Anthony Bolante is the sole staff photojournalist at PSBJ.  Anthony is responsible for supplying photos and videos in support of the dozen reporters in the newsroom, shooting both in the field and in the studio.  Anthony had been temporarily reconfiguring the conference room adjacent to the newsroom to use as his studio.  Reporters could lose access to the conference room from a few days to even up to a month, depending on Anthony’s current project.  

 

After years of “making do”, Anthony proposed repurposing storage space within the PSBJ office into a dedicated studio.  With more than 25 years of professional experience, Anthony had strong opinions on what he wanted in a dedicated studio space.  He just needed a partner who could assist in realizing his vision. 

 

Anthony approached a local curtain manufacturer which produced the curtains you would find in a hospital or medical office: designed to reduce noise and improve privacy. The curtains did not go far enough in dampening sound or blocking light to meet Anthony’s needs, and the company lacked the flexibility to customize their product into a tailored solution. 

 

Anthony approached PNTA, not entirely certain a company that produced complete theatrical drapery systems would be interested in such a small, highly unusual project. What he found was a fully-engaged partner willing to put in the work to understand his vision and needs as well as use our drapery expertise to help refine and improve upon his original design concepts.  

 

The curtains lining the windows are designed with sufficient weight and fullness of inherently fire retardant synthetic velour with blackout lining, ensuring that Anthony can completely control the light entering his studio and dampen extraneous sounds. When you move away from the windows, the drapes transition to double-sided velour, so that the space looks attractive from inside and outside the studio. An aluminum I-beam track was installed into the drop ceiling, allowing for walk along operation of the curtains. The curtain track required PNTA to innovate new installation methods, since the installation crew could not tie into the concrete. Instead, the entire load of the track and curtains needed to be dispersed across the tile grid of the drop ceiling, remaining within the grid's load rating. Installation also required PNTA to custom bend the curtain track onsite in order to fit the space. Double velour curtains with 50% fullness with chain sewn into a pocket along the bottom hem of the curtains as well as a custom-designed valance along the top of curtains ensured floor to ceiling coverage, enabling more complete control of light and sound bleeding into the studio space.  To further dampen ambient noise, the PNTA team helped to develop an economical solution of sound dampening covers with magnets for the HVAC, which resulted in considerably less background hiss in audio tracks whenever Anthony shot videos.  

 

By project completion, Anthony was left with a photo/video studio that fits him to a tee. He can turn around assignments in less time, not only because he was a dedicated space requiring minimal set-up but the captured photos and videos require less editing in post-production, allowing him to move in some cases from studio production to editorial layout in under an hour.