Over the years I have never bothered to do anything at my house for Halloween, untill last week after watching a couple of videos on youtube of some ideas that have been done over in the U.S.
Fortunately I have two large entrances gates into our garden, which measure 7m (22ft) across when closed.
My idea is to cover both of the gates with a plastic decorators sheet, in which both of them can be stretched and attached to the gates with duck tape to produce a rear projection screen.
The decorators sheets I have found in my local budget crap shop, only cost 70 cents and measure 4X4m and when held up to the light are translucent so they are perfect for rear projection.
I have an old full HD DLP projector that still has a couple of thousand hours left on the clock, that I have workout exactly where it needs to be positioned in order that the sides of the image hits both of the gate posts.
I will place the projector and laptop in the boot of my car, so if it ends up raining on the night, I can prop the boot lid up enough for the beam to pass through and also protect the projector.
The next problem is the screen ratio, as the gates when closed come somewhere between scope and ultra panavision in ratio. My idea is to project the video through a piece of perspex in which it is possible to attach electrical tape to inorder to mask down the image, so there is no over spill. As this would ruin the effect from the opposite side of the gates.
I have found a couple of Halloween video loops that have a black background so only the main action is projected such as zombies, skeletons and ghosts.
While trying this out last week without the screen, just to see if the projector could fill the area, I didn't realize I was projecting the video into the neighbour's living room across the road. They came over to see why they had skeletons dancing over their living room wall, Ops.
If it all goes to plan and is not a washout, I will put some photos up of the event next week.
Fortunately I have two large entrances gates into our garden, which measure 7m (22ft) across when closed.
My idea is to cover both of the gates with a plastic decorators sheet, in which both of them can be stretched and attached to the gates with duck tape to produce a rear projection screen.
The decorators sheets I have found in my local budget crap shop, only cost 70 cents and measure 4X4m and when held up to the light are translucent so they are perfect for rear projection.
I have an old full HD DLP projector that still has a couple of thousand hours left on the clock, that I have workout exactly where it needs to be positioned in order that the sides of the image hits both of the gate posts.
I will place the projector and laptop in the boot of my car, so if it ends up raining on the night, I can prop the boot lid up enough for the beam to pass through and also protect the projector.
The next problem is the screen ratio, as the gates when closed come somewhere between scope and ultra panavision in ratio. My idea is to project the video through a piece of perspex in which it is possible to attach electrical tape to inorder to mask down the image, so there is no over spill. As this would ruin the effect from the opposite side of the gates.
I have found a couple of Halloween video loops that have a black background so only the main action is projected such as zombies, skeletons and ghosts.
While trying this out last week without the screen, just to see if the projector could fill the area, I didn't realize I was projecting the video into the neighbour's living room across the road. They came over to see why they had skeletons dancing over their living room wall, Ops.
If it all goes to plan and is not a washout, I will put some photos up of the event next week.
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