Homemade Outdoor Movie “Theatre”: The Screen

Jaws on the Water photo published by Crossroads Drive in Facebook Page

Inspired by a public showing of the movie “Jaws” along Charlotte Harbor a couple of years ago, at which much of the viewing audience was encouraged to “float” on boats, inner-tubes and the like in Charlotte Harbor,  I wanted to set up an outdoor theatre on the lanai and pool deck of our Florida home.  

I already had a random assortment of electronic component (amps, speakers, a variety of video players of various formats and vintages) and believed that I could economically source a screen and projector from various second-hand online sources.  Visiting local Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, I was able to source any number of projectors (from home-theatre style to semi-professional presentation style projectors) at reasonable costs.  However, I was surprised to find that the screen eluded me.  There were a number of classroom-style retracting screens which might have been fine indoors, but which would quickly fail if permanently installed in the Florida canal-side environment. If, on the other hand, the screen was to be hung only for showings, the issue of storage when not in use was problematic.

120 inch indoor/outdoor projection screen
photo from Amazon.com

My screen breakthrough came when I discovered one available through Amazon.com.  At $24.99, it was described as “120” (diagonal) 16:9 high contrast, collapsible, portable, indoor/outdoor projection screen.”  It was described as being constructed of wrinkle-free “natural polyester fabric ” The illustration showed 6 grommets along the edges (one in each corner and one centered along the top and the bottom.  When it arrived, the fabric was a little thinner than imagined and very stretchy, made from a spandex-like fabric.  

My idea, then, was to create a frame of 1” PVC pipe within which the fabric could hang.  However, because of the stretchiness of the fabric,  the published dimensions of 104”x 58” weren’t maintained when stretched enough to remove wrinkles AND prevent the screen fabric from waffling in the ever-present breeze.   Therefore, my first experiment  was with the 1” PVC tube, leaving the horizontal dimension at 10’ (120”) and the vertical dimension at 6’-8” (80”) with PVC Elbows connecting the horizontals and uprights.  Since the screen ACTUALLY came in with 4 mostly-evenly-spaced grommets in the top and bottom hems, I installed 4 stainless-steel eye bolts in each of the top and bottom rails and used stainless steel S-hooks to connect the screen to the eyes.  The screen frame hung from a pair of aluminum pole hangers (hooks intended for hanging the poles used in cleaning pools) on the walls of a lanai or uprights of a pool cage). 

As you can see, the initial experiment was largely unsuccessful. The screen is badly misshapen by over-stretching and because of too few attachment points. Also, the frame distorted because of the screen tension. In all,  I identified 3 major improvements needed.   

1/2″ grommet set
photo from Amazon.com

First, I deduced that a whole lot of additional grommets were necessary around the perimeter (a total of 54).  Since setting grommets is a skill common to the theatre, I was quite capable of making this adaptation.  I sourced an  ½” grommet set in stainless steel (100 grommets, hole cutter, anvil & setting tool) from Amazon.com for $15.45.  I installed them on approximately 6” centers along all 4 sides of the screen.  

After installing the first couple of grommets, I became concerned that the stretchy fabric would not hold the grommets well under tension, so I added a reinforcement of a small rectangle of black “Gorilla Tape” to each grommet spot before cutting the hole and installing the grommet.

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  grommet set

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  installing grommets along edges

ball bungee cords
photo from Amazon.com

Second, the method of attaching to the frame needed to be modified to make installing and removing the screen easier.  Again, Amazon came to the rescue with 9-inch ball-end bungee loops. These cords could feed through the grommet, wrap around the pipe frame and secure around the ball (which at around 3/4″ diameter is too big to pass through the 1/2″ grommet hole). At $8.95 per package of 25, I needed to purchase 3 packages to accommodate the 54 grommet holes in the adapted screen perimeter. This gave me plenty of extras and I used a couple to secure the bottom of the screen frame to stainless steel wire ring anchor points attached to the pool cage frame.

Third, I needed to “beef up” the frame material, while also reducing the overall dimensions to accommodate the minimum necessary stretch and the new bungee attachment methods.   I decided to construct the new frame of 1 ¼” PVC tube. After some trial-and-error, l reduced the frame size to  9’-4” x 5’-3” (112” x  63”).  

The combination of 54 attachment points, quick-attach ball bungee cords and upgraded frame material and reduced size made the screen very stable and very quick and easy to put up and to take down.  The screen works fantastically for outdoor projection, even considering the hodge-podge of video equipment that I cobbled together.  We inaugurated our outdoor theatre last Saturday.

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  the improved screen

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  our screening of Hocus Pocus

Our first showing was a viewing of Hocus Pocus which we shared with my brother and sister-in-laws a few evenings ago. We can also stream content through my computer. It is quite like going to a drive-in…only a lot more convenient.

Next post:  more about video components, projectors and a custom-built rolling cabinet for containing the equipment.

That’s all for now.
Stay Safe.

SJM

Knock-Down Wall Texture Repair

When my wife and I purchased our home in Florida in fall 2016, the house had been vacant since springtime.  Unfortunately, when the previous owner had left for a European vacation that April, he had not seen fit to engage the AC.  It is a rule of thumb that the AC should run during summer in Florida and should be set no higher than 78 or 79 degrees. This is to combat the buildup of humidity during the rainy season that can promote the growth of mold and cause damage to the interior surfaces.  We did not encounter any mold, but after a summer’s worth of humidity, some of the drywall tape seams in the home had failed.  In preparation for putting the home in “seasonal rental” (generally defined as January through April) we contracted with a painter to repaint several of the rooms.  I also asked him to touch up the damaged drywall joint in the entryway.  

original crude tape seam repair

While he did stabilize the tape joint in question, I was underwhelmed by the job that the painter did in failing to match the knock-down texture.  However, the location was not particularly prominent and few of our guests noticed the blemish.  When Lisa and I moved into the home on a permanent basis this June, we began making incremental upgrades to the home and when it came to painting the ceiling in the entry and replacing the builder-grade lighting fixture with something a little more festive, I resolved to fix this flaw.

poorly patched kitchen wall

My original intention was to get a can of the Homax aerosol texture product that I wrote about in an earlier post to this blog.  However, when I visited my local Orange-Apron Big Box Store I was dismayed to learn that while they had the “wall” version of the Knock-Down” texture, they did not have the “ceiling” version.  Because of the location of this flaw on the underside of a soffit dividing the entry from the main room, I really needed the “ceiling” version.  Nor did any of the surrounding stores appear to have the product (though a Red-Vest Big Box Home Improvement store in Sarasota, an hour away, presumably DID have as many a 3 cans).  

However, due to the inconvenience of tracking down the DIY spray texture and the fact that there was ALSO a small area of wall in the eat-in-kitchen area that had ALSO been badly repaired at some time in the distant past, I decided to go a different route. 

pneumatic hopper gun

If you follow earlier postings of this blog, you will remember that when discussing the Aerosol spray texture previously, I related that I had once sprayed a Knock-Down texture on a bathroom ceiling, and that for that task, had purchased a “Hopper Gun”.  This  device when attached to an air compressor allows the user to spray a variety of textures onto surfaces.  Depending on the orifice, pressure and consistency of the texture material a number of possibilities ranging from “popcorn”, “orange-peel” or “knock-down” can be applied to ceilings and walls.  When I was doing the earlier repair, the hopper-gun was still at the Des Moines residence, but by this summer, I had moved it down to our new home.  Although the hopper-gun is really meant for larger scale projects than the one that I was contemplating, I believed that with care, I could scale it’s use to these repairs.  An added bonus was that I already owned all of the tools and a small tub of joint compound, so I would save the $20 purchase price of the aerosol product.

In preparing both areas, I sanded off the offending awkward textures and masked areas that I did not want to get overspray of the new texture on.  The indentation in the wall of the dining area also needed a skim coat to raise the surface to that of the surrounding wall.  Regular-weight ( not lightweight) joint compound is the best product for achieving the knock-down texture.  It comes premixed in a plastic bucket or n a dry form that must be mixed with water.  

joint compound thinned to “pancake batter”

Either way, the proper consistency for knock-down texture is about that of pancake batter.  I used premixed joint compound and needed to thin it with water to achieve the right consistency.   Since I only required a half-gallon or less for my project, I used a large mixing bowl and spatula to mix in the water.  Larger quantities are best mixed and thinned in a 5-gallon bucket using a mixing paddle on a drill motor.

Once the consistency was right, I connected the gun to the compressor, filled the hopper about ½ full of texture compound, fired up the compressor and began to spray.  I used the widest available orifice on the nozzle. Variables such as air pressure, flow adjustment, trigger depression, and trigger duration can affect the outcome, but with a bit of experimentation I was able to apply a large-spatter pattern that approximated the surrounding texture.  You have to use a bit of imagination, because until you actually “knock-down” the texture it will should appear a bit pronounced from the already “knocked-down” texture surrounding.  Since I needed to allow the texture to set for between 5 and 15 minutes before performing the knock-down operation, I cleaned the hopper-gun completely before storing it away.  When I was ready for the operation, I used a wetted drywall taping knife to lightly skim over the texture, flattening the peaks.

finished wall

finished header

The texture must be allowed to dry completely (as much as 1 day) before painting. Drying time is much quicker at 2 or 3 hours for the aerosol product.

It is very difficult to achieve a perfectly identical finish, but fortunately, the knock-down texture is usually random and varied enough throughout a surface that variations in application can be made to appear organic to the existing texture.

That’s all for now.
Stay Safe!

SJM

Changes to this Blog

A follower of this blog might be forgiven for wondering what happened; why has there been a hiatus of nearly a year since the last posting on this blog?  I have struggled with how to share this, but figure that I need to get beyond this post, in order to continue this blog.

In short, last year I took lemons and made lemonade.

A longer version of the story begins in Fall 2017 when Simpson College underwent what was characterized as a “program review” in the face of worsening budget numbers.  The review reduced each program at the college to a series of scores set against a rubric that skewed towards numbers of students involved in very specific ways with each program (ignoring key ways that students engage with co-curricular arts programs).  These “ratings” were then factored against the actual cost in salary and budget for each program.  It should come as no surprise that the entire Fine Arts Division (Music, Theatre & Art) fell at the wrong end of the comparative ranking of all of the college’s programs.

By spring of 2018 the exercise had moved into implementation phase, whereby the administration began eliminating positions in targeted departments and threatening to break long-standing tenure agreements.  Even though I considered myself many years away from retirement, I accepted a tenure “buyout” which resulted in my retirement on January 1, 2019 and relocating in June with my spouse to a home in Southwest  Florida.

I intend to resume  posting to this blog.  Since I am no longer directly involved in Design and Technical Theatre, the title of this blog “designandtechtheatre” will become a non-sequitur.  Though I intend to leave the archived theatre-related material, my posts going forward will skew towards life as a reformed academic featuring home repair and improvement , “side gigs” and life in the semi-tropics as a newly minted “Florida Man”.

That’s all for now.
Be safe!