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Can anyone lead me to a site or business that deals in retractable movie screens. We will have limited space in our little one screen theatre and we want to produce a couple of plays each year to help with the checkbook.
(we are a small rural onescreen movie theatre that only shows movies on the weekends) during the week the space will be used as a dance studio.
Thanks
onescreen

Limited space applications can use "scenic roller" (a.k.a. "rope and pulley" style) or electric rollup types.

Try these manufacturers:

www.da-lite.com/

www.hurleyscreen.com/

www.harknesshall.com/

www.draperinc.com/

Thanks so much, I'll give them a look

Onescreen

Please take the time to research this carefully. There are several, in this forum and others, who have had to find ways to deal with uneven stretching of screen materials. Some posts suggest that once stretched, the screen needs to be replaced.

If I recall right, some of the above-mentioned manufacturers have better materials than others, as relates to "stretch resistance".

If you have fly space you can use a regular screen frame and raise it up out of the way. You can also suspend the screen frame from tracks on the ceiling and push the screen back out of the way. Roll up screens are pretty expensive and the edges will curl.

There are screeens that you can take down and roll up very easily, Contact any cinema equipment supplier and they'll help you. I am sure they still make the roll down/roll up crees that you see in schools, etc.

Whatever you do make sure that you care for your screen so that you do not end up with marks, etc. that distract from the show.

I operate roll up screens in both my houses for just this purpose. The upper one uses the biggest scenic roller dalite makes the other uses a 14 foot Dalite electric roller. Both work great. The big ones will curl on the edges but keep in mind that you will still use masking so the actual screen is usually not affected by this. Big ones can be tricky to hang and I highly recommend that your installation be done in a way that you have the ability to adjust the tension of each anchor at a very fine level. This will let you account for changes in humidity, etc. In my case I am suspended from our original wood fly which has a tendency to 'move' just slightly as the seasons change.

Roger Detzler
IOKA Entertainment Inc