Have you ever wanted to get a really unique gift for someone but just couldn't find the right thing? Well, how about a backyard movie night? That's right, backyardtheaterinabox.com is now offer gift certificates. What better way to offer that new graduate or special somebody a great way to celebrate an event than with a bunch of friends and/or family under the stars, watching a movie.

Read More...

Tags: backyard theater

Today, I zapped out the latest edition of the backyardtheaterinabox.com newsletter. I know you all have been eagerly awaiting the next issue. In this issue:

• Punxsutawney Phil Predicts Kickoff of Backyard Movie Nights
• Is There a Graduation Party in Your Future?
• What to Watch?
• Rental Availability

What's that you say? You didn't get it? No problem. You can view it here or even better subscribe to the backyard theater newsletter and get it zapped straight into your inbox. Read More...

Tags: backyard theater

Last night was lots of fun. Thanks to everyone who showed up.

Check out the rest of the pictures from the Second Annual Morperhaus Halloween Party here.

Read More...

Tags: photography, backyard theater

Tonight's the night. The second annual Morperhaus Theater Halloween Show. And this year, the geek factor has been cranked up a notch. This year, the event will have pictures from the event posted real-time to this website. So, if you have nothing better to do tonight, drop by and see what's happening! Oingo Boingo starts at 6:30 PDT, Nightmare Before Christmas at 7:30 PDT. And of course, if you do make it by, please leave a comment below indicating what time and where in the world you are when you visited the site.

Read More...

Tags: photography, backyard theater

Today I was informed that my backyard theater was awarded second place in smarthome.com’s “Home Control Contest.” Each entrant needed to put together a brief description of how they automated some portion of their home. Well, since last summer we’ve been doing movies in our backyard. And since our October party, I’ve managed to have a Mac Mini run the whole show.

To see how I “turbo charged” our backyard movie theater, check out the complete video on how it was done.



Read More...

Tags: backyard theater, apple, entertainment

Things are ramping up nicely with our new backyard theater gig. Over this past weekend, we took our first kit on a test run -- the whole neighborhood went camping and we took the first ready for rental (or purchase!) kit with us. It performed great. There is nothing like 5.1 surround sound and a 10 foot movie screen in your campsite, let me tell you.

If you are interested in learning more about backyardtheaterinabox.com, jump over to the site. And if you’d like to see the first email newsletter that went out, (there is even a 20% discount in there!), please check out the backyard theater newsletter archive link. And I’d really appreciate it if you subscribe to our backyard theater newsletter.

Tags: backyard theater, marketing

Two nights ago in Los Angeles, the Fox News affiliate ran a segment on backyard theaters. And a fair amount of the segment was shot at our house a couple of weekends earlier. I have posted the clip at the backyardtheaterinabox.com website so go check it out.

Tags: backyard theater

Since last summer, we’ve done quite a few of these backyard theater movies. And at each one, we always get a few folks asking how we did it, where we got the instructions and necessary equipment for putting it together. Well, there isn’t a single place to go figure all of that out.

Until now.
Read More...

Tags: backyard theater

For my new friends over at Backyardtheater.com, I thought you’d like to see the “marketing campaign” behind our upcoming Halloween party movie showing.
 
We’re going to be showing The Nightmare Before Christmas in the backyard. And before that, in true Southern California tradition, we will watch a live performance of Oingo Boingo. For those of you outside So Cal, Oingo Boingo was the greatest band to never quite make it out of LA. The band would play sold out shows all over LA (and had a tradition of playing Irvine Meadows every Halloween). But enough with that...

Read More...

Tags: backyard theater, entertainment, oingo boingo, nightmare before christmas

I took a few pictures during last night’s movie. The one below is a favorite. A little doctoring to get the screen to have something on it. But don’t tell anyone



Link to pictures: 4 September 2006 Morperhaus Theater

Tags: photography, entertainment, backyard theater

This whole backyard theater thang has been a lot of fun. After figuring out what equipment to buy for our theater under the stars, then getting carried away with creating a trailer that plays before each movie, I have now taken it all to the next level by automating the presentation of our movies. Before you read any farther, I will mention that I provide both of my automation workflows for download at the end of this posting.

Read More...

Tags: backyard theater, hobbies

Last night we did our first showing in the backyard home theater. Now known “officially” as Morperhaus Theater. We had about 20 folks over last night for a viewing of The Incredibles. Here is a movie I put together on how we created the backyard theater.

Tags: backyard theater, hobbies

A couple of weeks ago, I read an article in the newspaper about making a home theater in your backyard. Imagine, fire up the BBQ, and watching a movie on a 90” screen. After checking out a couple of websites, we got inspired. So, last night we took our first steps -- we bought a screen and a projector.
 
The equipment checklist is looking something like this:
 

• Projector
• Screen
• Sound system
• DVD player

Read More...

Tags: backyard theater