Using pre-installed projectors

[Shimshon Zeevi]

Hello all,

I am currently doing a show in one of my university's theatres. This space is also unfortunately used by one of the colleges and therefore has equipment that can be used by us (the building staff) and them (the college) with no overlap. There are 3 projectors installed in the space, one center (the one we can use) and 2 for left and right (for the college). Our show's tech have figured out how to work the left and right projectors and we want to use them for projecting rain and subtitles for the scenes. Should we go ahead and use them?

 

[MNicolai]

The functional answer is: if you return them to exactly how you found them, then sure.

The practical answer is: it depends on your relationship with whoever is in charge of the facility and with the college. Is it that you're not supposed to use those projectors? Or is it that, conventionally, those projectors just haven't previously been used for theatrical productions? If you're potentially stepping on someone else's toes by hijacking their projectors, consider very carefully how they may react and which relationships you may singe or burn by doing so without having asked permission to do so.

 

[Footer]

I would ask the people that own the room... Not people on the Internet. You run the risk of annoying a professor with the power to shut you down in a second of the system does not operate properly even after you have left.

 

[BobHealey]

From my experience working at a university, you may not be able to afford the rates for non-academic use of academic assets. My employer charges ~$100/day for use of their nice/bright classroom projectors for anything that is not a registrar schedule class to subsidize the consumables for classroom use. Leads to silly situations such has having 2 different digital projectors in 1 room, each under lock and key from the other users of the room.

 

[ruinexplorer]

I would advise against using any equipment that you do not have express permission to use. By doing so, you run the risk of losing use of the space or fines. Since you can never replace the hours used on the projector lamps, this could be considered theft if someone wanted to push the issue. Projector lamps are not cheap.