Screen Protection

[Lucas Iaccarino]

Hello everyone,

I'm reaching out once again to gather insights and technical experiences, particularly from other exhibitors. I recently purchased and installed a large (20-meter-long) 1.8 Gain screen on a fixed structure suspended from overhead pipes.

Throughout the year, the screen remains stored at the top of the auditorium and is not regularly used. However, the venue hosts a wide range of events (opera, concerts, conventions, etc.). I'm deeply concerned about the screen getting dirty over time, and I'm exploring ways to protect it.

One idea I had was to place a permanent fabric cover over it, but I understand this material must meet certain requirements—specifically, it must not shed particles that could cling to the screen due to static electricity or other factors.

Would it be possible to use plastic or some kind of cling material?
How do you typically handle such delicate situations?

Thank you in advance for your input.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Remember, anything that makes physical contact with the screen is liable to leave visible issues by moving whatever dust has settled on it around.

Two of the houses I’ve worked in have flown cinema screens, neither have extra protection. They will get dust on them over time but at least it is a uniform deposit and the only visual artifact is an eventual loss of brightness or gain.

If your grid is particularly dirty, you could place permanent plywood above the screen area. Dead hanging a cover in front of its storage position really depends on if you have the fly space to accommodate one at the no-touch distance. And at that distance I’m not sure how effective it is.

When our screen is in playing position we tend to close the main rag overnight to offer some level of protection from dust in the auditorium, our air currents flow from house to stage when the handlers are on.

I don’t know if this is doable after the fact, but having side masking that lives with the frame that can “fully close” is probably the best protection available. And if you were shopping for fabrics, whatever is common for integrated side masking is probably a good starting point. My screen here has such side masking, but not enough to fully close, though we do store it in the maximum closed position.

[Ryan Gallagher]

That said, if you have moving scenery or equipment near the screen pipe, no amount of dust cover is going to protect if from mishaps, best protection is to take the adjacent pipes out of your normal hang schedule unless evaluated and approved by the appropriate person based on minimal risk to screen, and have trained professionals operating those moves with appropriate visibility or rehearsal testing for interference.

With lighter pieces or heavy ones with large “sail area”, air currents can cause unexpected havoc too making for difficult to predict behavior in show conditions. Best to avoid trim moves that take adjacent pieces beyond the bottom of the screen frame in storage. So a show electric may be fine, a painted drop may not, etc etc.

Be especially vigilant with rigging and your rigging crews. One dirty greasy chain swinging around on a load in will ruin a screen pretty easily, or require expert cleaning.

I would also implement a rigging policy downstage of the screen that all chains should be hauled diverted with a sheave (rigger pully, not the flyhouse sheaves/loft-blocks), they may already do this but it is up to the crew. The master point with the first sheave generally keeps the chains well behaved when yarding on their haul line.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Apologies for the rapid fire thoughts: The plywood on grid in screen area idea could serve double duty. You could caution paint it and label it "NO RIG/MOVE WITHOUT APPROVAL". Equally if the screen is permanent, could just paint the grid with similar warnings, but the plywood removal seems like a good step to force the up crew to make before they can even consider hanging a point.

When the grid lights are on in my venues it's relatively easy to see where all the plywood has been placed, until a full Broadway's worth of gear is in the air, so pretty easy for a house carpenter to keep tabs on that area from the deck.

[Lucas Iaccarino]

I completely share your opinion. Using plywood seems like the best option to close off the masking area when the screen is not in use. Probably the most realistic solution is to create a protocol that can be followed and carried out safely.

I'm curious about the expert cleaning you mentioned—do you mean that kind of dirt can actually be removed by a professional screen installation company? I always thought that wasn’t really an option with 1.8 gain screens, as cleaning could affect the reflection. And I’m not talking about dust, but rather greasy marks or black lines that leave a visible trace.

Thanks again!

Best regards,

[Ryan Gallagher]

I completely share your opinion. Using plywood seems like the best option to close off the masking area when the screen is not in use. Probably the most realistic solution is to create a protocol that can be followed and carried out safely.

I'm curious about the expert cleaning you mentioned—do you mean that kind of dirt can actually be removed by a professional screen installation company? I always thought that wasn’t really an option with 1.8 gain screens, as cleaning could affect the reflection. And I’m not talking about dust, but rather greasy marks or black lines that leave a visible trace.

Thanks again!

Best regards,

I said "expert cleaning" just cause others have discussed having specialists (which are pretty hard to source) clean some varieties of screens, but you are correct it may depend on the gain/material how possible it is.

I was assuming a single purchase or double purchase fly house. Just for clarity, since I don't know what kind of grid (if any) you have, I was suggesting plywood walk boards in a traditional fly-house c-channel grid. How feasable that is kinda depends on if your loft blocks are grid mounted or beam mounted above heads. I was NOT suggesting plywood as the material to make a screen protector, just in case we are mixing terms.

[Jim Cassedy]

I think it somewhat depends on your venue, and what is going on in the building
and on the stage below when the screen is not in use. I've done shows at several
large performing arts centers that fly their screens when not in use. Most of them
did not take any special precautions to cover their screen. However, these were
all fairly modern facilities, which were climate controlled and relatively clean. I
remember having a discussion with one of the stage guys about their screen and
how he said he was initially concerned about sawdust from their scenery shop
settling on the screen, but apparently sawdust is heavy enough and the screen
is high enough, that the dust doesn't get up that high. You might have some
concern maybe if you hosted frequent rock music or dramatic events that use
smoke machines. The 'smoke' is often actually finely atomized oil, and I've seen
that stuff settle on stage riggings and other equipment at 'ground level' if used
frequently. Again, depending on the air flow and other properties of your venue,
and the weight of each droplet,the "smoke" it may, or may not be able to rise up
and settle on a hung screen. The only place where I've seen a hung screen
deliberately protected had a huge stage, and a very elaborate fly-rope system,
so they had the extra space and rigging-ropes to hang a huge scenery flat, right
in front of the screen when it was up in the fly loft, to give it some protection.

[Ryan Gallagher]

All policy approaches really depend on the skill level of the staff at the venue. Whether extra precautions are warranted etc. For example if adjacent pipes are "not to be used without consultation"... that might be enough if communicated, but with lesser permanent crew it might be justified to add a mechanism that has to be removed from the fly rail handline lock, to force them to be aware they are doing something unusual and communicate it first.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I think it somewhat depends on your venue, and what is going on in the building
and on the stage below when the screen is not in use. I've done shows at several
large performing arts centers that fly their screens when not in use. Most of them
did not take any special precautions to cover their screen. However, these were
all fairly modern facilities, which were climate controlled and relatively clean. I
remember having a discussion with one of the stage guys about their screen and
how he said he was initially concerned about sawdust from their scenery shop
settling on the screen, but apparently sawdust is heavy enough and the screen
is high enough, that the dust doesn't get up that high. You might have some
concern maybe if you hosted frequent rock music or dramatic events that use
smoke machines. The 'smoke' is often actually finely atomized oil, and I've seen
that stuff settle on stage riggings and other equipment at 'ground level' if used
frequently. Again, depending on the air flow and other properties of your venue,
and the weight of each droplet,the "smoke" it may, or may not be able to rise up
and settle on a hung screen. The only place where I've seen a hung screen
deliberately protected had a huge stage, and a very elaborate fly-rope system,
so they had the extra space and rigging-ropes to hang a huge scenery flat, right
in front of the screen when it was up in the fly loft, to give it some protection.

That is a good point too. Usually Hazers are the oil based ones (though non-oil based ones do exist). Operas are really particular about the type of haze fluid in use (if they even permit it). Smoke machines tend to dissipate fast enough not to be a concern... haze however literally goes everywhere and hangs around for a while.

One could implement a no oil based haze policy for screen protection, but neither venue i've worked has done so. And tours often bring their own hazers, so it's a pretty tough ask on a heavily toured venue. It kinda "is what it is" in that department. Not ideal but that is the nature of a mixed use venue.

The idea of a hanging protection really depends on the fly-house real-estate , often the space is too valuable to consume it with anything that doesn't have a show function, Especially if you are already contending with other permanent things like orchestra shells and the like that also eat up valuable pipe space. My only worry about a "soft" or hard flat used as protection would be what happens when something crashes into that... now you've got wood raining down on stage. A suitable non-shedding fabric not unlike side masking with a bottom pipe or chain would probably be my first instinct. Dust and grease protection only, not designed to avoid collision damage. Ideally dead hung between system pipes so as to not burn up a usable show pipe.

One of the venues here actually uses it's cinema screen so infrequently that they opted to dead it off to the grid for storage, freeing up the pipe it used to fly on for other uses. It's a whole ordeal when they need it again, full rigging call.

[Carsten Kurz]

Didn't that new screen come with the usual sheet of protecting layer?

[Randy Stankey]

In my fifteen years at Mercyhurst, we never did anything special for the screen. It was hung on a pipe and flown to the grid when it wasn't being used. Once or twice per year, I'd fly it in to the deck and use an air hose to carefully dust it off. Other than that we never did anything special.

For foggers and hazers, we only used glycol based fog juice or dry ice. We used hazers on many concerts. They were controlled from the lighting console and we put box fans in front of them to disperse the fog. There was often a diffuse haze over the entire stage but I never noticed any problems on the screen.

If you want to move a screen to a different pipe, it's not hard. Three guys can do it in less than an hour.
Fly the screen to the deck and bring in the second pipe to the same height as the screen. Marry the two pipes with a few lengths of chain, two times around. Transfer the screen by unhooking the cheeseburgers from the old and connecting them to the new. Two guys on the deck move the screen while a third guy in the gallery shifts the counterweights as the load comes off one pipe and onto the other. Just for safety, take a three-foot piece of broomstick and twist it between the handlines then wedge it behind the T-rail. That'll help prevent the lines from running in case the weight gets too far out of balance... or, at least, it'll give you time to run before all hell breaks loose. We did that a couple-three times. Never had a problem.