[balex]

While providing key, back and side lighting may not be feasible, I would really try to see how some of the lighting you typically encounter looks as glare on the top of the head and shadows at the eyes and under the chin, as well as a very two dimensional appearance, that commonly result from basic overhead lighting may be an undesired result.

I'm willing to look a bit odd - sickly even - in those venues that provide only overhead lighting. Not ideal, certainly, but I'm willing to put up with it.

Probably the best way to address this would be to carry some minimal lighting of your own, but it sounds like that is not realistic practically or budegtarily.

But stranger things have happened. I can't carry a whole elaborate light kit, certainly, but a few well-placed cans on some basic tripods light stands might be feasible.

I would never want to find myself in a position of having to do this, but I did once see one unfortunate performer get stuck in a small multi-purpose room at a university for a show and, with projections and without any stage lighting, he very creatively got the organizers to procure two bright overhead projectors (the kind so commonly used in schools to project transparencies), positioned them down left and down right and turned them on to be used as a bright wash. He then proceeded to perform a show that included projections via a small, portable business projector and frankly, all went surprisingly well!

Thankfully I've never had it that bad, but it was good to see such innovative tackling of the obstacles. So, I feel confident that, even though the situations may not always be ideal, it can be pulled off.

In fact that black string reference, with it being such a small size and so linear, really concerns me in regards to getting an image that gives the result you may want, it may even be unrealistic unless you can control the camera to zoom in for that one bit and then back out later.

I can indeed zoom in quite close for this bit. If all is taped off pre-show (so I know where the action will be taking place and what the camera is to capture) this shouldn't present a problem.

With a 72"x54" to 84"x63" image and some control of the light levels on the screen, a 2,000 to 3,000 lumen projector may be fine. However, you noted sometimes using other, I'm assuming potentially larger, screens and as discussed above, you may need a much larger image for some audiences. In those cases you may need either more control over the lighting on the screen and/or a higher output projector.

Encouraging to hear, and for larger audiences/screens I suppose that I'm just going to have to experiment and see how it all works out! As I say though, typically as the audiences get larger, the tech available on-site improves as well, and this can be everything from screens to projectors to lighting control.

FWIW, for several reasons I sort of doubt a screen that can be used as front or rear projection has a gain of 1.5 and I did not actually see any mention of gain in the information on the web site referenced.

I'm skeptical as well. I didn't see the info on the website so I contacted the manufacturer. That's where I got the number. But just like you, I have my doubts regarding the number.

If the latency from video through your laptop is unacceptable, then you may have to switch between the computer and camera sources. You could do this with the projector itself but you will likely get a significant transition between the two as the projector switches, resyncs and rescales.

That's what I feared.

An external switcher/scaler or seamless switcher could provide a much nicer transition but anything worth considering would seem to be outside your budget.

A nice member of this forum sent me a link to an affordable digital scan converter that looks like it might do the job, so who knows... There might be options.

However, since 'acceptable' is entirely subjective, I would also not go so far as to say that you would not get an acceptable result. This may simply be a case of doing what you can within your limitations and seeing if you find the results acceptable.

Agreed. I think that at this point, I just need to gather as much good advice as I can and then jump in and see what happens!