Flying in Peter Pan

[rochem]

My high school will be putting on a production of Peter Pan in the spring. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited. Just to head off all the questions that will come, yes we are having professionals come in. ZFX has already been contracted to come in and take care of all the flying, and we'll be working closely with them the entire time.

Having said that - I'm really curious how they're doing to do it. I've never really worked with a flying rig before, so I'm not sure what to expect. How do these companies usually rig up their systems? Would they somehow connect to the house's fly system and set something up that way? Do they bring everything in and hang all their equipment from the grid? According to my director, our Peter will be able to fly out over the audience. I'm guessing they connect to a FOH hang point, similar to how large national tours hang their FOH cluster? And is this done with chain hoists, counterweight, or something else?

Let me repeat that I will NOT be trying this myself. Rather, I want to have a rough idea of how this works so that I can know what to expect when they come in next spring.

[coldnorth57]

ask them they are the people you are hiring and they are the ones that have the amswers

[zuixro]

I've been wondering about this myself, but I suspect that this may be breaking the CB's TOS...

[fredthe]

In general, the systems I've seen are independant of the existing rigging systems... think about it: if you were ZFX, and were responsible for someone 30' in the air, would you trust someone else's equipment?

As to what ZFX will do in your case, that's a question for them.

Discussion of how their equipment works is definatly outside CB's TOS.

Do treat this as an opertunity to learn; but don't *EVER* (unless you go work for them) consider doing it yourself.

-Fred

[Footer]

We can actually touch on this a bit.

Basically what they will do is bring in a truss package that contains the actual flying rig. Built into that truss is everything that is need to safely lift a person and make that person track across the stage. Depending on how complex the flying is to be, the more complex the truss system will get. They will hang the truss with chain motors. The chain motors will then attach to your steel above the stage.

The system will run independent of your fly system. Nothing in a standard fly system is designed to lift people. The redudency and the control simply is not there. All ZFX/FOY/Hall needs is good steel to rig to and they will do the rest.

It is rather amazing to watch how fast these systems can be put in. These guys who do this do take extreme measures to inspect everything before it goes into the air. Any piece of gear that looks or feels wrong is replaced. If a lift line even grinds on something it is replaced. It is this attention to detail that makes these guys have the safety records they do. It is the reason why you should never try to fly someone on your own.

[gafftaper]

... and yes they will find a good strong structural point out over the house and connect their rig to that similar to how a touring shows hangs a cluster (or phantom a chandelier). A local university did a production and at one point had people fly from the back of the balcony all the way to the deck. Cool!

[Traitor800]

We had a small Foy rig for the last show we did this summer, the Foy installer just attached the track to a batten and flew the batten out and chained the arbor off, and then attached guy wires from the batten to our mid rail so that the batten didn't sway when the girl was flying.

[Van]

Rochem, I envy you the oppurtunity to watch these guys in action! what a gret experience!

Thanks to others for refraining from responding initially because of TOS concerns.

[len]

Originally Posted by Footer

It is rather amazing to watch how fast these systems can be put in. These guys who do this do take extreme measures to inspect everything before it goes into the air.

I can vouch for that. Did some show with a flyer at the Paramount in Aurora and they had a truss rig fit for a 40' stage, that basically accordion folded into a smaller truss. I don't remember too much specific, but that whole system and the flying motors, etc. were done in about 10 minutes, not including testing, safety inspection, etc. I'd give more details but I just don't remember. I can't even remember the show.

[FatherMurphy]

I've done a few versions of Peter Pan over the years, and have had to explain how it's done to a number of civilians. Hopefully, the following will answer rochem's question without violating TOS - I don't think I'm including any 'how to' info in here. As mentioned above, 'going down to the hardware store and getting a bunch of stuff' is NOT the way to fly an actor - you either can afford to hire a pro, or you can't afford to do the show.

Most manual flying rigs are one of two types, pendulum points or track-on-track systems. Motorized systems tend to be single winches or multiple winches coordinated by computers. Manual systems are more frequent for educational/community versions of Pan, due to lower cost and simplicity.

Most Pans are done with three pendulum points in a row midstage, and a track-on-track downstage. This gives single flyers some options (Peter's entrance and search of the nursery, Wendy's landing in Neverland aka 'bowling for lost boys', battling Hook), and it is enough points for everybody for the trip from London (Darling kids on pendulums, Peter on track).

Differences in buildings, overall set design, and desired choreography will dictate if the flying equipment is hung directly from the building structure, from existing linesets, or from touring truss.

Manual operators need to be large, alert, trustworthy sorts. They need to be big enough to lift and hold the actor, alert enough to react to unplanned things like sudden spins and swings and to be ready for the next fly cue, and trustworthy enough that the actor knows they'll always be ready to support them, and not let them swing into a wall as some sort of sick joke (I've seen it happen - immediate replacement of that op).

Hope this answers some questions - have fun with the show!