backyard movie theater
Maybe it's nostalgia for the mid-century drive-in movie experience. Maybe it's part of the trend for doing as much as possible al fresco. But whatever the reason, more and more people are taking their movie watching outdoors. Big cities and small towns offer movie nights in public parks and squares. Cruise ships present cinema under the stars on their upper decks. And gardeners are starting to eye their backyards as potential sites for home movie theaters.
It can be as simple as a sheet hung against an outside wall or hedge or as complicated as a wired, weatherproof outdoor entertainment system. Whatever you choose for your home open-air cinema, here are some ideas for making the space as unique and inviting as possible:
Consider Your Seating AreaIf you're planning on sitting on the ground for your movie showings, remember to choose a variety of grass that holds up well under heavy use and keep your lawn well-maintained. No one wants to watch a movie sitting in the dirt, so if you expect a steady schedule of movie viewing you might consider keeping some logs or straw bales around to provide impromptu seating if you run short of chairs . Make sure to have adequate outdoor lighting as well, so that when the flick is finished, your viewers can get safely back inside.
Easy Tips For Backyard Movie Theater
Choose Plants with Fragrant FlowersWhen choosing your plantings for the containers or beds round your al fresco films, remember, movies happen after dark, so no one is going to notice showy blooms and green foliage. Try instead for plants that release their fragrance at night, surprising and delighting your audience with subtle floral scents. Here are a few fragrant flowers you’ll want to try:
Select Plants with Silvery LeavesAdd a glow to the area around your viewing space with plants that have silvery foliage. They’ll reflect just enough light to be visible within the landscape . Keep in mind that light, pastel or white containers will have the same effect – especially when placed near small solar garden lights. Some silvery plant selections to grow are:
Grow Your Own Movie SnacksAnd while you're planting, how about including in your outdoor theater space some homegrown snacks? Think of it as nature's concession stand . Popcorn is cultivated exactly like sweet corn and can even thrive in containers, four to a 12-inch (30.5 centimeter) pot. Or place sugar snap peas on trellises in plots or containers and let your guests pick their healthy snacks right off the vine on the way to their seats.
Best Outdoor Movie Theater Products: Screens, Projectors, Snacks
Hollywood's not the only place you can watch a movie along with the stars. Hold your next family movie night premiere under the stars in your own outdoor theater. Have you created an outdoor movie theater in your backyard? Share your best tips in the comments below.This post contains affiliate links, which means we receive a small commission from purchases on the products we recommend below. Thanks for helping us grow!
Movie night under the stars — in our own garden — is one of our favorite luxuries. The tips of our rosemary hedge or an aloe on the succulent table might poke shadows along the bottom of the screen…but that only adds to the cozy theater feel.
The modern frame that supports and encloses our pull-down screen was designed and built by Ryan back in 2011, a little while before we started blogging. (Our reasoning: an outdoor living room wouldn’t really be a living room without a TV.) He built it under our tangerine and orange trees, and since then, we’ve watched concerts, feature films, documentaries and old episodes of Beat-Club featuring Chuck Berry in our yard after dark.
Build A Backyard Movie Theater • The Garden Glove
We also used the outdoor theater while hosting a Super Bowl party, which became controversial in the comments section of Apartment Therapy; we’re also sensitive to the noise issue and we swear we haven’t had any complaints from neighbors, thanks to generous-enough margins around our properties. Keeping the volume at a reasonable level and inviting our neighbors to the parties in question has also helped. Also, wireless headphones are essential! We use them whenever we watch movies.
To broadcast sound outside we connect RCA cables from our receiver‘s Zone 2 output to another amplifier that we mounted under an eave. From the amplifier we connected quality weatherproof outdoor speakers. We own four wireless headphones but only need to connect one of their bases to the receiver’s headphone jack. RF headphones work great because there is no visual/audio delay in the sound broadcast and there is no limit to how many people can listen in.
If you do not want to hard-wire your sound, you can use a low-latency Bluetooth transmitter to broadcast sound from your laptop to your low-latency Bluetooth headphones or outdoor speaker system (using a low-latency receiver). This will work great if you are projecting from an HDMI output on your laptop. Make sure to check that your Bluetooth transmitter can accept multiple connections if you want to enjoy movie night with friends without disturbing the neighbors.
Outdoor Movie Theater In My New Home
As far as logistics go, we bring our programs to the big screen using an HD projector that we switch between indoors and outdoors. To simplify moving the projector outside, we hard-wired a long 75FT HDMI cable from our indoor receiver’s second HDMI output to the projector’s location for outdoor projecting. We also have a second power cable pre-wired in that location, too, so setting up the projector outdoors takes less than five minutes.
If you don’t want to hard-wire your outdoor connections, these new portable projectors seem to be a great solution for quickly setting up your outdoor theater from a laptop near the projector.
We love Optoma’s line of projectors for their brightness and overall value. We recently upgraded to the Optoma HD27HDR for an even brighter picture than the Optoma HD180 shown here.
Showtime! Build A Backyard Movie Theater For Under $100
, also bow-tie vine) needed more space to spread. Today, the curtain of leaves and flowers and the citrus trees arching overhead create a certain effect — that you’re watching a great story unfold somewhere just as wild. A garden theater.
Want to make your own? Here’s the DIY, complete with sketches we made on the amazing 3-D program SketchUp. Since we first built our theater five years ago without the trellis top, these instructions are slightly different from—and better than—how we built our own.
If you decide to take on this project, let us know if you have any questions in the comments! And hey, maybe invite us over for a screening…
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