Rear vs Front Projection

[shayward]

Hey everyone,

I am currently directing a production of Wizard of Oz, and I am thinking about diving into my first attempt at stage projections in order to accomplish the Tornado scene. I have more of a lighting & sound background, so I was hoping that some of you might be able to help with this idea.

On our stage we have a very nice Rear projection system where the projector is permentaly mounted on the upstage wall and projects onto a screen hung from our 3rd most downstage rail.

For the Wizard of oz Tornado I was thinking about projecting some "inside the tornado" swirling patterns, along with objects flying past behind Dorothy's house (Cow, rowboat, Ms. Gultch turning into the Witch....standard stuff).

The question I have is about the screen material I would like to use. I am looking into hanging one of these "Stretchy shapes" from Rose Brand. Basically a 4 point stretched out kite shape made of tendo fabric material. Would it be best to project onto this surface from the front or the back? I'm not sure what the opaque properties of this fabric is....what are your thoughts?

 

[Scarrgo]

As long as there is no seam, it shouldnt be to bad, again it depends on how bright your projector is, and how opec the screen really is, I have not used one of rose brands stretchy screens.
Something to keep in mind is that you will most likely get some light bounce from the screen, so if your doing a scene change, it may not get black on stage.

When we did it a couple years ago, I projected from FOH on to our scrim that was on a DS line set, even thought you could kind of see thru it, it added some interesting visuals with Dorothys house also moving behind the image

Good luck with whatever you come up with, and have fun
Sean...

 

[JohnHartman]

When I have done these previously I have projected from the front. It really depends on the property of the material.
You will need to keep in mind any other lights that will wash on the surface as they will overpower the projection.

 

[museav]

All of the examples Rose Brand shows seem to be front projection, but one thing to keep in mind is that as you can see in some of the in Rose Brand application examples, where the projected image extends beyond the stretch fabric itself there can be quite a bit of the image that ends up on the surfaces behind the stretch fabric, so in those situations you may want to consider what is behind the 'screen'. This can be even more of an issue with rear projection unless you mask around the shape.

 

[ruinexplorer]

I used the strech fabric from Dazian for many different corporate events that I used to do. It was considerably cheaper than Rose Brand, but it was very durable. We used one piece for rear projection for outdoor movies to save wear and tear on the regular screens. We also used them quite a bit for different applications inside, especially when the client wanted something more "organic" than a traditional screen or if we needed a non-traditional size for the image.

With the strech fabric, you will get a certain amount of light loss as compared to a traditional RP screen as more light is reflected back. You will need to plan for that. You may want to try their new Dove Grey or Titanium versions of the fabric which may yield a greater contrast than the white fabric. It may also pick up less ambient light during other scenes as well (they didn't have those colors when I was using them).

If you are not masking around your image, if possible I would recommend having the projector low and shooting up to the fabric. This helps to avoid the light hitting the audience or is easier to block the light down low.

 

[bishopthomas]

I have some of the tendo shapes from Rose Brand. I've never projected onto them but light them with some fairly high power LED's when I use them. Lighting from the rear works alright, but I try to front light whenever possible. There is definitely some intensity lost from rear lighting.

 

[erockjosh]

At our high school we did ours from the front projected on a scrim because we had people doing things behind and the house being moved from SR to SL.

We put our teachers in it, Check it out

Tornado Scene- wizard of oz - YouTube