Beauty and the Beast- Enchanted Rose

I just finished building my rose and I'm so happy with how it turned out. I started out with a base someone else built for another production of Beast. The base is hollow and has a piece of Coroplast on top to allow you to put a light fixture inside and shine it up into the flower. I couldn't find a decent sized "bell jar" to cover the Rose with so I went with a decorative candle/lantern thing. Cost me $30 at Pier 1 Imports. I had to cut the bottom out of it with cutoff wheels on my Dremel, so that light would shine up through it.
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I used the same basic design as "Yourbeekeeper" did in the Youtube video above. I tried to do the multiple layers of caps with the stop in the middle like he did in the video so that the wires don't pull through when you pull them. But he never really showed what he did and I didn't really have the tools or time to figure it out. I tried putting solder on my wire to act as stops but when I attached the outer cap the solder melted off and plugged the whole thing up. I took it back apart and simplified to just the 3/8" OD soft copper tubing shaft with a 1/4" ID cap. Drilled holes in the cap and didn't permanently attach it. Just shoved on for a nice snug fit (the fact that it had been soldered on and then removed probably helps make that fit really nice and tight. It'll take a little longer to reset between shows but not a big deal. I ran 20 gauge wire up the tube. This is what the top looks like with my design.
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I tore apart a $3 silk rose. Wrapped the tubing and cap in floral tape, used the floral tape to attach the branches and leaves from the silk rose, then used the same red 12 gauge solid strand coper wire trick "YourBeeKeeper" used in the youtube video as the stem. Did you know there's a little foam "bud" at the center of a silk rose? I decided to leave it intact so my last "leaf" to fall will be the core bud of the flower. It really makes the rest of the petals form into a beautiful flower. Here's the reconstructed flower close up. I had a really hard time getting all the chinese hot glue off of the petals as I was taking it apart. It shows close up, but not at a distance and the first row will be about 30' from my rose, so I'm not worried.
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Finally here it all is in the stand. When I get the paint touched up and get it in the theater with the light on I'll shoot a video of how it looks when it's working.
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This is a great solution! Can't wait to see the video!


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It worked flawlessly all but one performance. It's critical that you know exactly which wire is which and that you assemble the rose so that the outer petals fall off before the inner ones. In one performance either someone messed with the rose after I set it or I didn't do it right. Not sure what happened. My guy pulled the wire and an inner petal was released but did nothing because it was held in place by an outer petal. I had to make an unscheduled closing of the grand at intermission to reset for act 2. Got it working great the rest of the show. The way the guy built his rose on Youtube would be superior in that you wouldn't have to keep resetting the wires each show and changing the order. Unfortunately, he didn't show how he made the wires stop and I ran out of time trying to figure out how to make a stop that would fit into that tiny rose shaft.

Here's the video of my rose in Action. I put an old 500 watt Altman box zoom inside the base of the pedestal so every time a petal fell the rose lit from inside. Unfortunately it was a little too much for my phone to handle in this close up video. If you live in the Seattle area I'll be happy to sell it to you along with a crazy wood chopping machine.
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It's a bit of a hijack, but I figure if you are interested in the rose you are probably also interested in Maurice's Wood Chopping Machine Invention. So here's a video of the one my buddy built for our production.
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Well it's my turn to do B&B at my kids' school. Check out this video of a very clever, cheap, and easy solution to the rose I found.
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I did B&B a few months ago. Most technical show I had done yet. (It was a very old theatre that didn't lend to a lot of effects. Plus the board would never approve of some of the effects I wanted to do. It took an act of God for them to let me use a fog machine.) This is the exact video I used to do our rose. I also ran a flood light from inside the pedestal with a red gel that slowly dimmed throughout the show. For the final effect in that little tiny piece, I ran an output from one of my fog machines inside the glass dome and small strobe also in the pedestal that both went on when the rose died. Lots of wires and pipes running into that one piece, but in the end, it was totally worth it!
 
Does any one have a lead on either glass or plexi / acrylic bell jars? I need one for the Enchanted Rose I am building for my wife's school. Show goes into tech last week of Feb, so I have a little bit of time.

Happy New Year.
 
Went there last night. Our stage is layout makes the smaller domes a little difficult to see. I just ordered a 16" - we'll see how it turns out.
 
I got this one at Hobby Lobby. Spray painted the base and then added a battery operated led string.
 

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Hello ControlBooth,

Anyone have any idea where I can rent or buy a mechanical rose that is used in beauty and the beast plays?

I have come across a couple site but they either don't have them anymore or they are unresponsive.

Thanks in advance
 
I believe that most of our members have made the prop (there are a couple of threads on the topic). That being said, they may be willing to part with/rent theirs.
 
Here's what I did:

We used a show baby attached to some LED tape for each 'petal'. As the show progressed, one 'petal' would stop lighting up in cues. Pretty effective.
 
We decided to do it with a projection:
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