Projection for High School Production

Ashley26

New Member
Hi everyone!

I'm a high school theatre teacher and am new to using projections in productions. Our theater has a standard Epson projector installed above the tech booth that administration uses for meetings. I attempted to use this projector to project snowfall onto the cyc - it worked fairly well except that the projection went onto the actors. This happened with any background - rain, snowfall, moon etc. was all projected on the actors. There is no room for a rear projector - there's only a foot between the wall and the cyc. Is there a specific projector that we need to rent or purchase? Or is there a way to make the image not project onto the actors? I'm sorry that this is such a basic question - I'm learning this whole projection business.

Thank you so very much!!

-Ash
 
I don't personally do a whole lot of projection-based work, but the concept here would be pretty simple - locate the projector somewhere that it won't hit the things or people on the stage you don't want it to hit, but will hit your background. High-mounted projectors come to use, where the angle is very steep and mounted high enough to clear the talent on stage (similar concept to a ceiling-mounted projector in a classroom for a smart-board). You might look at a situation where you put a projector closer to the stage at a higher location and change the angle of attack so it doesn't hit the actors straight-on.

That said, even in Broadway productions, particularly tours with only a couple people on stage, it isn't uncommon based on the location of the projector to inadvertently hit the talent with the rain or snow. I've seen it several times and it might just be something to "deal with."

Something else I've seen used on Broadway tours but don't have personal experience with is mirrors on the projectors in situations where the throw distance or mounting isn't optimal. I am not sure how that would help you in this situation, though.

Not overly helpful, and lots of folks on here with much more experience than I, so I'm curious what they all have to say. Good luck!
 
You will have to relocate it if you don't want it to hit the performers.

SL or SR and you can keystone it to fit the screen.

You could also hang it high and as close to the stage as you can as well.


I'm sure they put it close to the booth to save on cabling and ease of access. Put a call into your IT and AV dept and see if they can help you get it connected up. That will save on some costs.
 
Ashley,

Welcome to the booth. Don't worry, many people want to incorporate video, but don't know where to start. Educational theater is a great place to experiment.

First thing to remember, the projector is a light source that can create images. That being said, if you project a white image, that is what you are going to cover with any projected image. Now if you project a black image, you will still be projecting a certain amount of light (known as video black). So, yes, you will have projected light on your performers.

What do you want to do with this? You have a couple of options. You can move the projector as has been suggested. However, this can cause you a few different issues. One is getting the signal from your source (assuming the booth) to the new location of the projector. The other is dealing with the keystone (the trapezoidal shaped image when the projector is not placed perfectly in front of the projection surface).

When you are dealing with keystone, there is often some sort of digital correction in your projector menu. Depending on the model, this may be vertical only (where your projector in your case would be higher than the surface and pointing down, it could correct for the wider image at the bottom than the top) or may additionally have horizontal keystone (to the side). Often, what the projector can do will not get it far enough away to prevent it from being on your actors and you are degrading your image through needing to correct it.

The other option is to leave the projector where it is and figure out how to deal with the image that you don't want. One thing to do is to is to mask your image. This is where you project black where you don't want to see an image. Now, the projected image would only be above the performers heads and nothing but a little bit more greyish/black light would be hitting the performers than normal. The other option is to have more light on your performers so that you don't notice the projected image on the actors. You want to do this with high side light ideally. This will not eliminate the shadows of the performers in the projected image, but those might be muted as you will likely be adding slightly more ambient light on the bottom portion of your projected image.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back