Assembling a 9 x 6.5 flat with braces

Hi all,
I'm completely new to scenic design and I don't know how to create a 9' x 6.5' flat. What materials would I need/how many? How would I assemble it? And how can I brace it? Sorry that this seems like a beginner question, but I am not a technical person at all. Please let me know! Thank you.

There's more than one style of flat, tell us a little more. Does it stand on stage and never move? Does it tour? Does it have to stand up to...whatever, or just look pretty? For a couple of hours or a couple of years?

siennalwinters said:

Hi all,
I'm completely new to scenic design and I don't know how to create a 9' x 6.5' flat. What materials would I need/how many? How would I assemble it? And how can I brace it? Sorry that this seems like a beginner question, but I am not a technical person at all. Please let me know! Thank you.

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First, Welcome aboard. Second, Man I wrote an article on here hears ago with pictures and everything... it's gone. As @JAC said, there are several different types and even in those there are several different construction techniques.
Your two biggest choses are going to be Broadway or Hollywood / Studio. Muslin covered Broadway flats are, by far, much more difficult; they have a lot more of a learning curve to get just right. Studios, in simplest terms is a flat, rectangular, box constructed of 1x4 or 1x3 which is then covered in 1/8" or 1/4" (3-5mm) plywood (Typically a Luan or 'Door skin' material). Luan can be purchased in 4x8 or 4x10 <rarely and stoooooopid expensive.) so like wall construction you have to plan out your framing to pick up the seams appropriately. there are tons of tips and techniques I found this article video here which again spurs me into action to rewrite my own article here. I did not watch this video but the site is a good source for other materials so I'm accepting it by reputation. If it doesn't answer your questions or it spurs other questions do not hesitate to check back in and fire away. Sometimes the silliest little things can trip you up and asking those questions can save you tons of time and money.
Sorry, I don't have an article on CB here to point you to.

I think it might be a Broadway flat? It stands on stage, on a platform and never moves. A projector has to be able to project onto the flat, and it's a student production so it only has to stand up for 2 ish days.

siennalwinters said:

I think it might be a Broadway flat? It stands on stage, on a platform and never moves. A projector has to be able to project onto the flat, and it's a student production so it only has to stand up for 2 ish days.

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If this is the case I think you really just want a Studio flat, held up with a stage jack. Your biggest challenge with this will be dressing seams. OR you could just make a frame caver it with muslin and paint it white , if it's a simple thing. they make projection screen 'paint specifically for screens but, whew, it's expensive.
I want to make sure, it's 9' tall and 6.5' wide? and the bottom is on the floor <or platform>?

Van said:

If this is the case I think you really just want a Studio flat, held up with a stage jack. Your biggest challenge with this will be dressing seams. OR you could just make a frame caver it with muslin and paint it white , if it's a simple thing. they make projection screen 'paint specifically for screens but, whew, it's expensive.
I want to make sure, it's 9' tall and 6.5' wide? and the bottom is on the floor <or platform>?

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Yup, it's a 9 x 6.5 flat standing on a platform. I was thinking it could be assembled using 1 x 4 x 10's and 4 x 8s that are cut down?

siennalwinters said:

Hi all,
I'm completely new to scenic design and I don't know how to create a 9' x 6.5' flat. What materials would I need/how many? How would I assemble it? And how can I brace it? Sorry that this seems like a beginner question, but I am not a technical person at all. Please let me know! Thank you.

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so i've got some comments by the SD's on the same show and i'm a bit confused:

they want to rear project onto the studio flat so it has to be completely hollow? this is specifically what they said: "if there is anything on the backside of the flat i will be unable to rear project onto that surface"

"this flat will be attached to the upstage platform, and the bottom 2x4 will extend out on the sides past the vertical 2x4s, and the extended sections will be braced"
"that’s why it has to be extended out the bottom of the flat an extra foot or two (depending on the math) then putting those supports on from pieces of wood on the attached to the end of flats"

this is the image they gave me lol:


can anyone make any sense of this? i unfortunately need to make a build plan by tn for the 9 x 6.5 and i'm just so lost

A 6' unsupported span, out of wood, with a suitable rear projection material is an extremely tall order, and is going to be rather expensive. No traditional flat framing will support the tension necessary for the projection surface, without some form of interior framing.

Get some rectangular steel tubing (https://www.metalsdepot.com/steel-products/steel-rectangle-tube) maybe 1"x1-1/2" for the sidess and 1"x2-1/2" for the top & bottom. Weld up a rectangular frame say, 10'wide x 7'-6" high. Add supports as needed to hold it where you want it. Lace the RP screen material into the frame and mask the dises & top. You'll have a great (permanent!) RP screen. Now, design it into the next few shows to amortize the cost.

Van said:

A 6' unsupported span, out of wood, with a suitable rear projection material is an extremely tall order, and is going to be rather expensive. No traditional flat framing will support the tension necessary for the projection surface, without some form of interior framing.

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Don't use a "real" RP screen, get the thinnest muslin, stretch it snug, and then use a steamer to get the wrinkles out. We had a Thespian Conference production that did this and it worked. I was surprised at how well it performed with the 4000-ish lumen projector they brought.

TimMc said:

Don't use a "real" RP screen, get the thinnest muslin, stretch it snug, and then use a steamer to get the wrinkles out. We had a Thespian Conference production that did this and it worked. I was surprised at how well it performed with the 4000-ish lumen projector they brought.

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I hate touring with real RP surfaces but I found it tolerates front stage lighting hitting it much better than any thin woven fabrics we tried. And with the surface upstage I was surprised how much bounce you can get off even a flat-black floor from the AP's even without having a single light directly aimed at the screen! (and it was a lost-cause on nice wood-finish stages)
Yes you can keep getting brighter and brighter projectors but the contrast still makes the image look washed out. A good RP surface material (we used Elite Screens and Daylite ones) helped solve this considerably but it really picks up dirt and is easily damaged. (one flat even split at -15 in the truck overnight from being stretched too tight to handle the cold)

So do you have a specific fabric weight product for this and can it be rose-brand sourced? Still always looking to try different options (before having to commit to an LED wall and all that entails!)

Craig Hauber said:

I hate touring with real RP surfaces but I found it tolerates front stage lighting hitting it much better than any thin woven fabrics we tried. And with the surface upstage I was surprised how much bounce you can get off even a flat-black floor from the AP's even without having a single light directly aimed at the screen! (and it was a lost-cause on nice wood-finish stages)
Yes you can keep getting brighter and brighter projectors but the contrast still makes the image look washed out. A good RP surface material (we used Elite Screens and Daylite ones) helped solve this considerably but it really picks up dirt and is easily damaged. (one flat even split at -15 in the truck overnight from being stretched too tight to handle the cold)

So do you have a specific fabric weight product for this and can it be rose-brand sourced? Still always looking to try different options (before having to commit to an LED wall and all that entails!)

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I don't have a name/weight for what this school used, I was walking up stage while they were steaming it and noticed it was really thin. Saw the image from the front and was pleasantly surprised at how good it looked for the minimal amount of money. It wasn't huge, maybe 5 x 8 feet.

I would rent a 7.5 x 10 fast fold and skin the front to give it the desired look the SD wants. As others have said a wood frame is gonna be hard to make without bracing. Getting the muslin stretched and wrinkle free is a task as well. A 2 day rental won’t cost half as much as time and labor.

Yeah you can't do that out of wood realistically. I would either go with @Amiers idea of renting a fast fold screen and just hanging some fabric around it to make it look the size you want, or as was said weld a frame. If you don't have welding ability/access you could use Uni-strut to build the frame out of metal and bolt it together, but either metal frame solution will likely cost more than just renting a screen.

TimMc said:

I don't have a name/weight for what this school used, I was walking up stage while they were steaming it and noticed it was really thin. Saw the image from the front and was pleasantly surprised at how good it looked for the minimal amount of money. It wasn't huge, maybe 5 x 8 feet.

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I think I may have just discovered this yesterday.
A few years ago one theater co I work with ordered 12x16 printed backdrops from somewhere online and they are printed on something that at first impression feels like a paper but it is some kind of woven material that won't tear -not unlike tyvek house-wrap but more porous (and less slippery). The printing quality was quite bad and almost faded entirely to a light pink/orange in just a few weeks outside at the summer amphitheater. I intercepted them at strike on their way to the dumpster because it's not everyday you encounter a free piece of seamless material of that size.
Anyways to make a long story short, I was using it to test projectors in the shop, happened to walk behind where I had it hanging and was quite impressed at how much through transmission it had. Still have no idea what the material is and where to find large unprinted pieces of it but yes, a very good option for small constrictive-budget theaters to accomplish various artistic needs. I grabbed it for future painted-backdrop usage because it still has a faded pinkish ghosting of a "woodland scene" on one side of it.