For an unbalanced cable that has a sheilding, whats the proper way to do this? I'm making my RCA cables because I want to keep excess cables at a minimum so I'm cutting them to length. Between 1.5 ...

The cheapest way to do hdmi to RCA is one of the generic hdmi to VGA adapters on ebay or one of the chinese marketplaces (like this one. HDMI goes in, and you've got a 3.5mm audio output.