Environmental-Projection
“Environmental Projection” is a term used where you use video projectors to project not on to screens, but on to walls, ceilings etc -- ie using multiple video projectors you’d try to cover as much of the walls as possible. There’s no limit really! Inside or outside! I’ve tried it in our church…
Environmental Projection
Our building is Victorian and has recently had the internals refurbished. All the ceilings and walls are white -- which I thought would be ideal for some large projection opportunities! I went to the hall when no one was there and played around a bit. I’m actually thinking of using this kind of setup at a youth event in a few weeks time.
Here are some Photos:
These photos aren’t the best quality, but you get the idea of big images projected on to walls
In these examples, we have:
- a projected image on the left
(we would have on on the right too, but at the time I didn’t have another projector available). - a projector aimed at the ceiling
- a projector producing the large image on the main wall.
- we are also using our installed projector which is projecting lyrics over the top
I’m projecting some space videos, as they look quite good!
(Click on the images for a larger version.)
Video:
Ok, a pretty bad quality video… but hey!
How to make it better?
Here are some things I’m going to improve for next time:
Fuzzy Edges
The projected image is rather obvious where it starts and stops -- Using some cardboard with a hole in it I hope to make a ‘filter’ for the projector that will make the edges fuzzy
Making Black ‘Blacker’
Even when projecting ‘black’ it actually projects a dark grey -- as it’s still projecting light. -- often we won’t want to project anything apart from black, but projecting dark grey images will look a little odd. I’ll either turn the brightness down, or/and create a cover for the projector lens that can be moved in to place during these time of black out.
Better Align Projectors
So as to make it look less ‘blocky’ and appear as one projected image rather than several
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Edge Blending etc?
When the ‘professionals’ do this kind of thing -- projecting with multiple projectors they tend to use hardware that ‘blends’ one projector’s image in to the next -- making the projection seamless -- they also use ‘matched’ projectors -- projectors that have been tested to produce the same colours/brightness etc. But here, we’re on a shoestring budget!
All we have here are some bog-standard projectors (4x 2000 lumens, and 1x 5,000 lumen), plugged in to a computer via a distribution amplifier. This is environmental projection on a budget -- but trying to do the best with what I’ve got!
More Information on ‘Environmental Projection’
You can google, but here are some great pages and examples:
http://worshipvj.com/category/creativity/environmental-projection-creativity/
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- Projecting on to Buildings Well, a friend and I were bored this evening, so we thought...
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Here is a video of what it was like on the night -- not all the projections can be seen, it mainly shows the main centre projection (my flip video camera needs a wider angle lens!)