One of the tasks assigned to me at my job is designing and implementing stage set designs. It’s been one of my favorite parts of the job and often one of the more difficult parts. With our Easter series upon us, we decided to go with a stained glass look. I’m sure there are many ways to do a stained glass look (and I discussed a lot of them with my team), but we decided to go with projection on stained glass shaped screens.
Let’s start with a couple of pictures from the services this past weekend. Sorry for the low quality, I took the pictures with my phone.
As you can see, we went pretty big scale on this project. We even had to take out a wall to move the projector back far enough for the size of projection (yes, it is one projector). The photo below was taken from the point where the projector is now sitting, and the projection image passes through the entire void (where you see the curtain) now.
I really like having the flexibility of having an enormous rear screen projection image to work with without having to crowd everything on the front of the stage.
Now for the part that many of you are looking for. The design plans and implementation. I’ve found that mapping things out with Google SketchUp is an easy way to get an idea of the size of your projects and fitting them into the space you have. It also helps when figuring out distances for projection images. You can put in measurements, prepare a supply and cut list, and even tweak as you build if necessary.
As you can see, the design changed slightly from the plans, but the pieces were each built as planned. I used simple 2×4 frames, supported with right angle plywood gussets on the back for the rectangles and the bottom of the arch tops. All of the curves were cut with a jigsaw from 2 layers of 3/4″ plywood and secured in the same way the 2×4’s were. The circle did not need any gussets as the cut was made off-center and the second layer was rotated 90 degrees. The rear projection (RP gray) screen material is from Rose Brand and stretched like a canvas around the frames with a staple gun. As far as hanging the screens, I used 1/8″ black aircraft cable and gliders attached to eye bolts on the frames and an I-beam near the ceiling.
If you have any questions or would like more details or help with a similar design, feel free to comment on this post or send me a message on Twitter.