Sound Stage Rental: What's Included & What's Changed | Forge

Renting a sound stage today gives you access to a controlled, sound-treated shooting environment. Depending on the studio, you may even be able to use an LED volume that puts your locations on the wall.

Not every sound stage rental offers the same space, equipment, or sound quality, especially with today's evolving technology. Let's break down exactly what to look for in your rental package.

What Is a Sound Stage?

Let's get one thing clear right off the bat: The terms "sound stage" and "soundstage" are often used interchangeably, but they mean different things. The physical "sound stage" refers to the actual soundproof space, while "soundstage" is an audio term used to imagine how effectively sound travels in a space.

Sound stages are massive, soundproof spaces specifically designed to support film production. They typically have high ceilings, flat and level flooring, and enough electricity to power all the equipment the crew may use. However, the most important factor is that the space is free of outside noise.

Sound stage rentals often use thick walls, sturdy doors, and acoustic insulation to block out the sound of traffic, sirens, airplanes, and chatter. Some studios use decoupling strategies by placing the sound stage or an insert stage within a larger room. Others use air gaps within double-wall designs for extra insulation. These variables ensure crews can capture high-end audio with consistent sound quality across each shot.

Sound stages also use absorption panels, sound absorbers in corners, ceiling panels, acoustic blankets, and other sound treatment strategies to improve audio quality within the room. These strategies limit the sounds and echoes bouncing off of surfaces across the room. This way, microphones can clearly pick up the dialogue being spoken, not reverberations or ambient noises.

Poor audio quality can immediately break viewers' immersion and impair your brand image. Additionally, cleaning up poor audio quality in post-production can be time-consuming, expensive, and limiting to your creative process. The fastest, easiest option is to simply film your project in a space that supports good audio quality.

What a Sound Stage Rental Actually Includes

Though sound stage amenities somewhat vary by studio and facility, most rental packages include the same production necessities. Understanding what sound stages offer makes it easier to read facility listings and find the best space for your project:

• Stage space: First and foremost, you're paying to use the actual space. Sound stages are massive, with high ceilings and wide, soundproof walls. This gives you room to use LED walls, large camera rigs, insert stages, and more without filming outdoors.
• Power distribution: Sound stages should have enough outlets and incoming electricity to power all production equipment at once, including camera batteries, high-power lights, LED panels, and monitor screens. Sound stages often use power distribution units, circuit isolation, and heavy-duty electrical panels to accommodate all possible production needs.
• Lighting grid: Most sound stage ceilings are layered with pipes, trusses, and power distribution points that grip and electric crews can securely position studio lights on. These setups expand your lighting capabilities, making it easier to simulate outdoor scenes, and they also clear up floor space by reducing the number of lights on the sound stage floor.
• Load-in: Depending on your project's demands, your sound stage rental will usually include a fixed window for your crew to load and set up equipment, along with strike days to take it down. Dedicated load-in and strike days maximize what you can achieve during production by ensuring talent, clients, and other guests aren't waiting around for setup.
• Support spaces: Though every facility differs, many sound stages include separate rooms for your team to utilize.
  • Green rooms and wardrobe rooms give talent a private space to prepare for the camera.
  • Lobbies, reception, kitchens, and break rooms give everyone a place to relax.
  • Storage rooms keep all of your equipment off the sound stage floor.
  • Production offices and control booths give clients and producers a soundproof space to handle logistics while staying involved in the process.
• Sound treatment: Sound stages are strategically built with acoustic materials and intricate designs to block out outside noise and reduce echoes. This level of sound quality is hard to match anywhere else, especially in a space this large.
• Crew and gear packages: Sound stage rentals often offer access to production equipment, along with a crew to operate everything. These are often add-on costs determined by your unique production needs.

Sound Stage, Film Studio, Insert Stage: Sorting the Vocabulary

To understand what a sound stage rental entails, you should also understand what other options are available and what distinguishes them. For instance, film studio rentals often offer more than sound stages, depending on the facility.

The terms "sound stage," "film studio," and "insert stage" are often interchanged, but they refer to rather different offerings:

• Film studio: Large facilities that include spaces for multiple parts of the production process, including production offices, sound stages, voice-over rooms, and editing rooms. Most full-service film studio rental packages include access to the studio's complete offerings, allowing you to keep the full production process within one facility.
• Sound stage: Sound stages are often single, soundproof rooms in a larger film studio facility. Sound stage rentals may include access to the studio's other amenities, often at an added cost, and packages often cost less than full film studio packages.
• Insert stage: Insert stages are much smaller soundproof spaces used to film close-up and insert shots. (Insert shots are usually filmed separately from the rest of the film but added in during post-production, such as close-up shots of a product in a commercial.) Some film studios offer dedicated rooms for insert stages, while others set up insert stage walls within larger sound stages.

How LED Walls Changed What a Stage Can Do

Virtual production (VP) uses LED volumes, camera tracking systems, and backgrounds often rendered in real time to create immersive, photorealistic environments. These LED walls and VP setups are often assembled in sound stages, utilizing their massive space, soundproof walls, and access to electricity. Some sound stage rentals, such as Forge Virtual Studio's rental packages, offer access to VP volumes and crews to expand what your production can achieve.

The modern LED stage is an environment engine. Unlike green screen stages, virtual backgrounds appear in-camera, significantly reducing your project's post-production needs. Additionally, high-power LED lights synchronize with the volume to create a cohesive environment bright enough to mimic sunlight.

Arguably, the biggest advantage of how virtual production works is achieving location swaps without ever leaving the sound stage. With enough prep, you can capture actors, products, and other subjects in almost any environment you can think of, with complete creative control over the visuals. This means no company moves, permits, or weather risks.

The real-time parallax between the camera, volume, and lights often requires your crew to use specific equipment provided by the VP studio. Fortunately, this is included in most virtual production studio rental packages.

Sound on an LED Stage: What Changes and What Doesn't

While LED stages are often used in soundproof stages, this isn't always the case. Complete broadcast soundproofing typically isn't necessary for virtual production, as long as the space is sound-treated.

The primary audio concern in virtual production is equipment noise, such as LED panels, high-power lights, and computer workstations running Unreal Engine. Sound-treated surfaces reduce echoes and bouncing equipment noise so audio quality remains as high-end as possible.

For example, Forge's virtual production stages use audio isolation and sound-treated stage walls with minimal acoustic reflection. The space is built for real-time production, ensuring you can capture clean dialogue and video at the same time.

How To Evaluate a Sound Stage Before You Book

Multiple factors influence film studio rental costs, so you need to know what you're paying for. As you browse sound stages for rent, consider each rental's unique specs and offerings, and compare them to your production needs.

Choosing a virtual production studio or sound stage may require you to consider some specs and variables over others:

• Dimensions vs. build: Large sound stages with wide walls and high ceilings give you more space to set up equipment and angle the camera, but these larger spaces can make it difficult to maintain perfect sound quality. Compare each sound stage's dimensions with the acoustic materials and sound-treatment strategies used, and how good the audio actually sounds when you're in the room.
• Power vs. lighting plan: The sound stage's electrical capacity determines how much equipment, including lights, you can run at once. Meanwhile, intricate lighting plans with ceiling lighting grids expand what you can achieve with your lighting setup. Some of the best sound stages offer both high power capacity and flexible lighting plans, though you may have to prioritize one over the other, based on your options.
• Acoustics vs. sound needs: Some sound stages prioritize internal sound treatment to reduce echoes, while others emphasize soundproofing against outside noise, such as studios in big cities. Your best option may depend on your production, such as whether you use an LED volume or other noisy equipment.
• Support spaces vs. crew/client list: Many studios offer extra rooms for clients to relax, crews to prepare equipment, or producers to monitor production. However, most studios don't offer everything. Weigh your options based on your unique project's needs, such as whether you need space for multiple clients and interviewees.

When a Traditional Stage Is Enough — and When the Wall Earns Its Keep

Choosing between a traditional sound stage or a modern virtual studio rental leaves you with a lot to consider, but your best choice ultimately hinges on your project.

For example, a dialogue-heavy production using a built set may only need a sound stage. You could theoretically use the LED volume to create a background through any windows or doorways in the built set, but traditional studio lights still work, too.

Virtual production stages are often ideal for multi-location shoots, continuity-heavy work, and productions that would otherwise need to face weather risks by filming outdoors. They can also create dynamic backgrounds for high-volume campaigns, such as by creating an easy, engaging backdrop for interviews.

Walk a Modern Stage

Comparing sound stage rentals can give you a lot of specs to understand. These numbers ultimately look different when you see (and hear) what they actually represent. The fastest way to understand what sound stages have become is to stand in one.

Forge Virtual Studios offers virtual production and sound stage rentals just outside of Chicago. Book a tour or contact the Forge team to walk the stages for yourself.