Project model railway #22 - Open Air Cinema "Mondscheinkino"
Our little village Klein Waldberg is expanding and its citizens demand entertainment.
So... how about a cinema?
This is the story on how the Mondscheinkino has been built. (translates to moonshine cinema)
The tech behind it
First, I needed something that was able to play some kind of movie. For obvious reasons a realistic setup with a projector was not doable so I decided to go for a small LCD screen.
This screen paired with a Raspberry Pi gives a (almost) perfect match.
Unfortunately the Rasperry has not enough power to display full HD videos smootly so the viewers have to deal with some stutters... nobody of them complained yet.
Building the screen
In an ideal world, the display would be thin and everything would be nice and smooth fitting in a thin box to cover up the wires and stuff ... But it's not.
Since the connection cable to the 40-pin GPIO header of the Rasperry is quite thick I needed to build the top part a bit wider to make everything fitting inside.
Now it has more something of a huge TV instead of an slim cinema screen, but yeah, that's how it is.
Some old school ads pimp up the white frame.
Let the people in
As usual for my little dioramas I've played the screen on my prepared plywood shape with some basic grass.
Some additional details like flowers and stuff make it a bit more interesting. The first people are already waiting.
The first movie shown is The Magnificent Seven from 1960.
What else would you do in a cinema?
What's next?
As already mentioned our village is growing and more homes are popping up. Some of them even with a swimming pool ;)
If you want to see the project grow and the final result, don't forget to follow! If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask in the comments :)
This is so cool! I love that you can play real movies for your little villagers. Can't wait to see where you go from here :)
I am glad you like it :)
This is awesome! I love that 'it' plays actual movies too :) And the couple kissing behind the screen is pretty cute ... maybe include a car with steamed up windows haha
That's a great idea :D
I'm glad you like it :)
UPDATE: Hi @wirago this post has been featured in Exponential! C² Featured Posts, a daily publication of the @c-cubed blog. Check it out :)
https://steemit.com/curation/@c-cubed/20181006t225901063z
This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.
Hey, @wirago.
This is pure genius. I've always wanted to build something like this, but I can see it takes space, patience, resources, know how, and time, five things I either have in short supply or choose to use in different ways. One of these days, though. It's on the bucket list. :)
So, just how long have you been working on this project and just what do you want to end up with? Is this intended for public display, or merely a hobby? It's some hobby, if so.
Really awesome work on the outdoor movie cinema, from the concept to the improvisation and the final implementation. And it works! Extremely well done. :)
Thank you for the kind words :)
The project started almost exactly 2 years ago. In my first post about this you can see how everything started: https://steemit.com/creative/@wirago/project-model-railway-1
(Started blogging about it much later)
The biggest issue actualy is the space you need. Luckily my wife is (kind of) understanding and I got some room for that (~5m²)
Time and money is something I spend over a long time period. I don't want to spend all my earnings on that :D
Since I am building it next to our living room it won't be public, but friends and family come to check it out reguraly.
I guess the "first version" will be completed early next year. The next steps will be to polish everything and add more details (like illuminated street lights).
I also need an automated depature schedule for the trains :D
Hey, @wirago.
Okay, so I went and looked at the original post, and all I can say is, wow. That's awesome, and definitely along the lines of what I've been thinking about. Cool thing is, my wife likes trains, too (who knew?), so this is a hobby she and I could do. We just need to learn how to build things.
I imagine it would be hard to move it, so I guess public is out of the question. Probably better that way.
Okay, so version 1.0 early 2019 with more to follow. That's great. It's really looking good now, but the finishing touches will make it that much more awesome.
Oh are you thinking about getting into model railroad as well Glen? I think this is sooooo cool. I would absolutely love to get into this but we are renting currently and I don't want to start a project like this until I have a good permanent space :)
Hey, @cargnash.
These large scale train landscapes were big when I was growing up, so yeah, the idea has always stuck with me. I don't know the first thing about building or creating stuff from scratch, but I think my wife and I would have a lot of fun putting one together. Ultimately, it would be fun to have some kind of narrated story to go with it—maybe even a few—and then open it up for viewing or something around the holidays.
Anyway, not sure when this is likely to get started—I would probably have to vacate my home office so we could put in there :)—but it's definitely something I would love to do.
You always can start little. No need to hurry and go big from the beginning. Also there are different scales. N-Scale (1:180) is like half the size of mine thus allowing to build nice setups on little space
Thanks, for the ideas, @wirago.
The space part might not be as big an issue where we're at, but the expense (which again, can be done little by little as you suggest), and then whether or not this is where we're going to be for the majority of the rest of our lives. I would hate to get into something and then end up moving, and then be forced to either pack it all up, or leave it behind.
One way or another, it's happening, though. :)