Allen Street Drive-in - Backyard Theater Forums

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Had my first viewing last night but first, let me give you some background info.

I’ve been researching the whole theater thing since I stumbled upon this site while looking for regular drive-in info. This site is addicting! It took no time at all to decide to build a backyard movie theater. I decided to put the screen up over the pool so we could watch movies on the deck. I wanted to make it so it was light enough to move around but also so I could easily put it together and take it apart.

I decided on a 9 foot by 16 foot screen built with 1.5 inch PVC pipes. Coming up with the plans for the frame was easy based on different designs I saw on this site. The next thing was what to do about the screen. Money was a factor, so I decided to try a white plastic tarp that had grommets on it. Building the screen was pretty easy using my table saw. My original plan was to drill holes in the connections and just slide a bold and nut on to keep it together and make it easy to remove. After putting it together and trying it with the tarp, it became apparent that the tarp stretching over and around the PVC was more than enough to keep them together. As I tightened the tarp, some of the grommets started to tear from the tarp. It was then that I decided that a $12 tarp wasn’t the way to go but it did prove that I could make it and it would be movable.

I started searching for blackout fabric based on info I found on this site. I found someone on ebay and got 18 yards for $1.50 per yard plus $18 shipping. That came last week. I was really impressed with quality of the fabric for that price. I cut the fabric into 3 equal strips that were 18 feet long each and my neighbor took it to his company to have it all stitched together. He came home from work yesterday and dropped it off. What a job they did! They stitched the three lengths together with a railroad seam, reinforced the edges with some additional fabric and then added grommets every 12 inches.

Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to see what it looked like, so I pulled out the PVC, followed my assembly plans and in under an hour, the 9 by 16 foot screen was standing. My first impression was “wow”. My immediate second thought was “Man this is huge”. Followed by “I can see by the look on my wife’s face that she isn’t thrilled about how big this thing is”.

Anyway, my neighbor and I propped it up next to the pool, played a little with the bungee cords in the back, and then secured it to the pool and deck. This wasn’t my ideal location but it really looked good. While we were waiting for it to get dark, I burned a ten minute drive-in countdown to a DVD-R and picked a movie to watch.

Once it got dark enough, my neighbor and I set up chairs, my wife made popcorn, and my family and my neighbor’s family watched A Night At The Museum using my Optoma's MovieTime DV10. Up until this point, I’ve only watched it on a screen in my basement that was half the size of this. I wasn’t sure how bright the picture would be. I was really impressed with how bright and crisp the picture was. After the movie ended, we cleaned up and had the screen disassembled in 10 minutes. All in all, everyone had a good time and it was a really good test run.

Here are a few low quality pictures I took when I first turned the projector on. Keep in mind that it was still a little light out and I didn’t use the flash. The pictures do not show the true picture quality that we were so impressed with. As time permits, I’ll take some more pictures of the frame, assembly process, and screen shots. As you’ll see in the pictures, there are some wrinkles in the screen that need to be tightened up the next time I put the screen together. As the movie was showing, I tried to look for the seams and I couldn’t find them. The wrinkles were visible if you really looked for them.

I’m hooked! Thanks to everyone for all of their posts. It really helped and gave me so many good suggestions.