Post #579941 by Mr. Pupu Pants on Fri, Mar 11, 2011 1:12 PM

Hi there Jokeiii (is that pronounced joke-eye-eye-eye?) :)
I've done lots of the rear projected background type of scenarios. In fact I have one for my Tiki bar but decided to have my fake windows do double duty (heh-heh, he said....duty). I'm also building a diorama (which also involves rear projection for integrating projected water into a scene from below)
You can see it here if you're interested:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=28247&forum=20&start=315&324

Anyway, on a recent trip to Hawaii, I brought an HD camcorder and shot hours worth of locked down footage of our favorite beach on Kaua'i (Tunnels Beach on the North shore which doubled as Bali Hai in the movie South Pacific).
I got early morning, mid-day, sunset, and magic hour to darkness. I then edited all that into a shortened cycle going from morning to dark in about an hour.

Looks really nice when rear-projected if you have a good transluscent screen (or facsimile), a bright enough projector (2000 lumens +) and the overall room lighting is fairly low (which is a given in a Tiki bar anyway). It also helps to recess the screen just a bit to keep errant reflections to a minimum and give it an extra bit of simulated depth.
It's tricky, but you can sometimes get away with adding some foreground 'set dressing' like plants, etc -- but that really depends on how well you can get it to blend with the light levels and textures in your footage.

Definitely play around with it. It's really fun when you can recreate/bring home a place you love and recreate the vibe.
Good luck and have a great time with it.