What to look for before you book an infinity cove studio
Every studio has a cove. Here's how to work out whether it's the right one for your production.
An infinity cove eliminates the visual join between floor and wall, creating the seamless background that fashion, advertising, automotive and product photography relies on. When it works, it disappears. When it doesn't — because the cove is too narrow, the ceiling too low, or the floor poorly maintained — you know about it before the first frame is shot. This guide covers the five things worth checking before you book an infinity cove studio in London, and what good answers actually look like.
Cove Size and Proportions: The Spec That Actually Determines Your Frame
Floor area tells you how big the studio is. Cove width tells you what you can actually shoot.
The most common mistake when booking an infinity cove is focusing on the studio’s overall floor area without looking at how the cove itself is proportioned. A large studio with a narrow or shallow cove can be more limiting than a mid-size studio with a properly scaled cove that wraps generously across the shooting area.
The width of the cove determines how much of your set sits within the seamless area. A 30-metre wide cove gives a fashion campaign the freedom to dress a scene properly and still have clean edges on either side of the frame. A narrow cove restricts the shot before you’ve started lighting it.
The radius of the curve matters too. A tighter radius becomes visible at certain focal lengths. A more generous curve is more forgiving and requires less careful framing to keep the join out of shot.
At Malcolm Ryan Studios, Studio A has a 30-metre U-shaped cove across an 8,004 sq ft floor. Studio 1 has a full U-shaped cove at 4,350 sq ft. Studio 4 is a compact cove at 40ft × 16ft, suited to portrait, beauty and product work where a smaller seamless background is the right tool.
Cove width determines what you can shoot. It’s a more useful number than total floor area.
Ceiling Height: Why the Number Matters More Than Studios Admit
The difference between a 12ft ceiling and a 31ft ceiling isn't headroom — it's a completely different range of creative options.
Low ceilings are the most common constraint production teams encounter after they've already booked. A 12ft ceiling limits how high lighting can be rigged, eliminates overhead shooting options and makes large set builds impossible. It also means any source rigged above is close enough to the subject to create hard shadows that cost time to manage on set.
Studios with genuine ceiling height — 19ft and above — give lighting teams room to work properly. Softboxes can be rigged at height, overhead shooting becomes a real option, and set builds have vertical space that doesn't force compromise.
At 31ft, Studio A at Malcolm Ryan Studios has an overhead shooting platform at ceiling height, giving photographers and DOPs a top-down perspective that simply isn't available in most London studios. Studio 1 reaches 19ft with a motorised truss that gives productions additional lighting flexibility without extra rigging time.
When reviewing a studio, ask for the ceiling height in feet and ask specifically whether there's an overhead shooting platform or rigging grid. A grid without a shooting platform is useful but limited. Both together give productions significantly more options on the day.
Ask for the ceiling height in feet. Then ask whether there's an overhead shooting platform.
Drive-In Access: Essential for Vehicle Shoots, Useful for Almost Everything Else
Drive-in clearance tells you more about a studio's real capability than almost any other single spec.
Drive-in access isn't only relevant to automotive productions. Any shoot with large props, heavy equipment, set-build materials or oversized products benefits from loading directly onto the studio floor at ground level. The alternative — carrying equipment through corridors, up lifts and across shared spaces — adds time, adds risk and adds stress to a shoot day.
When assessing drive-in access, the key measurement is clearance height. A clearance of 14ft accommodates standard-height vehicles and most commercial vans. 17ft clearance handles larger vehicles, trucks and high-sided production transport. Floor-level entry also means forklifts and pallet trucks can be used for heavy loads.
For vehicle photography specifically, drive-in access is non-negotiable. Studios A and 1 at Malcolm Ryan Studios both provide drive-in clearance directly onto the infinity cove floor — at 17ft and 14ft respectively. A vehicle can be driven in, positioned and lit without any lifting, ramps or compromise.
If a studio describes vehicle access without specifying the clearance height, ask for the number before you commit.
14ft clearance handles most vehicles. 17ft handles everything. Know the number before you book.
Power Supply: The Spec That Separates Production Studios from Hire Rooms
Inadequate power is a problem you only discover when it's too late to fix it.
Professional lighting rigs draw significant power. A single large HMI, a bank of LED panels or a set of strobe heads running simultaneously can exceed what a standard domestic or light commercial supply can handle. Studios built genuinely for production have the power infrastructure to support it.
The key figures to ask for are total amperage and whether three-phase supply is accessible. Three-phase matters for larger productions running multiple heavy rigs — it distributes load more efficiently and supports equipment that requires it natively.
Studio A at Malcolm Ryan Studios carries 3 × 400A supply plus 3-phase 63A sockets. Studios 1 and 2 each provide 12–15 × 63A sockets plus 3-phase 63A access. These are production-grade specs that allow large crews to run full lighting setups without tripping breakers or sharing circuits.
If a studio can't tell you the amperage clearly, treat that as a warning sign.
Production Facilities: The Difference Between a Hire Room and a Working Studio
A professional shoot needs more than a room — it needs make-up space, crew areas, parking and somewhere to eat
Production facilities are where the gap between studios that look good on a website and studios that actually work on a shoot day becomes obvious. A studio with no make-up room forces talent into corridors. A studio with no parking adds an hour of logistics to the start of every day. A studio with no catering option means crew breaks become disruptive.
At Malcolm Ryan Studios, production facilities are included as part of the site rather than extras. Make-up and wardrobe rooms are attached to the studios. Production offices are available for client meetings and shoot management. Free parking is available on site. The 80-seat restaurant is open for crew catering throughout the day.
Air conditioning runs across all studios — important for shoots running in summer or under heavy lighting loads. High-speed Wi-Fi is available site-wide, with a dedicated leased line option for productions requiring additional bandwidth for live streaming or high-volume upload.
Equipment hire — lighting, camera and grip support — is available through the studio, reducing the number of suppliers a production needs to coordinate.
These aren't luxury additions. On a full production day with a large crew and a client on set, they're the details that keep everything running smoothly.
The facilities that seem like extras are often the ones that make or break a shoot day.
What to Look For When Booking an Infinity Cove Studio in London
Malcolm Ryan Studios offers five infinity cove studios in South West London - each built for a different scale of production. Day rates start from £600 for Studio 4 through to £2,000 for Studio A.
All studios are located at Wimbledon Stadium Business Centre, SW17 — accessible from Central London via the A3, Wimbledon rail, tube and tram connections.