Peter Pan

I'm working on figuring out effects for Peter Pan, and there's a few I can't quite work out yet. I was hoping to get some advice.

1) When Tinker Bell gets trapped in the cabinet as Peter retrieves his shadow. The inside of the cabinet needs to light up green, and the door rattles. To put it lightly, I have no idea how to make the door rattle on cue.

2) Peter does a whole dance showing off his shadow. I don't have any footlights so I'm searching for alternatives to get the shadow we need.

3) Captain Hook poisons Peter's drink and it needs to change color. I'm sure there's a chemistry answer to this question, but I was curious if anybody knew of other alternatives.

4) I know this is a common effect, but there's a fireplace that needs fire. I found 15 different ways to do it when I looked, does anybody have any reccomendations that work best?

Thank you!

Hi Jlang
I will start at no.4

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This is my fire place. It is made up of 3 LED strips in a random flicker effect Depending what lighting console you use will depend on the effect construction) and using fans to blow the crape paper around. the fan are computer fans that have a cardboard tube over each one with a bamboo skewer through the top with the crape paper threaded on to them. This is all battery and wireless DMX.

No 3. Food dye. Have a yellow liquid and add blue and it will turn green. (or any other combinations).

No 2. No answer for this one

No 1. Mount a small motor inside the cupboard with and arm that will touch the door as it rotates. a slow stepper motor or a gearbox motor would do this. Low voltage (battery) add some LED strip lights inside also on Battery, add wireless DMX and a DMX relay for the motor and the job is done.

Hope this gives you some ideas.
Regards
Geoff

As far as Peters shadow, when we did it we had another kid in basically a black morph suit with a black hat that matched dancing the with peter.

For the cabinet, can you have a false back and have someone inside of it to rattle everything?

I was gonna suggest the false back and a hand to push it. Requires the dresser to be mounted to the wall.

Body double all the way.

Food coloring all the way. If you have him doing powder poison use koolaid. You want to get fancy and have it make some noise make a mixture of pop rocks and mentos and koolaid powder would be a great experiment to mess with.

Fire is a dime a dozen. They make kits for it or you can build your own. I would focus your budget on the other big effects and the left over for this one.

Depending on your theater, you can shoot a knee light from off stage pointing across peter and casting a shadow onto a wall on the side of the auditorium or onto a flat.

A shadow will have to be a morph suit or a light, projector or gobo.

For the door, any motor or muffin fan that is off balance will vibrate. Or, Slide a prybar under the leg from behind the flat and have someone step on it to shake the dresser. Be sure there is a gap around the doors so the led light will show through. paint inside white if possible.

I really like the idea of a muffin motor with half the blades broken off! screwed to the inside back of a loose drawer this would work fantastically. I was going to suggest just purchase a 12 - 24 volt motor from someone like American Science Surplus and attaching a weight to one side of the shaft, but the muffin fan is brilliant!

Van said:

I really like the idea of a muffin motor with half the blades broken off! screwed to the inside back of a loose drawer this would work fantastically. I was going to suggest just purchase a 12 - 24 volt motor from someone like American Science Surplus and attaching a weight to one side of the shaft, but the muffin fan is brilliant!

Click to expand...

The downside to a muffin fan is that they're usually very low torque, because--for their intended use--it doesn't matter if they take a long time to get up to speed. There's also not a lot of mass in the blades (unless we're talking about a really big one), so it may not cause enough vibration. A higher torque motor with a heavier weight on the shaft would be more effective at shaking things up. This is especially true if you want more life-like bursts, pauses, and other variations in the type of movement.

Malabaristo said:

The downside to a muffin fan is that they're usually very low torque, because--for their intended use--it doesn't matter if they take a long time to get up to speed. There's also not a lot of mass in the blades (unless we're talking about a really big one), so it may not cause enough vibration. A higher torque motor with a heavier weight on the shaft would be more effective at shaking things up. This is especially true if you want more life-like bursts, pauses, and other variations in the type of movement.

Click to expand...

Hmm, Yeah. Muffin fan with 3/4's of the blades broken and a few washers epoxied to them. Use a 110v <or voltage of your country> exhaust muffin and I guarantee it'll have enough torque and then it can be run directly off a push-button or dimmer.

We did our poison in a pretty neat way. First, the poison we used was a vile of vinegar and there was baking soda in the glass with some food coloring. This looked great when the poison was poured in. It both changed color and foamed up.

What we did to add a little extra to it was a whole bunch of sleight of hand. I'm a magic and effects consultant, so when I played the part I could put a little icing on the cake As the song leading up to it progressed, the liquid in the vile kept changing color (I was switching out the entire vile). I think we went blue > red > yellow and then it changed green once poured into blue coloring. All of the viles had vinegar just in case I decided to drop one or screw up the order I'd still get my foaming effect.

JLang76 said:

I'm working on figuring out effects for Peter Pan, and there's a few I can't quite work out yet. I was hoping to get some advice.

1) When Tinker Bell gets trapped in the cabinet as Peter retrieves his shadow. The inside of the cabinet needs to light up green, and the door rattles. To put it lightly, I have no idea how to make the door rattle on cue.

2) Peter does a whole dance showing off his shadow. I don't have any footlights so I'm searching for alternatives to get the shadow we need.

3) Captain Hook poisons Peter's drink and it needs to change color. I'm sure there's a chemistry answer to this question, but I was curious if anybody knew of other alternatives.

4) I know this is a common effect, but there's a fireplace that needs fire. I found 15 different ways to do it when I looked, does anybody have any reccomendations that work best?

Thank you!

Click to expand...

1 - Low budget way is to take the back off the cabinet, plop it against a wall and have a stagehand shake the thing on cue. You can rig the doors/drawers to open to a certain distance when shaken.

2 - Body double if you don't have footlights.
3 - We had an air tube mounted to a fish pump underneath the drink, with food coloring in the vial that hook pours in. As soon as he pours it, turn on the pump and you'll get bubbles and a really fast mix of dye/drink.
4 - Do you need see moving pieces of fire or is a glow alright? If it's moving fire, look at the LeMaitre LeFlame units. You can make this yourself with fans and silk it's just a pain, and doesn't look right most of the time. If it's just a glow, vacuform the logs and selectively paint the plastic such that there's some gaps on the inner side of the paint job that light can bleed through. Light from below and above with gelled MR16s or LEDs.