Star backdrop

[Josh Scott]

For Christmas we are going to have three large banners spaced out all with a picture of the manger on it. We are trying to figure out how to do a star backdrop effect. The problem is we don't have the $6000 to rent one for a month. One idea we have is to use Christmas tree light behind the banners any other ideas.

[[Admin] skstarkiller]

Do you have any stage lights? If so you could get some tins with holes in them and put them in front of the lights and "project" the stars.

You could also use a project or and shoot a starfield background onto your screen.

[[Admin] osborn4]

Sure. Just run the Windows Starfield screen saver through a projector.

[Josh Scott]

Great ideas thanks, not sure which one would look more realistic. I might get a star field gobo, but i think the projector would be cool too if I could find a video that would give me a twinkle effect

[biblpreacher]

You can buy spray on glitter for the backdrops. Then when the light hit them it would have the twinkling effect.

[[Admin] skstarkiller]

There are some twinkling starfields in the Media eXchange Center...

Here's one...

[[Admin] osborn4]

If you happen to use SongShow Plus, it has a Sparkle visualization that is very good and can be adjusted and tweaked quite a bit.

[sempei13]

In 2000, we did the Christmas tree lights thing. It looked great and could be run to a dimmer channel to raised and lower the brightness.

Paul

[tedanderson]

What about a good old fashioned Disco ball? Run it at a slow speed and it will look very realistic.

[Josh Scott]

What about this. Get black fabric with some kind of dispursed particles that will reflect light. Then use a black light to light it. Now I just need to come up with a fabric.

[JLR]

Several years ago we did a star field on our former sanctuary's ceiling. It was a 2 story high ceiling and we placed the following in the balcony to illuminate the star field.

We used a large stainless steel bowl and just two 100W bulbs under it. I then took a star map and began drilling different size holes following the star map to get the constellations and such to appear. I did have to tape over a few holes that did not work out but doing the work in the dark allowed me to figure out the projection of the light pretty quickly. If you try this remember the holes need to be pretty small, especially if the ceiling is very far away from the bowl and the corners of a room will be slightly bigger holes to get it the farther distance.

I thought I might want to address heat under the bowl, we had a small fan under the setup to draw the hot air down and out from the set up, you still did not want to put your hand on top of the bowl but it did a good job of keeping the heat under control.
JLR

PS... although there was no blinking of the stars or anything that fancy, I had people ask how I made them blink and such and they did not believe me that they was simply a steady light...

[Steve Vanciel]

Originally Posted by JLR

the holes need to be pretty small,
...

But not too small or else you will have a pin-hole projector that will project an image of the filament in your light bulb. (A frosted globe would help diffuse the image.)

SteveV
Orlando, FL