List of useful equipment:
- A continuity tester – to test if cables work
- Screwdrivers – varied heads & some nice small ones
- Long-nose pliers
- Cable cutter
- Spare fuses
- Lots of cable ties
- Blade/knife
- Torch
- Spare batteries
- Cable adaptors
- Electrical tape
A continuity tester – to test if cables work Screwdrivers – varied heads & some nice small ones Long-nose pliers Cable cutter Spare fuses Lots of cable ties Blade/knife Torch Spare batteries Cable adaptors Electrical tape
Projectors
Things to think/know about
Lumens: a measure of brightness. Everyone thinks brighter is better but often in a gallery setting you will be projecting in a very dark screening room, in which case you don’t need them that high, so rather invest in other features. If there is ambient light, you need lumens.
Resolution: If you film in HD 1080, then you need this projector. Always get the highest spec you can as the technology is moving so fast.
Contrast ratio: How black is black? A very important consideration, particularly if you are working in HD black and white.
Aspect ratio: although technology is improving to make this less of a problem, if you are going to be showing a lot of widescreen, check that your projector is NOT native 4:3. If it is, they will sometimes show a 16:9 in the 4:3 space, with black lines top and bottom. This however makes for a lower resolution projection because you are only using part of the screen. If you shoot in HD, or most of your stuff is widescreen, it is always best to get a native widescreen projector.
Keystoning: DO invest in a projector which has some keystoning – one day you are going to want it. 3D keystoning is actually rather brilliant – try it. BUT keystoning makes you lose resolution and can distort the image, so this is no replacement for a proper set-up!
Lens shift: if you can afford it, get it – it will save you so much pain.
Inputs: HDMI does pretty much everything these days, but there is something comforting about having inputs for the good simple yellow, white and red.
Built-in Audio: don’t bother, it’s crap.
LCD or DLP: If you care about colour, it still has to be LCD. DLP is getting better and less noisy. They can be much brighter than LCDs.
Lamp life: particularly important for a gallery setting, as we use these projectors for much longer periods of time than most other users. Get the longest you can afford that fits with your other chosen specs.
Noise: how noisy are the fans? – This is important for us.
Flip: can you invert the image? For ceiling-mounting? For rear-projections?
Don’t be afraid of the menu – you cannot break a projector by pushing menu buttons – and you can always restore to factory settings and try again – so get used to your projector and see what it can do! Most manuals are now online – don’t forget about them. Buy a spare lamp when you buy your projector – it is always going to run out at the wrong time. Store the lamp carefully – it is very delicate. Don’t block fans/ventilation ports on the projector – it will overheat and turn off. Don’t ignore the message to clean your filter – this will cause it to overheat.
Never turn a projector off at the wall until it has cooled – press its off button and wait for the fan to stop running before turning off the power. You will ruin your projector very quickly if you don’t wait for it to cool down by itself.
Screens
Distance from screen is important for size of screen, and you need to work this out by brand of projector. This screen size calculator is so useful: www.projectorpoint.co.uk/screensizecalculator/screensizecalculator.cfm The mirror trick:
- If you have to project in a small room but want a large projection and don’t have an über closeup expensive projector, you can bounce the light off mirrors. Each time it bounces it makes a bigger image.
- The biggest challenge is to mount the projector and the mirror/s so you can adjust them, because you want to get the alignment correct rather than relying on keystoning. Fiddle and try.
- Never zoom after setting up the mirrors. I don’t understand the physics, but it’s a world of pain.
- Remember that every time you bounce the image, you will lose brightness.
- If you want to project onto the floor, bounce it off a mirror so you can keep your projector horizontal – better for it.
For rear-projecting you will need a proper screen fabric specifically designed for this. Rear projecting is your best bet if the room you are showing in is quite light as it allows a good, bright image on the screen, but you need the space behind the projector to be nice and dark. DIY rear-projection screen: buttermilk painted (with a roller) onto glass – great for shop windows. You can buy a range of expensive screens, but often these are pointless for a gallery setting (unless rear-projecting). The special fabric is designed to give the best light to an audience sitting in front of it – like the cinema. In a gallery you are often moving around, seeing things from several angles, so you want a screen with an even surface.
If you have a good wall, just paint out a screen in white with the rest of it black. If you want something raised off the wall, a board or canvas stretcher made to the right size and painted well, and evenly, works brilliantly. You MUST use a matt emulsion paint for your screen – get into satins or glosses and you will have a light-reflecting nightmare of a time. If your image is smaller than your screen or skewed or slightly off the edges, and you don’t want to/can’t use keystoning, make the image smaller than the screen and use black masking tape to make crisp edges (much easier than black paint!).
ALWAYS test the exact film you are going to be showing before doing the final adjustments to your screen size – each film is different, and although this might only be a few millimetres, you want the screen to be the exact size of the film. If you have used different sizes of images within your film, pause the film on the largest image (frame) and set up the projection and screen based on these measurements. If you are not setting up the projector yourself, it is always useful to give this information to whoever is.
If you want a semi-opaque screen use shark’s tooth gauze. Light behind it to see through the screen as well as the projection. Screenings: use a laptop. Have all films up and ready to be played in different windows. Test everything in advance. Check the laptop’s Energy Saver settings and tick ‘never’ so it won’t fall asleep. Set the projector’s background screen to black so the audience does not have to stare at blue-backgrounded branding.
Aspect ratio
Easy maths: If you know you want your screen 3m (300cm) wide, how do you work out what height it needs to be so it will fit perfectly?
Ratio 16:9 Height = 300/16×9 (300 divided by 16 multiplied by 9) = 168.75
Ratio 4:3 Height = 300/4×3 (300 divided by 4 multiplied by 3) = 225
Not the most elegant maths, but useful on site. Essentially you are breaking things down to a base unit and then building up again in the desired ratio.
It works the other way as well:
The screen needs to be 2m (200cm) high, how wide will it be?
Ratio 16:9 Width = 200/9×16 = 355.55
Ceiling Mounts
The most popular set-up for a gallery, as the projector is out of the way.
You can either make a shelf high up on the facing wall, or mount your projector from the ceiling (upside down, so you will need to flip the image). Data projectors were first designed for people who wanted to give presentations – we are essentially adapting them. Think of them as designed to sit on the middle of a desk and project straight, and up, (see illustration A). So if you hang them from the ceiling, think of them the opposite way – middle, straight and down: hang them upside down, in the middle of the screen, at the same height as the top of the screen. This way you won’t need to keystone.
If you don’t have a ceiling mount: most projectors have threaded holes in the base – these are usually M3 or M4 thread – make sure to get the right bar. Turn the projector over and lay a piece of paper over the base. Mark an outline of the projector; mark which side is the front; stab out the holes with your pencil. Mark all of these onto a solid piece of MDF/hardboard. Drill holes in the board for the thread. Push the threaded bar through the board and screw into the projector holes – secure with nuts and washers.
Now you can suspend the whole thing from the ceiling. (It is worth using this method even if the projector is to be placed in the normal way on a shelf, as it will therefore be more secure). When suspending away from the ceiling, use four lengths of threaded bar with nuts and bolts. This allows you to adjust the whole shelf up and down as necessary. If dropping a longer distance than a ceiling mount/thread allows, a single metal bar with fixing plate forms a great projection mount.
Monitors
When they talk about the screen being so many inches, this is the diagonal measure from one corner to the other.
Latest flat screens are super-simple – HDMI cable – player of choice, and go. If worrying about the resolution of your file to play on these, remember that for monitors measuring below around 40 inches, the human eye cannot tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. We love the older monitors (video monitors) – those nice black boxes. It is worth picking these up (in decent working order) whenever you can as they are becoming rather rare.
Make sure they have decent inputs though – some older video wall monitors only have the old 9 pin input – they need a conversion box which costs a fortune. Hantarex and Barco are the most beautiful. Sony cubes are nice too. It is a myth that you can turn them off at the plug without damaging them – use the power button. CRT (cathode ray tube): older technology, fragile and heavier, cannot be turned on their sides or on their backs. LCD (Liquid Crystal Display): not as good if viewed from different angles (designed to be viewed from the front), although newer versions are getting better. Can be turned – don’t have to remain landscape. Plasma: can be much larger, but often not as bright – need darker conditions, but they’re getting better.
Common Cables & Connectors
HDMI connector cable – use it whenever you can. Has video and audio streams in one cable. Does HD and everything downward. RCA/Composite AV (some people call them phono cables – especially when using them for audio) – the red, yellow and white. Standard practice: yellow = video red = audio right white = audio left
However, the cables are identical – they are just coloured differently so you don’t get confused about which jack goes in which socket.
RF connectors – usually for a domestic set-up only – they carry picture and sound. BNC: good option and great over distance. They are similar to RF. They lock into place, so make for a better connection. SCART cables can be a little unreliable, so have backups. Because they are heavy and bulky, they are not great over long distances or in tight/awkward set-ups. You can get converters for them. VGA: for playing off a computer. Remember you will need a separate cable for audio: phono or mini jack. S-Video: the cable separates colour and brightness signals. This gives a good picture.
Media Players/DVD/Laptop/Mac Mini/Blu-ray
[also see Making section] You need to deliver your file in the right format, with the right codecs, to the limitations of the player you will be using. Find out what these are. Everyone loves digital media players, and if you can afford a Brightsign, there is nothing better. It is pretty much designed for exactly what you want – continuous looping, no menus, no settings, just great, good quality playing. WD is a decent, inexpensive make – weirdly the older ones were better – problems with the orange wheel taking too long to load in the current ones, but if you update the software/firmware and get the right format, it can fix the problem.
Cyclone does a pretty good small version with 1080p upscaling, but the blue power button is very bright in the dark. Laptops are always good, but it’s not often you have a spare lying around or can go very long without your personal one.
Mac Mini’s are great, but if you are just going to use them for projecting, the Brightsign is better. A computer is designed for all sorts of things – the Brightsign is just designed for this. I have found Blu-ray really reliable for good quality HD and other files. Often people don’t realise that their files do not need to be as massive as they export them, so they think Blu-ray is too compressed – worth looking into this. DVD – the old faithful – still a great option if you export your file right, but obviously not much good for HD. Never put it on top of your projector – it will get too hot.
SOUND
Think small and oddly shaped when thinking about sound. Vast symmetrical halls will give huge reverb (unless that’s what you are after). Invest in rechargeable batteries. And a charger! Cable ties!! Electrical tape is brilliant in every way for myriad reasons: colour, size, flexibility… Blu-Tack makes excellent adhesive for keeping speakers in place on stands. Use Merino wool curtains to keep wanted sound in and unwanted sound out. (Velcro curtains to walls/ceilings to keep the most sound and light in/out). Try to avoid really cheap gaffer tape. You will end up with sticky cables afterwards. When pulling cables off the floor, pull the tape off the cable first – do not pull the cable up and try to remove tape afterwards. It will just wrap around the cable and make it sticky.