Backgarden Kino

[Lee Hardcastle]

With the nice weather in Britain over the weekend, I set up the projector in the backgarden and watched The Day of the Triffids.
It was great! Except for needing the sound to be low for sake of annoying the neighbours. I'm planning on setting it up again in the near future and inviting the street round.

Thinking I might construct a cardboard box cover for the projector to muffle the sound a little bit and protect against any potential rain.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Lee,

Very nice to have an outdoor screening! How is the color on your Triffids print? Mine is fairly sepia.

[Lee Hardcastle]

It's just like watching a black and white movie, except instead of black it's burgundy.
I've thought about placing a tinted gel over the projector lens to balance the colour, an experiment I'll try later.

It has some lines on the left hand side pretty often.

All in all, successfully watched the whole movie, first time viewing of TDOFT. Enjoyed the movie! It felt like a 60s version of 28 days Later (2002) and The Last of Us.

[Steve Klare]

I did something like this out on my patio a few years ago: being a fan of Drive-In Theaters it just seemed natural to try it.

The first thing I learned is mosquitoes become active just around dusk: exactly when I was ready to start. (You'd hope forty years of camping would have already taught me that!)

The second thing is the tendency for rain to start when the atmosphere cools just after sunset. There my son and I were, out there with an ST-1200HD, a portable table, a tripod screen, some lawn chairs and "Journey into Spring". We were maybe 200 feet into a 600 foot reel, when a dark dot appeared on the brick ("Uh-Ohhhh!!"). All of a sudden there were a bunch more and the sky opened up! (Ditto: Camping!)

I thought about what would happen if a raindrop hit that white-hot projection lamp, stopped the film, unplugged the machine, grabbed the handle and ran for the back door! (No projection lamps were harmed in the making of this movie!)

Don't get me wrong! We did have fun here (I certainly got some memories out of it!). As an experiment, it was a success: I did learn a few things. (It was basically research anyway.)

It's just that if I was to do it a lot, I'd have some precautionary measures in place! -for example some kind of insect repellent! Also having some kind of large tote to cover the machine and film(s) in the event of a sudden storm might have been wise too.

I remember many years ago discussion of how someone could power his ST-1200 aboard his pontoon boat out on a lake: this is taking it at least to the next level!

[Chip Gelmini]

Your projector should be on a piece of wood large enough to support it. Remember there are vent holes in the bottom on some machines. Placing it directly on the grass as your image seems to suggest is not a good idea. You might have done this it is hard to tell.

You can place your speakers several feet ahead of the seating area. In this manner you don't have to turn it up as much to get good sound. This will do better for your neighbor concerns. So if your throw is 25 feet to the screen - place your speakers maybe 12 feet ahead of the seating area. Also, consider using power cords as speaker lines. Yellow and orange make a good safety awareness as to where the cables are as they run out to the speakers. Much better than flimsy cheap hard to see speaker wire. I bought 50 foot extension cords and cut the male/female plugs out and stripped it back. I cut the ground close off, and used white/black for the red/black speaker connections.

If you can do it your machine will be better off inside your home shooting out through a bedroom window. It's protected from all weather issues and it is sound proofed for operation noise.

Reading some of these posts about running shows makes me think that we should all take a more professional approach to projection. Some of you know that I have worked very hard at this with my theater projectionist experience. I say this not to offend anyone. Rather, just remember how much time and money you have put in to this film and equipment collecting. Far better to be safe, instead of sorry.

EVERYONE: PLEASE EXECUTE A MORE PROFESSIONAL APPROACH TO RUNNING THESE MOVIES.

CG

[Douglas Meltzer]

Chip,

Good points, although I often take the easy way and just have fun!

[Greg Perry]

Lee,

Looks like a very fun evening outdoors in the garden! You have a very nice projector with a bright image. Not all of us are former professional projectionists yet we all can still enjoy movie night outside...👍

[Allan Broadfield]

Invite the street?
If I lived nearby I'd be there like a shot!

[Lee Hardcastle]

Successfully screened a scope copy of Independence Day over the weekend. I invested in a 16ft inflatable screen. Which requires a constant blower on to keep it up... slight nuisance. But nice screen.
Was met with thunder and lighting through out, ending the movie just in time to miss a 5 minutes downpour.
Can say it was all worth the effort. Except one moment where one of the reels slipped off the Elmo while playing, haha, does that happen normally? Can the latch shake loose? Or was I too loose from all the day time drinking. Was hard to tell.

[Steve Klare]

In my experience it's a lot more common for the operator (-at least this operator...) to forget to latch the reel in place than for the thing to spring open. (Cockpit Error!)

I've even lucked out most of the time and found the reel on the spindle, in place but unlatched when I went to rewind. (It certainly didn't have to end that well...)