Outdoor movies

[Richard]

Without getting into many details....

If you owned a boat and either lived on a lake or had easy access to it, would you find it interesting to drive your boat to a large cove off the main lake channel to watch a movie or hear a (recorded) concert?

The movie might be something family oriented, like The Ghost and Mr. Chicken or, it might be a concert. If it's a concert, then I'm thinking of something like Dvorak's New World Symphony or maybe something Big Band or maybe the Maynard Ferguson Tribute dvd.....

Or, to use a pun, is the idea all wet?

There would be no cost to attending, just motor up, drop anchor and open beverage of choice.

Thoughts?

If you think it's dumb, (which is fine), why?
If you like it, why?
What ideas for movies might you want to see?
What ideas for concerts might you want to see?

If watching a movie, do you think you would prefer a large sound system setup along the waters edge or would you prefer a radio broadcast where you could tune into station number XXX and use your own radio to hear it?

Would you want to use the same radio setup for a concert as well as a traditional movie?

Any thoughts are welcome & invited. The more constructive the better!

 

[Dutch445]

Yes, it would be great!

There is a village park right on the
edge of the local lake here, and every thursday
during the summer months they have a free outdoor
concert. The only problem for us boaters is that the
band plays to the folks sitting on the other side of the
pavilion/stage. So it's hard to really hear the music
from the water. (There's always kids swimming and jumping
in the water making some noise also)

I would welcome a chance for boaters to be the
audience.

As far as sound, I think with the right speaker setup,
the concert or movie's own music speakers could work well,
since most will be within a few hundred feet of stage, right?

if too far, then maybe the radio broadcast idea would work too.

Now, would you have a dock, and refreshments available?
(bathroom?)

 

[MossRoad]

Can I fish while you watch the movie? :laughing:

Sounds like a fun community night. Set it up like the drive-ins with the sound over the FM. Sounds like a fun time. :thumbsup:

 

[Richard]

I might add that the reason the concert ideas mentioned were big band, or classical type in nature... is I live across the lake from TWO pretty well to do retirement communities. Actually, I live across from one and down the lake from the other but within easy boating distance.

Most everyone in these communities are retired, 'fairly' well off, to filthy wealthy. I'm not sure they'd have a desire to boat in to a Led Zepplin concert.

I'm trying to think of something that would be more appealing to them so they might want to attend and if not attend, might at least enjoy hearing it on their back porch instead of calling the Lake Police!

 

[Dutch445]

I'm not sure they'd have a desire to boat in to a Led Zepplin concert.

i would!!!!

 

[Richard]

I would welcome a chance for boaters to be the
audience.

As far as sound, I think with the right speaker setup,
the concert or movie's own music speakers could work well,
since most will be within a few hundred feet of stage, right?

if too far, then maybe the radio broadcast idea would work too.

Now, would you have a dock, and refreshments available?
(bathroom?)

The original idea was to have a dance floor on our property but the logistics of bathrooms and 30 (?) 50 (?) people attending with access to my house, had my wife saying NO. I then do not like the idea of porta potties... so the boat idea got into my head. This way, they are not on the farm and any bodily issues, are their issues, not mine!

Here's a picture of what I might use for speakers. Not sure which configuration or if I might add a seperate part in the middle. These represent what I have on hand should I not want to buy anything.

My gut feeling is, for movies with dialogue, the FM transmitter might be great and less tonnage for me to drag around. For an actual concert, I think I'd want to crank the tunes up.

 

[Richard]

Can I fish while you watch the movie? :laughing:

Sounds like a fun community night. Set it up like the drive-ins with the sound over the FM. Sounds like a fun time. :thumbsup:

The house gets 50% of the fish. With my luck that would of course, end up being the bones & gizzards

 

[Richard]

My first concern is really the screen size. We have a 14' outdoor screen as seen in the picture. My fear is it won't really be big enough to have a "wow" effect from the water. The near boats will like it, the outer boats, maybe not so much.

Given the local of where I'm thinking on doing this.... it's on the road with the cove on the left. Bad news is, on the RIGHT side of this same road, is a large pond. I won't have much elbow room to set things up on this road. I'll already have power lines or speaker wires or something going across the road (I can protect them some)

But, the physical distance of the projector to the screen will probably put the projector right in the middle of the road.

I then have power concerns but, my brother in law (electrician) says he's got some sort of battery pack. Weighs something like 800 pounds and has three different "cells" that could be seperated so that each one would provide 120 volts. (I just nodded my head)

We of course, could get a generator BUT, I'm trying to kill as much outside noise as I can.

I've got another friend who owns a marina and says he's got a transmitter thing that would allow me to transmit over something like 5 different channels for a movie.

What I think I'm going to do is, invite one person that I know personally in each of these retirement communities. Tell them they can invite anyone they want as long as they realize they are guinnea pigs for the first evening. I would want their feedback on sound, visuals.... (fortunately, both of these guys are engineers so I'd probably have more technical feedback than I could digest)

If they give it the thumbs up.... THEN go with a public invitation. I'd hate to go public first and lay an egg.

 

[Richard]

There is a village park right on the
edge of the local lake here, and every thursday during the summer months they have a free outdoor concert. The only problem for us boaters is that the band plays to the folks sitting on the other side of the pavilion/stage. So it's hard to really hear the music from the water. (There's always kid swimming and jumping in the water making some noise also)

I might clarify....the speakers would be near the edge of the water (above the beach) pointed DIRECTLY to the boats. Given the lay of the land, being on a boat would be about the only way to hear the sound.

 

[Egon]

Back on land there used to be a lot of drive in movie theaters. Don't see any any more!

 

[Heywood Jannockitov]

Our marina has a "dinghy drive-in" night where you pull your dinghy into a finger slip near the gas dock and watch a movie that is shown on a big white sheet using an HD front projector. Works pretty good and is a lot of fun but gets a little uncomfortable after awhile. Half the boaters just bring plastic chairs from their slips and sit on the grass.

 

[dmccarty]

I think people would go and you could get some big crowds once the word gets out. People still like watching movies outdoors. The local art museum has had outdoor movies for years. My town has done it off and on for years. A resort we went to last year at WDW had outdoor movies as well.

We had a drive-in movie theater up until a few years back. They had a fire in the support structure of the screen and it burned down. No insurance and they could not afford to rebuild. It was one of the few that are left in the state.

Tis a shame to even have to thing like this.... But would you have to pull permits to do this? I would not think so if it is on your land and the boats are on the lake.

Liability?

Playing Led Zep might not be an issue today since they and their original fans, are shall we say, a bit long in the tooth and gray haired if they have hair. But some movies could pull in trouble. :laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[Richard]

I'll admit I don't know about any liability.

The equipment would NOT be on the farm. Indeed, it would be on a mixture of county road, right of way and TVA (depending on who you talk to and where the line is drawn) The equipment would not be on anyones private land.

I've got a friend who works for TVA (nice having an insider :thumbsup: ) and ran this past him. His advice was "if you're going to ask TVA then their answer will be "no" just for the sake of saying "no", even if there is no reason (or authority) to say "no")

He said it's better to just go ahead and do it. Since I'm not damaging any TVA woods/property (unlike some of the hikers/hunters/campers we get out here) that won't be an issue. He said he can't think of any reason why it would be disallowed other than some ego-head saying no just to say no.

I've not called the county sheriff yet. Planning on not only calling them but, telling them anyone is invited!

Not sure how I'd have a liability for someone on their own boat on a public lake?

This was one of the brilliant angles in my mind. This gets the entire mess off the farm and I don't have to prepare for it (get the fields cut, get any seating out, get a dancing floor out) nor do I have any mess to clean up afterwards other than the equipment I bring.

I admit I don't know enough about this to know if the horsepower I have (speakers/amps) would be enough to pull this off successfully. When we did the movie on the farm, we sat about 52 feet away (measured). I was at one time, able to hit peaks of 114db's on my super duper fancy Radio Shack SPL meter. I don't know how that equates to SPL's closer up. When it came time to actually play the movie, it was NOT up that loud. That was me playing to see what the deal was.

I've since been cautioned by a friend/engineer/speaker nut that I was driving my 2-way stack pretty hard for the tweeter driver and I might want to go 3-way (which is the other tall stack).

I played the tall stack outdoors, actively triamped with two Crown K2's (something like 500 watts/channel) and gotta admit, it sounded pretty darnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn good.

 

[MarkV]

Richard it doesn't sound like you are trying to make money off of this so why not just have your friends to the house?

I guarantee you that if you advertise an event, one boat runs into another, someone falls in and drowns, you will be named in the law suit. Just as the county and TVA would be and that is why if you ask they will not let you set up on a county road or TVA property. I would think the other possible issue would be how sound travels over the water. Not everyone wants to hear Led Zeppelin or Frank Sinatra on their night time cruise.

Just some things to consider.

MarkV

 

[rockinmywaypa]

I don't think it would fly after once tried, I think that even moored that the boats slopping around would make so much noise it would interfere with the concert or movie. Then when all is done and I'm assuming it would be dark everybody has to manouver back home with lights if they have them.
I wouldn't go but only because I hate being in boats, I like to have my feet somewhere solid so that when something goes wrong I can still walk away.

 

[clemsonfor]

Without getting into many details....

If you owned a boat and either lived on a lake or had easy access to it, would you find it interesting to drive your boat to a large cove off the main lake channel to watch a movie or hear a (recorded) concert?

The movie might be something family oriented, like The Ghost and Mr. Chicken or, it might be a concert. If it's a concert, then I'm thinking of something like Dvorak's New World Symphony or maybe something Big Band or maybe the Maynard Ferguson Tribute dvd.....

Or, to use a pun, is the idea all wet?

There would be no cost to attending, just motor up, drop anchor and open beverage of choice.

Thoughts?

If you think it's dumb, (which is fine), why?
If you like it, why?
What ideas for movies might you want to see?
What ideas for concerts might you want to see?

If watching a movie, do you think you would prefer a large sound system setup along the waters edge or would you prefer a radio broadcast where you could tune into station number XXX and use your own radio to hear it?

Would you want to use the same radio setup for a concert as well as a traditional movie?

Any thoughts are welcome & invited. The more constructive the better!

They did this in the cove near a marina here last summer. Not sure how well it did. The only problem i see is i hate being on water at night with all the crazies. I have no problem being on the water in the dark as i do it regurlarly during turkey season, when i hunt by boat. But when a movie ends and the wake boats tear out with the half lit guys and the bass holes tear out at 70mph its not even safe to sit where you are. This is the main reason why i did not make it to the fireworks this last summer. The other is that every guy with a pocketfull of money who wants a boat and truck comes to these things to show off, then when time to take out, they cant back their empty trailer down and get out in a timely manner. They clog up the ramp for 5-10 mins each. When im alone i can back my trailer down , run to the boat and pull on and be out in like 2.5 minutes, freeing up the ramp for the next guy in the line of 20 trucks.

 

[Richard]

It certainly might not fly... Right now, I'm thinking of letting maybe 6 people know about it and see if it works. I'd want their critique.

They did this in the cove near a marina here last summer. Not sure how well it did. The only problem i see is i hate being on water at night with all the crazies. I have no problem being on the water in the dark as i do it regurlarly during turkey season, when i hunt by boat. But when a movie ends and the wake boats tear out with the half lit guys and the bass holes tear out at 70mph its not even safe to sit where you are. This is the main reason why i did not make it to the fireworks this last summer. The other is that every guy with a pocketfull of money who wants a boat and truck comes to these things to show off, then when time to take out, they cant back their empty trailer down and get out in a timely manner. They clog up the ramp for 5-10 mins each. When im alone i can back my trailer down , run to the boat and pull on and be out in like 2.5 minutes, freeing up the ramp for the next guy in the line of 20 trucks.

Regarding crazie boaters and the like... I understand. We have our share out here. My HOPE is by only letting the two retirement communities know about it (their fire department has a monthly 'newsletter' that all the residents get) the crowd will be quasi-limited to them. I know you'll get a casual passer byer... that's ok by me.

To the degree that the targeted crowd DOES show up, they will already have their boats in their marina or will have a private boat dock. None of them will be going through the process of putting a boat in/out. Furthermore, anyone that DID have to do that.... would have to travel maybe 20 minutes in one direction to the launching ramp or 30 minutes in the other direction to get to the other loading ramp (as well as the large public marina)

This cove has ZERO houses on the opposite side in the direction that I'd be facing. Yes, there are houses over there....but only mabe 5 that I know of and they're on the other side of the hill.

Down where the water opens to the main channel, THAT is where a couple houses are. Fortunately, one of the people I know over there lives right at that junction so not only would I plan on his being here, I'd want him to invite his friends or at least let them know what he's involved with.

As to others that might not like the 'noise' on the lake... seems that bridge has already been crossed by this same community. They had some live events near their marina, of course, someone complained. The long and short was, as long as they terminated by 10:00 there was nothing the authorities were going to do.

My thinking would be to get the invite out, specifically mention that 10:00 is the shut down time (and be exact about it). I could then work backwards to the start time or times, if we had a double feature.

The reason to have this on the water is to specifically NOT have to have it on our property which was my original plan. Frankly, I still like that idea but detest the portapotie idea and the wife detests the strangers in the house idea. I see her point as well.

Heck... if we did a trial run (by invitation) we could simply see if that grew and let it grow by word of mouth. Yes, you'd still get people passing by stopping to see what's up.... I'm ok with that. In a perfect world, I kind of like a "Summer Series" on the lake idea.

 

[clemsonfor]

The other thing you would need to worry about potentiall is copyright laws. I think there is something about showing a movie in public to more than X number of people without buying the rights to show it. Maybe that would only pertain to fee showings??

 

[forgeblast]

backyardtheater.com/

there are also forums that will help you match the equipment to what you want to do.

 

[Gator6x4]

If I lived in your community I would be checking deed restrictions, zoning laws etc. I cannot think of a lake side residential community that would want what you are advocating. I can forsee many a problem with this.