Last year on OTBKB we were trying to figure out how to make a screen for Brooklyn Film Works. But things worked out just fine and this year the show will go on. Hepcat’s Volvo idea didn’t work out. But something else did. Brooklyn Film Works opens its 2007 season on July 10th with The Lady Eve (introduced by Ty Burr, author of "The Best Old Movies for Families." ). It should be a really great show.

It all started months ago when Kim Maier, director extradonaire of The Old Stone House,
proposed the idea of a summer film festival in JJ Byrne Park. I loved
the idea right away and got to thinking about Brooklyn-related films to
include in the festival.

But there were a few technical details that needed to be worked out. Kim said she’d be happy with a bed sheet and a home projector. I guess I had something bigger in mind.

I decided to get in touch with an old friend of mine from my video production days, who now works for Scharff Weisberg,
providers of audio, video, and lighting technology. I told him we had
no money, that we were doing the project as a community service very
much on the cheap. He was game to try to help us out.

My friend came to JJ Byrne Park to scope out the site and offered us
advice about where to put the projector and screen. A few days later,
he emailed us an equipment list that was a tad more ambitious than what
we had in mind.

Kim said she’d be happy with a bed sheet and a home projector. I guess I had something bigger in mind.

My friend did say, however, that Scharff Weisberg would be willing
to loan us a video projector for the four screenings. Somewhere along
the way it was decided that we would project a 12 x 15 ft. image.

But what would we project the image on? Good question.  My friend at Scharff Weisberg suggested I have a screen made at Rosebrand,
a company that specializes in theatrical drapes, scrims and screens.
When I called Rosebrand, the sales representative asked me all kinds of
questions…what size, what material?

We decided on white seamless muslin with a black duvatine back. Then
the sales representative asked: Do you want gromits and webs?  I didn’t
have a clue what gromits and webs were.

So I called my friend Bob at Showman Fabricators,
who lives in Park Slope, and told him I was having a screen made and I
wondered if he could help me figure out a way to frame the screen so
that we could project a movie on it.

And by the way what are gromits and webs?

He said he could make a frame for the screen out of aluminum pipes.
He’d deliver five pipes that could be made into a 12 x 15 ft. rectangle
with key clamps or speed rail.
And then he called the sales
representative at Rosebrand and told them what kind of webs and gromits
we’d need because that’s how we were going to attach the screen to the
pipes.

I still didn’t know exactly where we were going to put the screen –
between the trees on the north side of the house or against the fence
in front of the house?

I figured we’d figure it out.

Well, tonight Bob from Showman Fabricators delivered the pipes and
walked around the site and said that it might be impossible to tie the
screen to the trees or to put it against the fence in front of the
house. Wind would be the big problem. The frame with a 12 x 15 ft.
fabric screen was like a sail. And if a big gust of wind came along…

Kim said she’d be happy with a bed sheet and a home projector. I guess I had something bigger in mind.

So there we were — me, Kim, Bob from Showman, Bill the
projectionist, standing outside of the Old Stone House trying to figure
out what to do. For a moment I thought we might have to get a bed sheet and a home projector. Maybe what we were trying to do was impossible, too ambitious, too BIG.

Then I remembered something that Hepcat suggested a few months ago:
we could get a truck and tie the frame and screen to the truck.

Bingo. Everyone seemed to like the idea. We talked about calling
U-Haul and other truck companies. When I got home I told Hepcat all
about our screen problems, the truck. He sighed a bit. Did some
thinking. Sighed again.

"I’ve got it," he said. "I can put the old roof rack on top of our
Volvo station wagon and I will clamp two pieces of pipe horizontally to
the roof rack and attach that to key fittings,,,"

"Are you sure it’s going to work?" I asked gently.
"Look who was raised by engineers and who was raised by an advertising executive?"
"In other words, have faith in you, right?"
"Right."

And I do. So tomorrow night Hepcat will test out his idea…

Go to the Old Stone House for the 2007 Summer festival