Why write an article about putting buckets over street lights?

One of the natural enemies of any backyard theater is ambient light. The result is a washed out picture because the projector has to compete with surrounding light sources to throw a bright, clear image on the screen. In an ideal setting, your screen and viewing area would be completely void of any light.  Pitch black! Unfortunately, that's not always possible.

Depending on your outdoor movie screen and viewing area setup, it's always best to try and block as much ambient light as possible. As a backyard theater host, you are most likely insane and sweat these little details even though you know most guests don't nit-pick tiny flaws like this.

Easy Solutions To Blocking Ambient Light From Your Backyard Movie Screen

In a typical backyard setting, your house might be the major cause of ambient light.  It's pretty easy to simply turn off the lights inside and around your house, or pull the blinds down to block the majority of direct light.

Pyramid Pyro Theaters is currently situated in a neighborhood of town homes.  The HOA was kind enough to put lights along the walkways which provide a soft, safe glow that doesn't intrude into the homes.  There are currently two of these lights which bookend the screen and cast direct light.  This issue was easily solved by purchasing 5 gallon buckets from a local hardware store (here's a hint; they're orange).   The buckets fit over the top of the lights with room to breath and provide shade that blocks direct light, doesn't damage the light housings, and allows enough light out of the bottom to keep the walkway partially illuminated.

The Difficult Ambient Light Issues

There are, of course, those bits of direct light that are out of your control.  The big one is ambient light from the neighborhood.  If your immediate neighbors attend your backyard theater movie nights then you might be able to convince them to turn lights off prior to coming over.  It is much more difficult to ask them to "keep it down" if they do not attend.  Then you possibly compete with their interior lights, and exterior lights which include motion and security lights that can really light up the night.

Even more difficult to control are the tall street lights that line your neighborhood streets.  If your best friend or attending neighbor has a crane you might have a chance.  Otherwise, you may want to get clever with screen positioning or buy a projector with enough lumens to win the battle.  As always, be respectful and safe when pursuing these issues.  Improving the quality of your backyard movies need not ruin relationships or incur the wrath of the law.

Is it really worth it?

As a backyard theater host, you know you want to learn about and apply tricks to make your movie nights that much better.  Controlling large amounts of ambient light can help improve the quality of the picture projected onto your screen.  In closing, consider these last points...

• Small amounts of ambient light may or may not affect the projection quality of your outdoor movies, but you as the host are probably the only one bothered by it.
• A little ambient light can be good as a safety measure to allow your guests to navigate around your viewing area for popcorn refills and bathroom breaks.
• If you have a clear opportunity to block some ambient light sources from your outdoor movie theater - do it.
• Don't shoot out street lights with BB guns or climb them to apply the previously mentioned bucket idea (but I think that goes without saying).