black hole
This is a real purist choice - no distractions, perfect colour balance and perfect contrast. For a film watching experience it’s probably the best choice.
However, it misses out on lots of the human elements - style, drama, showing off, and a welcoming feel - so it’s much less common. We’re really happy to help you deliver it though!
Example a of dark room. Picture Courtesy of Pinterest
Retro picture palace
‘Retro’ can actually mean lots of things - dark red is the classic historical choice, but for example 1930s art deco influence is very ‘now’ - gold and navy or gold and black are classy without looking too old-fashioned.
This recent Somerset cinema project had the design brief ‘like the Tivoli cinema, but smaller’ so we went with navy and gold, with wall lights and table lights for a classy, 1930s feel.
Picture Courtesy of Cinemaworks
Futuristic
Ultra-modern with straight lines and lots of coloured LED lighting. The Cinemaworks demo room below can look very ‘futuristic’ indeed with the right pixel scene, but with muted lighting it can also look fairly classic and understated.
LED lighting in cinemas adds plenty of drama, but of course you can switch them off to be fully immersed in the action.
Picture Courtesy of Cinemaworks
Classic contemporary
Modern, but classy and a bit more understated. Darker colours like greys are recommended.
Picture Courtesy of Bespoke Home Cinemas
Themes
Favourite films, sports teams, or any special interest you might have can form the basis for your room style. Cinemas are already quite indulgent and escapist, so it’s fine to lean into it. That said, maybe don’t do anything too focused on little kids - right now they love Pixar, but in a few years they’ll be over it.
The room should last you a long time so make sure your chosen theme isn’t a passing fad.
Picture Courtesy of Bespoke Home Cinemas
Whatever your style, we should work within these key principles:
Bad ideas
To really serve you properly, we have an obligation to push back against flawed ideas, that we know won’t work.
All of us sometimes get asked for really light coloured walls - white, beige or cream. The problem there is twofold - first, projected light can’t deliver the contrast that it should - cinemas need dark walls to work really well. The second problem is that the walls all light up the colour of the film, which is really distracting and the opposite of immersive.
If you have to have light coloured walls, you really want a direct display - either a really big TV or a modern modular microLED display. We can help you with that.
Example of a Beige Bright Room. Picture Courtesy of Pinterest
Engineering first
Imagine if Chris Bangle started asking to move the engine or chassis - then instead of being a leading car stylist, he’d be out of a job. Our specialty is exactly the same - the technical elements and engineering should go hand in hand with styling.
It’s no good - but sadly common - to lay the room out first and then ‘shoehorn’ the system in. All that happens then is speakers in the wrong place, wrong sized screens, or screens too high, or clunky ergonomics.
It’s much better to work with your cinema designer from a blank sheet of paper, and then we achieve the best layout for performance, comfort, and style.
What not to do courtesy of Bing AI Image Creator
Colour
A bit of colour in your cinema adds interest, but we wouldn’t go too bright or strong, especially on the screen wall and the first third of the room.
When we’re doing ‘high level’ performance cinemas we recommend keeping colour out of the viewing area, to ensure the best picture accuracy.
Seating, cushions and throws can give you ‘pops’ of colour that you won’t see when watching, and it’s easy to update throws and cushions when you fancy a change and to keep the room on-trend.
And of course the LED lights can change colour on demand.
Picture Courtesy of Cyberhomes
Lighting
Lighting design is critical for a cinema project and needs just as much planning as the speakers, projector, screen and seats.
LED drivers should be as close to the LED strips as possible to prevent voltage loss, and if you’re doing coloured and pixel that should be planned out in detail.
So the big takeaways are: engage help as early as possible in the build, before the electrical first fix, to make sure the lighting is all in the right place and the right sort.
Picture Courtesy of New Wave
Artwork
Art is fine - film posters, memorabilia, or football images - but again we’d keep them outside the viewing area. Take care with glass fronts - instead we can screen print onto acoustic fabric, to conceal speakers or acoustic treatments. Glass can cause light reflections from the screen and also create unwanted reflections in the sound.
Picture Courtesy of Immersive Cinema Rooms
Whatever your favourite style, HCA members have the training and experience to give you the very best results.
Written by Owen Maddock of Cinemaworks
Home Cinema seating design
Ben Goff, Home Cinema Designer at Cinema Lusso
When planning a Home Cinema the importance of seating design is often overlooked. For many clients, the audio and video systems are the most exciting because they bring the movies into our homes, but this can leave seating as an afterthought.
To really maximise the Home Cinema experience, seating should in fact be the first element considered, to match how the room will be used and how many guests need to be accommodated. A cosy family room might need a totally different seating plan to a room used for watching sports with friends.
Seating Capacity
Getting the number of seats in the room right can be tricky and clients often want as many seats as possible. This can reduce the experience for everybody though, because every seat will be compromised if the seating doesn’t correctly fit the space.
There are many styles of seating available to match your room use and capacity requirements. When the cinema will be used for different events, a creative seating plan makes sure the room always works, a great example would be a large daybed with a bar and bar stools behind. This provides a cosy space for a Sunday afternoon movie with the family and separate space to have a drink and watch sport with friends.
Video Quality
The correct screen size should always suit the distance and viewing angle from the seats, which means it is impossible to decide the screen size until after the seating plan has been finalised.
When the room has a single row of seats it is easy to select a screen size, to suit your preference. This can be found during a demonstration by simply moving nearer or farther away from a fixed screen until it feels immersive, but comfortable.
When there are multiple rows of seating, we suggest the middle row has the screen size that you find most comfortable. In a large room, with several rows there will be a seat where everybody can find their ideal position. In a small room, multiple rows could mean the screen is uncomfortably close in the front and underwhelming from the back, so nobody has the most enjoyable experience.
Using industry standards we can guide this decision, making sure all of your guests have the same amazing experience. Aim for no seats closer than a 62 degree viewing angle or further than a 35degree angle, with the best seats in the house around 48-52 degrees, to ensure everybody has a great view.
If the layout will place your guests outside of this range, we can look at other options to maximise capacity without ruining the experience. This could mean rotating the room 90 degrees to make wider rows or using alternative seating such as Bar stools or floor cushions / Beanbags.
Effect on Audio Quality
The way sound waves interact with the walls in the room has a large effect on the sound quality. These room interactions are easily predictable in rectangular rooms, where we know certain areas of the room will receive reduced sound quality. Most notably, at 1/3rd or 2/3rds of the depth or width of the room the bass will often suffer, becoming boomy at some frequencies and non-existent at others.
When the room is large enough, we recommended that no seat is within 1m from any wall or any speaker, especially speakers on the rear wall. If seats must be placed against the rear wall, removing the Surround Back channels will prevent them from overpowering the more important front speakers.
The seating design will also tell us the distance from each speaker to the listener. We need 4 times as much power output from the speakers every time the distance doubles to create the same volume. Speakers which can provide a dynamic and impactful performance for seats 3m away, may be totally unsuitable for seats 6m away. If you choose the speakers before confirming the seating layout, it’s a guess at best whether they will provide the performance you expect.
If you are planing a Home Cinema, get in touch with a Home Cinema Alliance member early, to allow us to guide the most important decisions.
Planning your Home Cinema project
Picture Courtesy of Immersive Cinema Rooms
For some 'Home Cinema' may mean a big TV and a Sound Bar.
We don’t think about it like that.
We believe that the experience created should be compelling, arresting, and all-encompassing, so that the world goes away and you’re in the film - or the box set, or the game. ‘Immersive’ is a great term - if a bit over-used these days.
When planning your cinema system, here are some things to consider.
Picture Courtesy of Bespoke Home Cinemas
Who’s it for?
Often the home cinema is something for the family, maybe this is somewhere you’d enjoy with friends too. For seating especially this gets important - how many people should be entertained in comfort, say during the holidays? Should we plan ‘occasional’ seating - still good but not the best seats in the house? Children are often happy with beanbags in the front, for sleepovers and parties.
Think about friends, extended family, kids, everyday use and special occasions. But also think about yourself - in an empty cinema, where would you sit? In the centre sure, but at the front, or towards the back? Many of us would be about two-thirds back where some cinema companies have premium seats. Yours should be the best seat in the house.
What will you be watching?
Good quality films, event TV and gaming are all important. But how important? Really that depends on you. Is ‘movie night’ more special than Saturday afternoon football or a long gaming session?
One decision to make is, should your screen be in ‘cinemascope’ letterbox, or regular 16:9? A masking screen lets you do both at the highest quality - the black border moves to suit the content you’re playing.
Picture Courtesy of CinemaWorks
Cinema v Media Room
The classic distinction is that the cinema room is dark and single purpose, while a media room is mixed-use, social and probably lighter.
A lot of our favourite rooms combine both approaches. For us the ideal is really convincing cinema performance, in a room that’s fun to hang out in - that also works when there’s a bit more ambient light, for example when watching the big match with friends. Blackout blinds let us control the ambient light level. We’ll need higher brightness from the display too, so that picture quality is maintained.
It’s quite reasonable to have two displays - a flatscreen TV for casual use, and projection screen for that full cinema experience.
The Space
Is this an existing room, or does it exist on your architect’s drawing board? Even more excitingly, do we have a blank canvas? Everything is possible, but we need to know where the doors are, and the dimensions of the room, and any other possible constraints. If you’d like two or more rows of seats we’ll want to raise the upper levels so that everyone can see perfectly, in complete comfort.
For really good results, we want to treat the room itself, preventing echoes and bass resonances, and to stop sound from escaping or ambient sound getting in, all of which improves the performance of the cinema. To do that we either use tasteful acoustic panels, or have room treatments and speakers hidden behind fabric walls. That will reduce the floor area of the room itself a little, so plan for that if you can.
Picture Courtesy of iCubed
The Vibe
Do you prefer the Odeon or the Everyman? What sort of style would you like for the room and seating?
Home Cinema is about escapism and stories - would you like to do something over-the-top, or themed around your favourite film? We’ve seen James Bond cinemas, Batcaves, Roaring Twenties themes - anything you can imagine. Whatever age your home is, the cinema room could match that, or be a total contrast, and it’ll work brilliantly.
Products
We’re not there yet! The outline specification comes from your answers to the questions above - who’s it for, what will you be watching, is this a cinema, a media room or a bit of both, and what’s our room size. Once we know that we can draw down the performance we need, and then at last we can go looking for equipment.
We’re always really excited to help with cinema and media room projects.
Written by Owen Maddock of CinemaWorks