MEDIA ROOM INSIDER: SENECA CINEMA
Sound & Vision|October - November 2021
Do-It-Yourself Theater with a Twist
BOB ANKOSKO
MEDIA ROOM INSIDER: SENECA CINEMA

MIKE BATURIN is an avowed technology enthusiast and proud owner of a Tesla Model 3, one of his “favorite pieces of tech.” As cool as the Tesla is with its cutting-edge all-electric design and ability to rocket to 60 mph in 3.1 seconds, it still ranks second behind his most prized possession—a dedicated theater he designed and built from scratch for his new home in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The theater started with a vision or, as he put it, “an amalgamation of ideas curated over more than 10 years of participating on home theater forums, listening to and watching podcasts, and engrossing myself in the techniques and best practices of setting up a home theater.” The space he imagined would put the enjoyment of movies above all else while doubling as a place to watch sports, play video games, and listen to music.

As soon as he signed the contract to build his new home, Baturin—an IT professional for one of the U.S.’s largest building materials companies—used simple 3D software to model the entire house. Doing so enabled him to not only visualize the overall space to make sure he got everything just the way he wanted it but to create detailed plans for the A/V utopia he had in mind. The renderings showed a basement featuring a 21.5 x 14.5-foot theater space with a 9-foot ceiling with specs for a ledge and matching soffit in the front of the room where the screen would go, a niche for his A/V gear, and a back-row riser for three of the recliners he planned to install with a diagram for wiring and electrical outlets. He also specified a grand, double door entry in the back wall of the theater that opens into a playroom he built for his three young children.

This story is from the October - November 2021 edition of Sound & Vision.

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This story is from the October - November 2021 edition of Sound & Vision.

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