edit station set up?

[Brance]

Hey,

I'm redoing my editing station and had a couple questions.

1) when you have a customer (say a producer) who wants to sit with you during edits, how do you set up the environment? do they look at your monitor(s) or do you set them up one of their own? do you only give them a broadcast ntsc monitor, or do you give them a comp monitor so they can see realtime effects? if so, is there a way to set up a third monitor that mirrors one of the first two? I edit with two monitors. the larger of the two holds the viewer and browser side by side with timeline underneath. the second (and smaller) monitor holds only the canvas. that's the monitor I would need to mirror.

2) what kind of desk arrangement do you use? is the customer beside you, behind you, or...? I have two clients in particular who produce a lot of projects. they like to be in the room while I'm editing, but they aren't 100% there. they spend time checking email, talking on the phone, etc. they need a work space for their powerbook, a note pad, a coffee cup, etc. I'm trying to figure out how to set it up properly. My edit room is a large room, so I have lot's of space to play with.

Thanks,

[gabru]

if I were you, I would arrange the room so the producer had his own seperate area, behind your editing workspace.. arrange a viewing monitor to one side so it is convenient for him/her to "produce"...
in my experience, once you let a producer next to you, they keep getting closer and closer to the "editors" space.. often jumping the gun, pointing, grabbing the mouse, or just not giving you anytime to tweak a new edit.

[MADE4TV]

I keep the clients out of my space. Our edit sutes are a little tight but comfortable. Here's an example of our configurations.
My desk space is approx 75"x75" L shape. I position a comfortable desk behind me which has our spare computer that's always on line, attached to a printer and conveniently located to the phone. Additional seating is off to the side in the form of two comfortable office chairs with a table in between. Our upstairs suite has a futon with very sturdy fold up tables (resembles dining trays but upscale)for client seating.
In each suite we use large TV monitors which can be viewed by the entire room fed S-video out of the edit decks.
I find that this is very comfortable for clients and allows them to be involved while still conducting outside business.