Apparently there’s a “huge trend” in outdoor movie viewing equipment, while some of us are still trying to catch up (ie: save up) for a proper indoor setup.
The appeal of watching movies outdoors is kind of odd, when you think about it–the great outdoors really doesn’t provide the ideal movie-watching conditions. But the appeal is also very real. A big part of the appeal is driven by nostalgia, especially if you grew up in the 70s going to drive-in movie theaters with your parents, who didn’t have the money to hire a sitter. My brother and I would wear our pajamas, eat some home-popped popcorn out of a paper grocery sack, then fall asleep in the back of the station wagon while our parents had their “date.” I still love that image in my head of all those cars lined up in a field, facing a huge screen.
There’s also something novel about watching movies outdoors, especially now, when drive-in theaters are few and far between. Watching a movie outside with a bunch of people is somehow a very festive, community-building experience. I remember watching Pittsburgh on one of those cool inflatable screens with a huge crowd on the opening night of the 2006 Waterfront Film Festival. I also think fondly of the night I sat on a friend’s front porch watching a horror film projected on a sheet one Halloween night. Both nights I remember being chilly and slightly uncomfortable. I remember the screen quality, and/or the sound quality, being less than stellar. But I remember feeling extremely content.
There’s something “for-the-masses” about outdoor entertainment. Anyone passing by can participate, on some level. You don’t have to be invited in, you don’t have to pay for the right to watch and listen for a while. It’s like theater or music performed on the street or in the town square. I imagine it’s what many are drawn to when they organize film series in parks (which are also growing in popularity).
But this “huge trend” that I read about last week in a New York Times article (“The Drive-in Without the Drive”), seems like something quite different. Imagine a 65-inch screen TV permanently installed by the side of an 80-foot pool. Think systems that, with sound and everything else involved, can run from the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This paragraph from the NYT article will give you a taste of what we’re talking about:
Speak to the integrators and you see a backyard future in which one might never be forced to sit in a tiresome garden and sniff a rose again: Drop-down motorized screens hidden under the eaves; lots of little speakers all over the property (because multiple speakers on low volume create less spillover noise than two big speakers on loud); tiny speakers that look like lights in the trees; speakers in the pool, so that you need not miss Barry Bonds breaking the home run record when your head dips into the water.
Well, that’s novel for sure. But nostalgic? For the masses? Community-building? Yes, I’m old-fashioned. And it sounds pretty sad to me. When you have this whole setup permanently in your yard (or should I say “on your grounds?”) can you really ever just go outside to enjoy being outside? To maybe grown some vegetables in your garden? To play with your kids or your dog? To sit in the shade and read a good book? The ironic thing is that after spending so much money to transform our outdoor spaces into indoor spaces, will people start to complain about the “outdoors” being outdoors? The mosquitoes, the heat and humidity the unexpected storm and bird poo on the screen might very well end up driving people back inside. (And if I was their neighbor, I’d probably be glad.)
Even if my budget didn’t dictate my choice, I think I’d take the borrowed projector and the sheet set up, providing a novel, nostalgic night or two of fun a year.
