Jonathan Carone from Two Rivers Church in Lenoir City, TN brings us this great backdrop. (Originally posted December 2012)
They have a few unique stage situations:
- An inset stage.
- White scrims/curtains instead of black.
- They use a center projector but project on scrim instead of a true screen.
- Their pastor wants natural light in the building during the service. (Three large windows on one site of their room.
They worked with their Facilities Director to mock-up what they wanted the design to look like. Then they had a retired engineer who loves to do woodwork build the frames for them. They built them almost exactly like the guys from Catch The Fire. After building the frames, they sprayed them with a paint sprayer. It took about an hour to paint all eight frames.
Someone in their church donated six 4′ x 8′ sheets of white Coroplast. They bought two Coro-Claws and cut the 2″ strips in about 45 minutes (with two people). Then they stapled the 2″ stripes 2″ apart on the frames.
They used some Venue Thinpar64 LEDs from Guitar Center to light them.
After the first weekend, they realized there was too much light shining through onto the back curtain (see it in the second picture below). So they added some black felt to the back of the frames and it took away the cast-off.
Budget:
- $150 – wood for frames
- $80 – black felt
- $60 – two gallons flat black paint
- $0 – Coroplast (normally would’ve been about $90)
- $30 – two Coro-Claws
As a lead pastor myself, I appreciate how much this team worked to accommodate the preferences of the lead pastor. I prefer to have as much natural light as possible. It helps me connect with the congregation as a communicator. Our team is looking for designs like these that can work in our non-theater environment.
Thanks Jeff. The picture of our pastor preaching is actually from our Saturday night service so there isn’t as much natural light coming in as normal. The last picture is a normal Sunday morning during worship so you can see the light from the left hand side of the room.
Question about your build- did you also build the wood frames with a slight angle backwards?
Hey Clayton. Sorry for just seeing this. We actually didn’t build them with an angle. Doing that would’ve made them much harder to light, especially in the upper corners. We made it as straight and flat as possible.
The idea is great and one I would like to copy – thanks for the pictures. One thing that is clear is that the natural light somewhat diminshes the awesome affect you created…
This looks awesome. Can you give some instruction on building the wooden frames? I’m not nessacerily a wood pro but would like to try this for our youth room. Thanks.
Did you use 2 ” by 4 ” wood or 2 ” by 2 ” wood to build the frames ?