movie backdrops? where is the road runner?

my theory is there is a "movie making" tech you can research.  *nods*

Well, in another screenshot (which I am too lazy to look up) you can see the other side of one of these things, and they are covered in targets, with little benches and buckets of arrows in front. So they obviously must be art exhibits ...

I have to agree, they look extraordinarily out of place. The view Scoutdog mentioned makes me think they're shooting ranges, but I don't see why they need to be bright, glowing painted vistas.... In fact it doesn't make sense to me that they'd have a giant piece of cloth behind the targets - it'd just become riddled with holes and if someone happened to be walking behind it the people practicing wouldn't be able to see. 

Beats me why it appears to be pained, but I'd expect it's supposed to be strong enough to stop the arrows.

yeah, I must say that the other side having targets on it doesn't explain why they are there.    I'm not sure why you'd need a wall that high either.  Shouldn't there be somes sort of range variable on an archery field anyway (some targets close, some far away)

I don't think it could stop arrows because its thin enough that you can see the color on both sides.  (cloth, for example, usually has the color on both sides, because its thin and color bleeds through.  Bricks do not have the same effect)   So it would totally be an accident waiting to happen when somebody walks behind it unknowing of somebody practicing.

If the side with targets is NOT colored, than maybe they paint the vistas as a cover up for military training, but from any other angle it wouldn't exactly be discreet.

Well, you'll notice that the cloths are facing the OUTSIDE of the city.... maybe they're only to hide what's going on from enemies.....

Why would anyone go to such extremes to hide their archery ranges? And you would still be able to see the ranges from other angles...

Also, the movie backdrops are shiny. Really shiny. Just look at the one on the left.

Maybe it moves to provide a visual distraction for the archers. Those supports could be rollers........ although that sort of stretches it even more than it is already stretched.

Can we get ACME products in Elemental now?  I'd like some ACME Anvils to go with my Bear Cavalry and Dire Penguins plaese.

BTW Stardock: lame feature request, please have a Dire some ridiculous animal like the Penguin from AOW.

What concerns me more in the field of pointless minutae is that LADDER going up to the top of thecloth (or maybe the tree):

What could this be for? It's not on the other "stage", and it seems to connect to some kind of platform on the tree.... or are there different kinds of "stages"?

Looks more the right size/depth and makes more sense for an archery range, but the angle of the little platform thingey seems odd.

Yeah, that platform is what it made it look like old movie stages.  If it were any sort of theatre stage...    well 1st off, it wouldn't make much sense because at least I never heard of a backdrop being used in a play prior to the industrial revolution.  If it were an outdoor stage, you'd think it would be given some sort of walls or ampitheatre setup so that the audiance could actually 'hear' the plays being proformed.   And keeping a backdrop like that up for a play would be a nightmare unless the channeler was keeping the wind steady (or the cataclysm destroyed wind and the channeler has not channeled it  back into existance yet).   For archery ranges, you'd only put up the cloth (assuming you'd put up the cloth at all) when you're practicing, which you would not want to do on a windy day anyway.

Perhaps those  are the gallows, and they like to hang people with a happy landscape background so that those being put to death have "a happy background" to their deaths.