Design Challenge: My set needs to MELT
John
So, I'm designing a productions of Terry Johnson's Hysteria--a fairly
typical British drawing room farce until the last act, when the set is
supposed to, quite literally, melt during a Dali-esque fever dream.
It must then return to normal. God help me.
The set is the fairly rich mid-century British study of Sigmund Freud.
Furthermore, it should look for all the world like a normal set until
the walls begin to soften and melt. I also need to essentially make a
door out of rubber, or at least a door that can act like its made of
rubber on cue--ie, you pull on the handle and the "wood" covering the
door bends out.
Basically, I'm looking for information on the use, purchase, and price
of rubber for stage applications on a large scale. I was thinking
that I could make some of the flats partially out of wood and
partially out of some stiff rubber, which a stagehand could pull on so
they bend down and outward at the top--things of that nature.
So...any thoughts? Anything even tangentially related to this topic
would be of help, including any drastically different ideas on how to
make a set melt.
Thanks,
-john
pS. if anyone knows how to turn a phone into a lobster, that would be
much appreciated as well.
ppS. if you are given a script with the simple stage direction "the
set continues to melt," think twice.
Thomas Paterson
> The set is the fairly rich mid-century British study of Sigmund Freud.
> Furthermore, it should look for all the world like a normal set until
> the walls begin to soften and melt. I also need to essentially make a
> door out of rubber, or at least a door that can act like its made of
> rubber on cue--ie, you pull on the handle and the "wood" covering the
> door bends out.
I can help you with the door - make one door with two parts, a rubber
part with two sides, and a hard wood door with a real side (the back
side) and a blind (black) side. Hang them on colinear hinges, and mount
a handle to the wood door. Have a rubber handle for the rubber door
which can sleeve over the hard door. Then for the early scenes, you can
have the actor grasp the door handle hard, and open both the rubber and
wood doors as one, appearing like a real, hard door, and then when the
door melts, pull the rubber door off the wood door, and let it droop.
Run liquid ooze under the doors in the same colour as the doors, so it
looks like melted door?
Just my two p.
Regards,
Thomas Paterson,
LUX POPULI!
Christopher Jahn
I've seen this show: they decided to let the set drift apart
instead of melt. BUT their TD and I discussed it, and we
figured out a practical way to do it.
Instead of constructing flats for the walls, all the walls are
heavy canvas with a top and bottom batten. The bottom is
secured to the floor, and the tops are attached to flies or
winches, and pulled taut. Lowering the battens will have the
desired effect.
The top batten also allows you to run lines up to hang pictures
and things on the wall, so that it really is a surprise when the
walls start to melt. Of course, doors and windows are in free-
standing frames.
Can't recall how he did the door, but it did bend and wobble.
He probably used bendable plywood (used in cabinetry). HE
intially though of doing all the walls with it, but then was
told that flying apart was good enough.
Florida Stage mounted it, Ed Blanchette was TD. I beleive the
prop master is still there - Michael Blair. Ed's moved on, but
you may find him on the net somewhere.
--
}:-) Christopher Jahn
{:-( http://home.attbi.com/~xjahn
%QUOTE
John
Sounds doable, perhaps.
So, where do I go about getting rubber in any sort of usable form?
Who even sells just rubber?
-john
Thomas Paterson
> So, where do I go about getting rubber in any sort of usable form?
> Who even sells just rubber?
You can buy liquid latex from model and mask makers, although it ain't
cheap, and you just simply add a curing agent. You can also contact
your local rubbers and foams dealer (there is an international company
called clarke rubber, but I don't know where they are represented),
found under a title like that in the yellow pages.
Oh, and look up Pacific Dunlop and Ansell, plus any other condoms and
rubber gloves companies, they usually handle large quantities of latex
or polyester rubber.
Jeffrey E. Salzberg
of soft foam.
SAB
be for you to find some intelligent lights to use for set textures,with a
good selection of breakup style gobos in the gobo wheels and a well done
effex wheel... used correctly.......they can create an intense melting and
drifting effect
SAB
"John" <jven...@princeton.edu> wrote in message
news:fa4e40f2.03062...@posting.google.com...
Christopher Jahn
> When we did "Hysteria" at Florida Studio Theatre, the set
> was made out of soft foam.
>
Excellent; nice and flexible, and cheaper than rubber.
John
I'm looking at a total set budget (including set piece rental, etc...)
of no more than $600-$700.
-john
Christopher Jahn
Gah. Canvas walls and battens and rigging are going to be your
cheap solution for melting, but realistically, you can barely
afford to build the set at all, let alone build it as a special
effect.
You should drop "melting" and go for "twisting apart", which
only requires hinges here and there.
Thomas Paterson
> And it came to pass that John wrote:
> > I'm looking at a total set budget (including set piece
> > rental, etc...) of no more than $600-$700.
Christopher Jahn wrote:
> You should drop "melting" and go for "twisting apart", which
> only requires hinges here and there.
Maybe second hand foam mattresses with painted fabric applied to the
front for the bendy bits? School camps and prisons sometimes get rid of
large quantities of old foam matresses. Watch out for OH&S
considerations though, they might have...um...histories.
Christopher Jahn
>
>> And it came to pass that John wrote:
>> > I'm looking at a total set budget (including set piece
>> > rental, etc...) of no more than $600-$700.
>
> Christopher Jahn wrote:
>> You should drop "melting" and go for "twisting apart",
>> which only requires hinges here and there.
>
> Maybe second hand foam mattresses with painted fabric
> applied to the front for the bendy bits? School camps and
> prisons sometimes get rid of large quantities of old foam
> matresses. Watch out for OH&S considerations though, they
> might have...um...histories.
>
But they also leave you with the challenge of stiffening when
you want them to appear solid. Now that I've thought about it,
there are a lot of obstacles to overcome with a foam rubber set.
Clive Mitchell
<cj...@actorsplayhouse.org> writes
>But they also leave you with the challenge of stiffening when
>you want them to appear solid. Now that I've thought about it,
>there are a lot of obstacles to overcome with a foam rubber set.
>
I would have thought that with foam rubber walls, you could have them
maintained in an upright position by strings attached to the top of each
sheet. When required to "melt" the strings could be released allowing
the foam to bow over onto the stage. When tension was re-applied to the
strings they would pull the foam up rigid again. (theoretically)
Of course it would all be flame retarded. <shudder>
--
Clive Mitchell
http://www.bigclive.com
Christopher Jahn
You have the problem of attaching the strings to the foam; it
wants to be a strong connection, and you don't want it to pucker
the foam. You need to stretch it a little tight, because foam
in the lengths needed to like like walls will tend to sag in the
middle, but not so tight that the edges pull in. Foam doesn't
take paint well, and the application of paint has to overcome
sticking to the surface without flaking off when the foam bends,
while at the same time not sink in and stiffen the foam.
And really, the poster has only given you half the problem: it's
not that the set must "melt", it's that the set must appear
completely real and solid up to the moment it "melts" so as to
give the scene the surrealism it requires.
Nah, foam won't really do it, once you add the flammability of
the stuff.
Adam Aglionby
> John wrote:
> > So, where do I go about getting rubber in any sort of usable form?
> > Who even sells just rubber?
>
> You can buy liquid latex from model and mask makers, although it ain't
> cheap, and you just simply add a curing agent.
Bulk latex is pretty cheap, last gallon I bought was about £14, local craft
shop probably charges that for a half litre tin. Try companies that supply
glassfibre for boatbuilding and products for the plaster work
industry.Googling should pull up a few. Latex is mould of choice for
concrete garden ornaments.
Latex air dries, its thinned with water and ammonia, or pored into clay
noulds and dried by absorbtion.Its safe on skin and is used as a makeup
product.
Silicone rubbers require addition of catalyst, and are a lot more expensive
than latex.
>You can also contact
> your local rubbers and foams dealer (there is an international company
> called clarke rubber, but I don't know where they are represented),
> found under a title like that in the yellow pages.
>
> Oh, and look up Pacific Dunlop and Ansell, plus any other condoms and
> rubber gloves companies, they usually handle large quantities of latex
> or polyester rubber.
Polyester resins, what the plastic is in GRP, glass reinforced plastic and
polyurethane foams, rubbers are latex and silicone. More info:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/casting/
The Prop Builder's Molding & Casting Handbook Thurston James ISBN
1558701281
Adam
Owain
> typical British drawing room farce until the last act, when the set is
> supposed to, quite literally, melt during a Dali-esque fever dream.
> It must then return to normal. God help me.
> The set is the fairly rich mid-century British study of Sigmund Freud.
> Furthermore, it should look for all the world like a normal set until
> the walls begin to soften and melt.
Could you get set-sized 'lilos' made out of printed vinyl
(sign-makers) and deflate and reflate them from a central pressurised
air feed? Like a bouncy castle.
If not the whole set, then could some deflating furniture convey the
meaning - a wardrobe is basically a rectangle and should be
comparatively easy to construct.
Owain
JDK
"Owain" <spuorg...@gowanhill.com> wrote in message
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