Well, a friend and I were bored this evening, so we thought we’d try projecting on to the front of our Church building… why not!Our church building is on a busy junction and one idea we had was that we could project something at Christmas time, and decided to try it out to see what it’s like.

The Results

I wasn’t overly pleased with the results but I think it’s workable, here’s what it was like:

Church building projection (Click for larger view)

I used a 5,000 lumen Christie projector with a 0.8 wide angle lens – as there isn’t much space between the building and the pavement and road. Unfortunately there are quite a few street lights around, and the closest one does a good job of lighting the building too!

Tips

Here are some tips and notes if you are thinking of doing something like this, and have less that a perfect environment:

• Simple Black and White images/text works best
• Our brick is red/brown, and projection still works
• Pull down the blinds on windows – otherwise you project on to the room inside which distorts the projection
• If you have large windows and less brick work, then turn off the inside lights (if possible)
• Fast moving video is eye-catching
• Colour doesn’t really come out well, black on white or white on black is best.
• Projecting at the top of the building is better, as there is less ambient light up there – as well as being more noticeable in the street.
• Use video/text that is clear and sharp – a video of fire just looked odd, as it wasn’t clear what it was!

The main 2 things that can improve this and give more scope for what can be projected are: more powerful projectors, and less ambient lighting – this would make the best projection setting!

I will now think how we can use this in the future…

Other people are doing this much better than I, take a look at WorshipVJ.com for starters!

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