We've done the lights, and the painting, so now we need to make the actual movie screen. I did mine similar to my friend Jared's original screen, which means I made it from wood and wrapped it in Black out cloth.
As you'll see from the pics below, it's a simple wood frame, with two vertical cross beams. I used 4 pieces of 8ft pieces of wood from Home Depot, each about $4. NOTE: It's very important to buy wood that isn't warped or bent.
Here's the frame laying on the black out cloth, which I'll get to in a minute.
Here's one of the vertical cross supports. Basically, I took two of the 8ft pieces and cut them in half. Two became the outer edges of the frame, and the other two became the vertical supports, held together below by a metal T joint and screws.
And here's the corner joint, using a metal L joint.
Now the boards themselves were about an inch and a half, which makes the dimensions of the screen approx 96" by 51" which is around 108" diagonal viewing area.
The next step is to get black out cloth. Black out cloth (BOC) is avaibable at most fabric stores, like Joann's or something. It's basically the thick stuff you can get as a liner for curtains. I discovered this because everyone I talked to at Joann's in Frisco, where I got my BOC, asked me if I was making curtains. It's totally opaque, so no light gets through it, and some types of BOC is stretchy and a little reflective, which means you can wrap it around a wooden frame to make a screen. Well, it turns out that I had a wooden frame, so hey, let's buy some BOC and make a screen!
BOC, like most fabric, comes in a standard width of 54". You can special order different widths, but that takes time, and sometimes it takes more money, so I just stuck with the standard stuff. You'll remember that my frame is 51" tall, which means the 54" width of BOC would give me 3" of leeway. That's actually plenty, even though it sounds small, since we'll be stretching it around the frame. So I bought 3 yards (9 feet) of BOC, which would give me 3" of leeway top to bottom, and a foot of leeway left to right, since the frame was 8 feet wide.
The pics above showed the frame laying on the BOC, which at the time looks like a white bedsheet. The BOC I ended up buying had one side that was a little shinier, and thus more reflective, than the other, so I had that side down. I also made sure to vacuum the floor where I was doing this, to keep dog hair, dust and other stuff off of the screen. I also layed it down on another 'actual' bed sheet, to help keep it clean.
To get the BOC onto the frame, I used staples. In the pics below you'll see the staple gun and staples that I borrowed from Jared, and that I used to actually staple the BOC on to the frame.
Now this part is a little tricky, and it's also something you'll want to do with a friend. I ended up doing it solo, which makes it about FIFTY times harder, but it's still doable, just not recommended. The trick is to line up the BOC on the frame, and put in a few 'guide' staples. What I did was put one staple on each edge, just to keep the BOC connected to the frame as I flipped it around. After that, I added a few more staples, stretching the BOC each time. The goal is to stretch the BOC about as tight as you possibly can around the frame so you can't see any wrinkles on the screen. It should be flat, tight and smooth.
The reason this is best done with extra people, is because you'll need them to pull the BOC tight as you staple it around the frame. Otherwise, you're pulling with one hand, stapling with another, and somehow using your body to keep everything else stable and in place. Like I said, you can do it, it's just a lot easier with help.
A trick I heard about from Jared was to go around the frame clock-wise (or counterclock-wise?) because that helps keep the BOC from bunching. If you try to do it top to bottom and then left to right, the sides that get done first will get bunched around the edges because you'll end up being able to pull tighter on the sides you do last. So if you just go around the edges, one side at a time, in a circle, you can minimize that issue.
Here's some pics of the screen after I got it stapled down. Here's an edge-on view showing the staples.
And another one.
Here it is leaning against the wall, in a 'bad boy' pose.
Here's the one and only 'bunch' in the fabric I had. Easily fixed by pulling at the bottom and putting in another staple or two.
And here's the screen after it's been hung. The frame by itself is pretty light, maybe a few pounds or so. The BOC probably triples that weight, so the screen is probably in the 10-15 pound range I'm guessing. It's too heavy for just a nail to hang on, so you'll have to get the screws that push in, then screw out and use that bent metal to clamp from the inside. I'm sure there's a technical term for them, I just don't know what that is at the moment. I also don't have pics, but I can provide specifics on what I used later if people need to know.
Here's a side view. Notice anything weird?
If you didn't, I'll go ahead and tell you what's wrong. Look at the bottom right corner. It's not easy to see in that pic, but it sticks out more than the others do. It's warped at that corner, and that's from the fabric pulling on the frame so tight that it curves the wood frame there. It only sticks out about 2 inches, and that's easily fixable by nailing it down. One of the staples on that corner isn't all the way in, so I can just stick a nail through there and that will fix the problem. But I just wanted to illustrate one of the problems of building your own screen.
Some additional notes: It's probably best to NOT hang the screen until after the projector is hung/mounted. I got lucky, and mine turned out to be in a good spot, but I'd recommend waiting until you have the projector to make sure you have it exactly where you want it.
Also, at some time in the future I'm going to get some black felt, mount it to cardboard, or some other hard backing, and use it to create a border around the edges of the screen. That serves to cover up the staples around the edges of the screen, and also blocks out the white spaces around the edges, letting you adjust the border in to exactly fit the image size. I don't have it up yet, but I'll post pics once I get that done, so you can better understand what I'm talking about (for those of you who AREN'T already videophiles).
So what's the new tally? Well, the wood was around $16, and the L and T brackets, plus screws, added I think another $10. I forget exactly how much the BOC was the first time I went to Joann's, but I went back to get more to cover some windows and it was around $5/yd at the time, so we'll use that price. So 3 yards = $15, plus $26 = $41 to make a 108" screen. So the current total is what... $176?
Next, we'll talk about speakers.
http://kriskramer-mediaroom.blogspot.com/2008/06/step-5-speakersreceiver-lights-are-hung.html
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