Beauty and the Beast- Enchanted Rose

We are going to be doing beauty and the beast for our next musical.
I've been trying to come up with a cheap, effective way that we can make the petals fall off of the rose. Any suggestions?

 

I've never seen the stage show, but if the falling of the petals doesn't have to be seen, you could consider swapping out the rose for the petal-less rose during scene changes or blackouts.


Joe

 

we jsut did the beast for our musical and we used a little electromagnet rig to make the petals fall... it was jsut a small electric magnet running off 12 volts on the rose and i stip of metal on the petal... our rose flew in so we jsut ran some wire to it and covered it with fake vines and floral tape... when the cue came for the petals to drop a guy on the fly rail killed the power to it and it would fall... to make it look even cooler we loaded the petal with gliter so it would really catch your eye when it fell

 

i like the fader i idea alot
as for the glitter we really dident have a artform to we jsut used about a half bottle of glitter a show... after it fell there would still be glitter falling making the rose jsut look that much more enchanted...it was so pointlessly awsome

also we did use a rose that was huge ... between taht and the glitter it read really well... even frow way far back in the booth

 

or you could just use more then one magnet one for every pettle you want to fall.


just a thought


ps when i did the show we used a projection for the flower just another creative idea


JH

 

When we did the show we used a clear plastic rod to suspend the rose from below and then we would spin petals off (with the glitter) on other clear plastic rods. You couldn't see any of the rods and it worked really well.

 

thanx for the enthusiastic response.
vguard420, i was thinking some way to use magnets or electricity. I really like your idea with dvsdave's fader concept.

as for using projection, i thought about it at first, but it would be very costly and still don't think it would look all that real...but feel free to prove me wrong, i welcome any constructive criticism...

again thanx for all the swift replies!!

 

Just wonder, all of these making it sound like this thing is huge I mean if your having all this stuff running to it and everything. I've never seen this show, how big is it actually?

~Nick

 

Where is a good source for electrical magnets. Im working on a production soon and kinda like the idea for a magnet for each petal.

 

well if u have one try your schools electronics lab, science surplus stores are good to. there are probily a crapload of places to get them

 

A good friend of mine was the pyrotechnician for the tour when it was at the Shubert Theater in LA. When this effect came up in conversation, he told me that the unit was actually a small mechanical effect. So, every petal had its own little robotic travel control that would let the petal fall and float on its way to the bottom of the glass. The rose was also filled with fiber optics so that it twinkled. I realize this is way too complicated for your production, but I just thought Id let you know how the pros did it.

 

the fiber optic part isn't that bad, with a cannalibalized light from your local discounter, a gobo rotator and small par can you can rig some fiber optics for the rose

 

The size of the rose in the stage show was about normal size from what I recall, which means it was probably slightly larger to account for the distance the audience sees it from.

 

We did this for our spring musical.

We had an alcove in the front of a platform that had a door in the back of it. And on the base of this alcove was a test tube to hold the rose. So during blackouts a stagehand just went behind the platform, opened the door and swapped the rose.

Another option is that you could use magnets to attach the petals and pull them off with fishing line.

 

We did this show last year. What we did was bought a few small mechanical claws. we then hid these in the different rose states. the rose hovered above a small table and so we ran the cord for the claw through the stem and into the table. Something that we did to add some flare was that in the table we cut out a circle of the top. We then added some wood under the hole so that there was a little pocket by the rose. (here you must take into accout the proximity of the rose and where the petal will fall) We then made esentialy very small flash pots by placing flash paper and powder in a blood capsul. We drilled a small hole in one end of the capsul to get the nicrome wire into the capsul. The petal fell and hit the table and then seemingly burst into flames. Needless to say it got some "ohhhh's"

 

Wow! thats really cool!. i'd ooooh that.

 

we lucked out and were able to find these huge roses at this novelty store where we live... we bought four of them so that we could make a series of "dying" roses... the petals and stems were all painted with UV paint, the case was lit with black light... fishing twine and velcro... a little tug... each rose was rigged to lose one petal... they were switched out during scene changes...
http://www.revolutionfreedom.com/design/images/theater_beauty_rose.jpg

 

What we did in my theater was we used a fake rose (liuke the ones made with wire in them and silk leafs) we then soldered two strips of 120v white leds and taped them along the stem of the rose. We secured the leds with green electrical tape up that blended in with the stem color. Although we didint attempt the pedals falling, we did have the flower under a glass cover which was sitting on a pedastil. The rose was dimmed through a standard wall dimmer.I suppose you could use 12volt leds with some type of rehostat or somthing.

good luck

 

Im a stage hand looking for some help in the beauty and the beast play, We are having some time with the rose.

Any help would be wonderful