Hi all

I am pleased to annoucement the grand opening of the Boronia Twin Drive-in Theatre shortly (Melbourne's second drive-in theatre).
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~p.berrett/index.html

(Follow the link on the page)

Pictures to come a little later.

cheers Peter

As promised pictures (and some rewriting of the page) have been completed.
Click Here For A Unique Drive-in Experience

Enjoy Australia's smallest Drive-in!

cheers Peter

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Yes it is highly reflective but I assure you its only 2400 x 1200 mm. It is a great surface and I think I you would have been suitably impressed had you been there with a light meter. I might have to copyright the use of melamine in drive-in screens - perhaps I could call it Pytlakvision?

I must be frank though. There is one small fault with the screen. It isn't big enough! 2.4m sounds a lot but to give real impact I think I need more.

I'm actually thinking of finding a BIGGER board or boards and placing them on some sort of structure ABOVE my gate at a slight angle.

This would allow me to have my projector inside my bedroom and projecting through the bedroom window, across the top of the carport and onto the screen.This would mean that there would be no projector noise at all down at ground level. I could run a long power cord down from my bedroom window and thus have the ability to switch the projector off if there were any problems or it came to the end of a reel.

As I said before my existing screen is about 2400 x 1200 mm. I think a 4 meter wide x 2 metre board would work well although it would need to be lightweight. That's about as wide as my double gate. I think my 250 watt bulb would still give enough light to illuminate that area ok. I found the 1.2 meter wide image quite bright so I have a bit to play with.

Logically the new screen would have 2.77 times the area so the image would be about 1/3 as bright. It remains to be seen whether the 250 watts would be sufficient for that area.

cheers Peter

So for current "scope", your screen should have a 2.39:1 aspect ratio, not 2:1. Although some 16mm "scope" prints were 2.66:1.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

John Pytlak said

quote:

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So for current "scope", your screen should have a 2.39:1 aspect ratio, not 2:1. Although some 16mm "scope" prints were 2.66:1.

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You will note that the holes drilled to tether the screen to the gate are strategically located roughly about 200mm from the top of the screen. To maximise viewing pleasure the area at or above the holes is not used when projecting a cinemascope image.

This means that the available image area approximates to 2400 x 1000mm which is an aspect ratio of 2.4:1 or close enough to the cinemascope ratio.

The space at above the holes is not masked but equally it is not wasted however. When screening a standard 16mm 4:3 aspect ratio image, the full height of the screen can be used allowing an available image area of 1600mm x 1200mm.

I was distressed to learn today that the Dandenong Drive-in has screens with a 2.2:1 aspect ratio. Apparently, this was the traditional drive-in ratio - same as Coburg.

I'm told that this means that scope is slightly cropped on the edges by .15 and w/s is projected with blanks on each side.

At the Boronia Drive-in you can be guaranteed that any scope film will shown to its fullest! It's simply FDR!

cheers Peter