# Projecting onto a Curtain



## GavMJM (Nov 7, 2008)

Hello ControlBooth! Long time no see!

In our school we've got a fixed projector projecting about 60feet onto a motorised screen on the stage. The screen is -just- behind the curtain, and yesterday someone shut the curtain with the projector still on and I got an idea.

We have an upcoming production of 'High School Musical' (urgh, I'm sick of it already), and we're busy preparing for that, so I haven't had time to play with it.

Anyway, I digress, my idea was to project 'High School Musical 2008' and maybe something else directly onto the curtain. The curtain is red, and the projector is a beefy one, it's got more lumens than can be counted, and I think it set the school back £4000. Anyway, what would be the best way to do this so that we can JUST see the text/logo, and not a square where the projection image starts.

This isn't of the upmost importantance, it's just for the beginning, end and interval.

Can anyone give any suggestions?

Thanks,

Gavin


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## willbb123 (Nov 7, 2008)

It might work. It might be hard to read depending on how wavy your curtain is. Just have the logo/text on a black background.

Give it a try.


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## Schniapereli (Nov 10, 2008)

If the text is very big and with thick lettering, than I think it should be fine.
The "High School Musical" text is usually very big anyways, so that shoudn't be too big of a problem.

The only weird thing I can think of would be projecting on the red surface making it weird to color, but I think the waviness would probably be OK. Here is a picture from a show which I was associated with that projected on a curtain. (didn't do a whole not but sit there with my mouth gaped open)
They projected on a wavy curtain, and it turned out pretty well, so yours might be good too.

But, if you want you could always hang another piece of fabric or something in front of the curtain...


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## Kelite (Nov 10, 2008)

Schniapereli said:


> If the text is very big and with thick lettering, than I think it should be fine.
> The "High School Musical" text is usually very big anyways, so that shoudn't be too big of a problem.
> 
> The only weird thing I can think of would be projecting on the red surface making it weird to color, but I think the waviness would probably be OK. Here is a picture from a show which I was associated with that projected on a curtain. (didn't do a whole not but sit there with my mouth gaped open)
> ...






Wow- that's quite a large projection, Schniapereli. What kind of throw distance was available?


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## museav (Nov 10, 2008)

Nice example! One thing to possibly take from that is the importance of good lighting control. Note the wash towards the bottom of the projected image? With a large image, bright projector and good lighting control that really has minimal impact on the overall effect, but change any of those factors and the effect of the lighting on the image can increase significantly.

It was not that long ago that a 5,000 to 6,000 lumen XGA projector cost 10 times that much! Since the result is going to be dependent upon the image size, curtain color, ambient lighting and projector, none of which are specifically defined. If the idea was to have the title projected with the house lights up, you might want to see how much they wash that out. I would definitely try it before committing to it.


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## techieman33 (Nov 10, 2008)

If you just want one or 2 images why not just use a couple of gobo's it would make things much simpler


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## erosing (Nov 10, 2008)

techieman33 said:


> If you just want one or 2 images why not just use a couple of gobo's it would make things much simpler



Darn, you beat me to it.


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## Schniapereli (Nov 16, 2008)

Kelite said:


> Wow- that's quite a large projection, Schniapereli. What kind of throw distance was available?



That was about 200 feet. They used 4 E\T\C Pigi projectors. They had 2 pairs maybe 50 or so feet apart at the back. One from each pair would project an image, and the others would scroll to the next picture to make smooth transitions. Sometimes they would use both pairs if they needed too, and could.


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## TRRHINO (Nov 16, 2008)

As we have a lot of clients coming into our venue. We always recommend that you use a black background and white text. As projectors have a hard time projecting black it will disappear on the curtain. 

Another idea is to use what's called a image Pro it is basically a projector with a fan in it which sits in a source 4. You take a regular printer and print the image onto a piece of transparency paper and it works like a hot dam. That way when you don't want it projecting you will not see the Box of the projector being projected.

Works great just be carful with the transparencies you can melt them if you run them on FL for too long. 

Good luck.

P.S you can see what Im talking about here... http://www.rosco.com/canada/gobocatalog/imagepro.html


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