July 27, 2005
Inflatable screens becoming popular
Outdoor film showings make a comeback
FROM STAFF REPORTS
TRAVERSE CITY - When the crowd starts gathering to watch outdoor movies
on a gigantic inflatable movie screen at the Open Space on Thursday night,
they'll join similar throngs across the country who have been doing the
same thing.
Bob Deutsch is the owner of Outdoor Movies,
the Maryland company supplying the screen at the Open Space for the Traverse
City Film Festival. His company was scheduled to start putting up a 40-by-20-foot
screen at the Open Space Tuesday, in preparation for Thursday night's
opening of the four-night free venue. But rain and winds delayed that
plan until today.
Deutsch said public showings of films outdoors on inflatable screens has
been growing.
"The outdoor genre has become significantly more popular," he
said. "It's the modern-day replacement for the drive-in move theater."
Traverse City Film Festival founder Michael Moore said he and wife Kathleen
Glynn first saw films being shown on screens floating on the Hudson River
in New York.
City manager Richard Lewis said that he saw residents gathering in a park
for weekly outdoor movie showings while visiting Charleston, S.C., in
May.
"They had a portable screen they brought in and set up, and it was
open to anybody to come in and sit down and enjoy," Lewis said. "I
thought at the time, it was pretty neat."
A former satellite network salesman, Deutsch said he got out of that and
into the screen business after he participated in an outdoor movie festival
for the National Institute of Child Health in Washington, D.C. as a volunteer
about nine years ago.
"That show is in its ninth year and we get about 12,000 now."
Deutsch investigated and found a company in Germany that manufactures
the screens. He became an Airscreen distributor and sells them to commercial
as well as private buyers. He also owns a supply and goes around the country
setting them up on a rental basis like he's doing for the Traverse City
Film Festival.
"You have everything from intimate family, all the way up to 15,000
to 20,000 people in attendance."
He just completed providing a 100-foot-wide, 4,500-square-foot screen
for Warner Brothers' James Dean Festival in Indiana. The Venice Film Festival
used an inflatable screen for the world premiere of "Shark Tales."
Deutsch supplied a screen in a venue he described similar to Traverse
City's Open Space in the Bahamas for a benefit for hurricane victims last
year. He's also done a film festival in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., and other
beach settings.
The screen has two components: a frame made of high strength welded PVC;
and the screen composed from the same material and color balance and gain
qualities as on a regular movie theater's.
To keep it in place, Deutsch said, the screen is ballasted with water.
"Basically, we'll put a ton of water about 30 feet from the screen
on each of the four corners, and this screen will be tethered to this
to keep it from becoming a sailboat with no hull," he said. "These
are like the same amount of sails on a sailboat. The trick is we just
don't want them to go anywhere."
Thursday night's opening film is "Jaws," which Deutsch said
he just showed a few weeks ago on a beach. Other films include "The
Princess Bride" on Friday, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" on
Saturday and "Casablanca" Sunday. There is no admission charge.
All start at dusk.
