Epic Rap Battles of History Studio Live Recording Room Design
Custom fabric design and functional installation for the studio where Maker Studios' Epic Rap Battles of History records their tracks.
OBJECTIVE
Create a custom and functional interior design for a recording studio “live room” that doubles as a set for live recordings of Epic Rap Battles of History Songs and other Nice Peter/Epic Lloyd music video content.
CHALLENGE
Design and build a set that serves two functionalities: A finished interior space that inspires and visually stimulates the creative/musical spirit for recording sessions AND a space that looks great and pops on camera to record live sets and music videos.
Additionally, the set needs to serve the acoustically specific needs of a recording studio live room and be sound absorbent. The design needs to be successfully mounted to walls that are already upholstered with fabric and sound-proof padding and accommodate a substantial amount of existing music/recording equipment in an organized, visually appealing yet functional way.
BACKGROUND
The recording studio live room is a multi-purpose room used to record all songs under the Epic Rap Battles of History/ Nice Peter umbrella. Epic Rap Battles of History is hailed as the most watched web series to date. The series features two famous historical figures battling each other in the form of a rap song complete with elaborate period/character costumes and CGI backgrounds to set the stage for epic dance battling moves.
Nice Peter aka Peter Shukoff is an award-winning musician, comedian and personality who creates original songs and music videos online. He uses the studio live room to record his singles and shoot various music videos and vlogs. Nice Peter was named Best Online Musician at the 2013 Streamy Awards.
Both the Epic Rap Battles and Nice Peter channels and brands are produced by Maker Studios, the leading Multi-Channel Network in new media production.
Epic Rap Battles of History Channel Stats
Subscribers: 11 million
Views: 1.5 Billion
Nice Peter Channel Stats
Subscribers: 2.6 million
Views: 800 Million
PROCESS
Discovery and Research: The client wanted a simple and cool “rockstar” vibe. I researched studio designs of famous rock bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. I created a color and mood board based on various rock music imagery.
Mockups: Based on my research, I created a series of several digital design mockups utilizing abstract imagery representative of the rock vibe and worked with the client to refine the mockups until we landed on a design that satisfied the objective.
The final design is reminiscent of classic 1960’s Beatles and Monkees sets for television performances. The design features a bold red color scheme and a custom 60’s style geometric circular pattern for the accent wall. The left and right walls were kept solid red in order to accommodate the clients’ desire to display custom artwork sent in by his fans.
Materials Planning & Sourcing: Once the digital mockup was finalized, I created a plan for implementing the design. The plan included a list of materials, where to source the materials, materials budget and a step-by-step guide to assemble and create the set.
The major element in materials planning for this set was sourcing the custom fabric. I created the digital design by hand in Photoshop so the challenge was to source custom printing on fabric that would be durable enough for vertical installation on the wall.
Set Creation and Build: After acquiring all materials, I completed the following steps to build the set by hand.
- Measure and cut the fabric strips to the correct length
- Iron and starch all of the fabric
- Fold and iron around rough edges to create a smooth finish
- Remove existing 2×4 vertical wooden beams holding wall upholstery in place
- Hang the fabric strip by strip and pull taught while using a level to ensure perfect positioning
- Line up each strip with the previous one to ensure correct pattern repetition
- Secure around all 4 sides of each piece of fabric to the wall with pins
- Once installed, steam and starch fabric to remove any wrinkles
- Replace 2×4 vertical wooden beams
- Hang custom artwork
- Arrange musical equipment according to needs of client
This installation required 4 people to hold each corner of the fabric during installation. But totally worth it!
Fun Fact: About a year after we installed the design, a drum booth with a window was installed on the left side of the live room so we removed the fabric from that wall and re-installed it around the edges of the drum booth window. That room is decorated with a floor to ceiling tile pattern of record album covers so it’s especially cool to see that design peeking through to the live room from the drum booth window.
Check out the design in action!
About the Client: Epic Rap Battles of History/ Maker Studios
Epic Rap Battles of History, created by Nice Peter and Epic Lloyd, has been named the number 1 web series on YouTube by New Media Rockstars, with each episode averaging around 50 million views. The series has also won 7 Streamy awards and been nominated twice for The Producers Guild of America Outstanding Digital Series award.
The series is produced by the global leader in short-form video, Maker Studios which was recently acquired by Disney in a landmark 1 billion dollar deal. Maker is “dedicated to developing talent, creating premium programming, and building lasting brands with engaged audiences.”
Credit for production stills: Nice Peter
Melissa Judson is my design hero, I’ve thrown every kind of creative problem her way, and she always comes back with a solution that truly works. Her eye for detail is present in all her work, there are no points missed, no shortcuts taken, just excellent, clean, effective designs. She has been a lifesaver.”