Digital video gives rise to the open-door Hollywood mini studio (pictures)

For Road Trip 2015, CNET takes a tour of the Los Angeles open-door microstudio, where online entertainers have access to advanced equipment and tricked-out filming spaces -- free.

Joan E. Solsman

Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.

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Joan E. Solsman

Aug. 4, 2015 5:00 a.m. PT

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Taking off

As user-generated video online grows in popularity and sophistication, small studios have cropped up in Los Angeles that give creators access to spaces out of their own reach. YouTube's own space is the largest at nearly 41,000 square feet. Outside the building is a helicopter once built in the facility that Google converted into the sound-stage space. The company bought the chopper on eBay.

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Phan's plan

YouTube beauty guru Michelle Phan and her Ipsy launched an open studio in May. The company received 1,000 applications in the first two hours, she said.

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All that glitters

Ipsy Open Studios has three stages, including one with a make-up tutorial set installed, lit and ready to go.

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Home away from home

Ipsy Open Studios' largest space in the 3,000-square-foot facility has the re-creation of a vlogger's bedroom in one corner, while another corner has a lofted seating area above a section dedicated to editing.

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At work

Ipsy in-house stylists use the space to shoot their own content for the company in the studio.

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Living large

YouTube Space LA's largest stage is 4,500 square feet and has a wrap-around elevated cat walk.

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Go green

YouTube Space LA's three smaller studios all have painted cycloramas, which allow creators to shoot with with seamless green-screens.

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Making up is hard to do

YouTube Space LA's make-up rooms are attached to a full bathroom with shower.

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Center of control

The production control room at YouTube Space LA has 10 touch-screen monitors and a 13-screen customizable monitor wall.

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Equip yourself

The gear room at YouTube Space LA is staffed by pros who pull the equipment a creator specifically requests and ready it on dollies to roll to the sound stage.

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Live/work

Collab's open-door studio not only hosts creators who need a place to record or hang, but the company also takes advantage of the space to shoot press images for their top talent.

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Heart of the matter

At the center of Collab's studio is a green screen stage, which makes "time travel, space exploration or a relaxing Hawaiian vacation are just a stock-image search away," the company says.

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Quiet on the set

In additions to letting Collab creators build sets like this one for a series about rapping Shakespearean verse, Head of Talent Will McFadden welcomes talent into his loft apartment to shoot.