Building an infinity cyclorama

Recently we moved our studio in a bigger, better space, right on the Lachine canal in Montreal. For this space, we initially built a new cyclorama but, upon some reflexion, I decided an infinity cyclorama would work best with the layout.

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 We teared down the first cyclorama to install an infinity one. Go strong or go home 😉

Building a cyclo is not easy, especially a corner (infinity)one since there are 3 ramps that will meet in a single corner. We decided to reduce the arch corners to 2 feet and built the structure. Also the floor part of our cyclorama had to be very resistant and we used pre painted fiberglass panels (unlike the floor paint these panels can be cleaned with industrial solvents)

TIP: Using a nail gun for this part of the job proved to be a big time saver

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After several visits to the HomeDepot store things started to look good.

The biggest headache proved to be the corner piece which is rather difficult to carve (specially the structural ribs)

TIPs:  A metal cutter works marvelously on plywood curved cuts.

            Use a piece of paper to create the initial, rough shape and apply it to the plywood

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A lot of chopping around but we “nailed” it.

At this stage we knew it will be a lot of plaster involved but we still had to go 2-3 times at the store to buy more. To fill the gap and make it seamless we used about 2 big boxes of plaster. This part is very time consuming and requires a certain level of skill to apply.

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At this point we bought paint that matched the color of our floor plastic panels (a task that was a tiny bit tedious)

After a week of hard work, the results are pleasing us :).

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We brought some lights and a more serious camera for the final test and – mission accomplished – we are now excited to have a pretty neat infinity cyclorama:

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Cutting out the white background works nicely.

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But the biggest test was achieving a nice neutral gradient (above, the un-retouched image).

 

 

 

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