Hi everyone,
I am looking for advice on performing the transformation in an extremely limited setting.
Short Version: probably no fog allowed, no smoke allowed, lights can never be turned completely off, no body double, no flying, no trap doors.
Longer Version:
We're a small school doing a Jr. version with some really talented kids. We usually go all out for them.
Our original intention was to smoke/fog like crazy as we've seen on about 1 million youtube videos.
But when the fire marshall came in for a test run, we discovered that we either have no ventilation system in our performance space or the system isn't working. The smoke cloud hung in the air for about 45 minutes. Had we used as much smoke as we would need in an actual show, we would have triggered the alarm and choked the audience.
I spoke with someone about dry ice fogging, but he said the beast can't lie in it for the 30 second transformation because it is too toxic.
We do have room to kill the beast upstage and set foggers downstage, which would obscure audience view but separate the beast from the fog by about 15 feet. Is that workable? I don't know much about dry ice toxicity.
He can die on the stage or 8 inches off the floor, but the higher platforms on our set aren't visible enough to stage the death there.
We have no trap door capabilities.
Lighting effects are also severely limited. We are in a giant gymnasium with a large stage. At the second-story level there are turquoise glass block windows. They cannot be covered by anything except fireproof curtains per local law. So even though we can paper all the windows and doors at ground level, we can never truly go dark (2 out of 4 performances are daytime shows). We hire out for lighting (no existing setup) and he is willing to do whatever we need/want, so any suggestions for him are appreciated.
We do not have access to a lot of other students the same size and build of the Beast who could believably be his body double. For that matter, without smoke/fog/dark/trapdoor, I don't know how we would switch them even if we could bribe one of his friends to do it.
In addition, because we are a Junior version, we are locked into a soundtrack which gives us something like 30 seconds to do this (although I can probably extend that with Audacity).
The one bright spot thus far (aside from the talented kids) is the beast actor's ability to remove most of his costume while lying under a cloak and barely appearing to move.
The entire show process has been extremely frustrating because I feel like we have been unable to do anything that others have successfully done (in regard to costumes, scheduling, props, everything!). We are having to re-invent the wheel at every possible turn and it is such tremendous drain on time and resources.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!!
I am looking for advice on performing the transformation in an extremely limited setting.
Short Version: probably no fog allowed, no smoke allowed, lights can never be turned completely off, no body double, no flying, no trap doors.
Longer Version:
We're a small school doing a Jr. version with some really talented kids. We usually go all out for them.
Our original intention was to smoke/fog like crazy as we've seen on about 1 million youtube videos.
But when the fire marshall came in for a test run, we discovered that we either have no ventilation system in our performance space or the system isn't working. The smoke cloud hung in the air for about 45 minutes. Had we used as much smoke as we would need in an actual show, we would have triggered the alarm and choked the audience.
I spoke with someone about dry ice fogging, but he said the beast can't lie in it for the 30 second transformation because it is too toxic.
We do have room to kill the beast upstage and set foggers downstage, which would obscure audience view but separate the beast from the fog by about 15 feet. Is that workable? I don't know much about dry ice toxicity.
He can die on the stage or 8 inches off the floor, but the higher platforms on our set aren't visible enough to stage the death there.
We have no trap door capabilities.
Lighting effects are also severely limited. We are in a giant gymnasium with a large stage. At the second-story level there are turquoise glass block windows. They cannot be covered by anything except fireproof curtains per local law. So even though we can paper all the windows and doors at ground level, we can never truly go dark (2 out of 4 performances are daytime shows). We hire out for lighting (no existing setup) and he is willing to do whatever we need/want, so any suggestions for him are appreciated.
We do not have access to a lot of other students the same size and build of the Beast who could believably be his body double. For that matter, without smoke/fog/dark/trapdoor, I don't know how we would switch them even if we could bribe one of his friends to do it.
In addition, because we are a Junior version, we are locked into a soundtrack which gives us something like 30 seconds to do this (although I can probably extend that with Audacity).
The one bright spot thus far (aside from the talented kids) is the beast actor's ability to remove most of his costume while lying under a cloak and barely appearing to move.
The entire show process has been extremely frustrating because I feel like we have been unable to do anything that others have successfully done (in regard to costumes, scheduling, props, everything!). We are having to re-invent the wheel at every possible turn and it is such tremendous drain on time and resources.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!!
