Start With One Projector | How to Build Your Theatre Projection Setup Over Time

There’s a funny thing that happens in theatre. Once you figure out how to do something, you almost immediately start wondering how you could do it a little better next time.

Maybe the scenery could change faster. Maybe the lighting could be more interesting. Maybe that transition that took six crew members and 45 seconds could somehow take two people and ten. Projection design is no different.

When a school or theatre first starts exploring digital scenery, it’s easy to think about the ultimate setup right away: multiple projectors, giant screens, powerful computers, LED walls and all the equipment that comes with them.

But you don’t necessarily need to begin there. Sometimes you can just start with one projector and build from there.

—

Your First Projection Setup Doesn't Have to Be Your Last

I recently sat down with my longtime friend and theatre director Corrie Cooper to continue a conversation we've been having about getting started with projections. One of Corrie's suggestions was wonderfully simple: start with one projector, try it in a real production and see what happens.

If projections turn out to be useful for your program, make the setup a little better the next year. Maybe you upgrade the projector, improve the screen, change where the equipment is mounted or simply get better at designing around the system you already have.

🎥 WATCH: Start With One Projector. Build From There.

There are really two ways to approach this. If your school or theatre is already planning a major technical overhaul and has the resources available, it may make sense to think five or even ten years ahead. Bring in someone who understands projection systems, look carefully at your space and invest in equipment that can grow with the program.

But that's not the only way to begin. You can also dip your toe in, try projected scenery in one production and learn from actually using it. You'll discover how the image interacts with your lighting, where the projector can realistically go and how actors move through the projection beam.

You’ll know considerably more after doing one show than you did while sitting around trying to design the perfect system on paper.

—

Start With the Theatre You Actually Have

This may be one of the most important lessons when you're getting started: don't design a projection system for the theatre you wish you had. Start with the theatre you actually have.

Corrie tells a great story in our conversation about moving a production into a different space at the last minute. She originally expected to have a projection screen overhead, which would at least give her one large, centered image. Suddenly that wasn't an option and the displays were off to the sides instead.

It wasn't ideal, but it didn't mean projections were suddenly useless. They adapted the design to the space.

That's a pretty normal theatre problem. Sometimes you have a beautiful cyclorama and the perfect place to mount a projector. Sometimes you have two displays hanging on the sides of the stage and you're figuring it out as you go.

Even experimenting with smaller displays or televisions can teach you something about how multimedia might become part of your productions. The goal of the first experiment isn't necessarily to create your forever system. It's to learn what works in your particular theatre.

—

Let the Production Tell You What to Buy Next

I like something Corrie mentions in the conversation about what happens after a production. Like a lot of theatre programs, they essentially conduct a postmortem: What worked? What didn't? What made everyone's job easier? What would we absolutely do again?

That's also a pretty good way to decide where your theatre budget should go.

Instead of trying to predict your perfect projection setup before you've ever used one, let your actual productions start answering those questions. Maybe you discover that projections saved an enormous amount of time during scene changes, but the projector wasn't bright enough. Maybe the image looked fantastic, but actors kept creating shadows because of where the projector had to be positioned. Maybe the projector is fine and the screen itself is the thing you'd change.

Now you know something you didn't know before the show. And that's useful information when you're deciding where to put next year's budget.

—

Some Shows Make the Investment Easy to Understand

There are certain musicals where the practical advantages of digital scenery become obvious pretty quickly.

Think about something like The Wizard of Oz. You have Kansas, Munchkinland, the Yellow Brick Road, the Haunted Forest, the Emerald City, the Wizard's chamber and eventually a trip all the way back to Kansas. Or take Legally Blonde, which moves through a huge number of locations while needing to maintain the energy and momentum of the show.

For productions like these, the ability to change environments almost instantly can become incredibly valuable. Instead of stopping the show for a major scenic transition, you can move from one world to another in seconds.

That's often where theatres first become interested in projections. They see them as a practical way to solve a difficult scenery problem.

But I think something even more interesting can happen after you've bought the equipment.

—

The Projector Becomes Another Artistic Tool

This is the part of our conversation where I probably climb onto my projection-designer soapbox a little bit, because this is what genuinely excites me about where projection design can go.

Once your theatre owns a projector, you don't have to save it exclusively for the giant musical with 37 locations. You now have another artistic tool sitting in the theatre.

Maybe the next production is a small play or a one-act. Maybe the scenery doesn't need to be photorealistic at all. You could work with watercolor, charcoal, old photography, collage, painting, texture or hand-drawn animation. You could make the imagery increasingly abstract as a character's world starts falling apart, or use very subtle movement that the audience almost doesn't notice.

That's where projections stop being simply a convenient replacement for physical scenery and start becoming their own form of theatrical design.

And there's something about the scale of it that I still find pretty magical. You can begin with a drawing, photograph, painting or texture on a computer screen and suddenly see it stretched 30 feet across a stage. Then you can change it, animate it, move from afternoon into sunset, make an ordinary room slowly become unsettling or replace the whole environment with somewhere completely different.

We're still figuring out everything we can do with this stuff. That's part of the fun.

—

You Don't Need Version Ten to Make Version One

It's easy to look at what somebody else is doing—with brighter projectors, larger screens, LED walls and sophisticated playback systems—and decide, "We're not ready for that."

Maybe you're not. But that doesn't mean you're not ready to try anything.

Your first projection experiment might be one projector, one screen, one scene or one production. Use it. See what it gives you and what problems it creates. Talk about it afterward. Then decide whether the next version deserves more of your scenery budget.

That's really the larger idea Corrie and I keep coming back to in these conversations. You don't need to know exactly where your projection setup is going before you're allowed to begin.

Start with one projector. See where it takes you. Then build from there.

—

Want to Learn More About Theatre Projections?

If you're beginning to explore digital scenery, projection backdrops or theatre projection design, we've been putting together more conversations and resources for theatre teachers, directors and production teams trying to figure this stuff out.

🎥 Watch the full conversation: Start With One Projector. Build From There.

🎥 New to projections? Start with our first conversation here.

And if you're looking for scenery for an upcoming production, you can explore Theatre Avenue's digital scenery and projection backdrops here:

[EXPLORE DIGITAL SCENERY →]