Desperately seeking techniques for "growing a garden before your eyes"

[designmtp]

Hello all,

I am a scenic designer currently in pre-production for two shows that require a "garden to grow before your eyes", or shall I say directors that require this effect. "Rapunzel" - featuring a small garden that appears to flourish in sight of the audience, and "The Secret Garden" In which a large scale English garden appears to bloom before our eyes. (I am aware that this is not a typical aspect of this show, but alas, I would like it to go down in history anyway).

I have searched high and low for a practical application of, or a simple solution to, such a thing, with no luck. I have some ideas that will be listed later in the post, but would love your input or success stories. The budget (at least for one of the shows) is fair, so employing small, simple hydraulics is not out of the question.

Most of these are regarding the larger production of "The Secret Garden".
Note: Trap space is limited to Center Stage. Projections may not be used.. sigh. The "ghosts could possibly operate each individual mechanism. There must be a fair amount of believable growth.

The obvious:
1 - Connect various pick points and fly "vines" up into the air
-The problem, of course, being that the cable will either have to be preset or
attached in full view of the audience, and will not easily allow for fluid transitions.

2- Double length scrim - A longer than normal scrim is plain on the top section and piled on the deck. It is flown out slowly to reveal the bottom half with sewn in trees/foilage/etc.
-The problem - this could be kind of goofy and may not accurately portray the
organic growth feeling I want, and there must be at least as much action
downstage... ideas?

The not so obvious:
3- Spiral Topiaries - Attached to telescoping poles inside of pots, a la a barber's chair.
-The problem- Where does one get such a hydraulic pole, and how does one control
it?

4- Umbrella/Reverse Umbrella - a slowly expanding, umbrella type mechanism that slowly opens to represent blooming.
-The problem- similar to problem 3

5- 1/2 Chinese Lantern - Spherical shrubs open from a flattened position
-The problem- similar to problems 3 & 4

6- The Magic Cane - Similar to a magicians cane, flowers/trees are revealed by pulling a telescoping tube down while the flowers inside it expand upon release.
-The problem- again, finding the tube, controlling it, and disguising it organically

7- The Dream Tree - An organic looking dead tree magically grows leaves and flowers
-The problem- obvious. Akin to finding leprechaun blood or a unicorn.

And various versions of all such things. The overlying problem throughout is that it should take place at a slow to medium speed. Some items may burst into life.

I have read the beanstalk threads, and the nutcracker threads, but they aren't quite helping.

Alright, ye geniuses, any info you have regarding small hydraulics/electrics would be a life saver.

Thank you all, in advance, for your time and thought.


Designmtp
Scenic Designer

 

[Van]

I think a few of your listed ideas are doable as well as at least one other I can think of. Using something like a hydraulic jack whic has tubes within tubes may be possible, you could even have them appear to go from bushy, young shrubs, to fully grown spiral cut topiary. Another version of magiclly growing flowers is to run stiff wire through pvc at the base of each flower you install a 90 degree elbow to a 'Y' fitting comming off the straight pvc. you hook a silk flower to a stiff nylon or polypropylene hose the hose goes down the elbo and you tape it to the stiff wirewhen you push or pull the wire the flower "grows " up or down. using Magicians type collapsable flowers will let you have them magically open before everyones eyes.
If this explaination isn't clear let me know I can try to sketch something.

 

[designmtp]

Thank You, Van! I see what you are saying and will add the flower trick to my list. Now, how to make 100 of them bloom simultaneously, becomes the next challenge.

My recent trouble in the topiary department has been to find an appropriate telescopic cylinder/actuator that will be small enough to be affordable, be it pneumatic, hydraulic or electric, that has a slow rise and such a long (6'-8') stroke. I have seen small versions of them on haunted house supply sites, but they tend to snap out at lightning speed.

Does anyone know where I might find (or cannibalize) such a device? It seems to me that I'd prefer electric, so as to run them from a hot-patch.

 

[sk8rsdad]

I've done something on a smaller scale for Christmas pantomimes using pneumatic tubing and a piston to push silk flowers from a tube. It had several of these pistons connected to a manifold with varying lengths of tubing. The air source was an old inner tube. When pressure was applied to the tube the flowers would emerge at varying times depending on the length of tubing and how tightly packed they were.

 

[FatherMurphy]

For your linear actuator, you might try a variation on a screw jack - attach a motor to the end of a threaded rod, and have a guide rail along the rod to prevent a threaded bracket from spinning. As the motor turns, the bracket will travel from one end to the other. Add gear reductions and limit switches to taste, let rise at room temperature for at least three hours, and bake in a oven preheated to 400 degrees until brown (oops, went into cooking mode there).

Model railroad suppliers sell slow speed DC motors for use in track switches that are built to stall for hours on end - attach a rod perpendicular to the shaft, attach Magicians' Flower actuator to rod, and off you go. Might have to experiment a bit to find a motor with the proper amount of oomph. Stall motors might work with the screw jack mentioned above, and save on limit switches.

Gas cylinders might be an option, similar to the ones that hold up hatchback car and pickup topper lids. Use a solenoid to lock them in the retracted position, and pull the solenoid to let them extend.

There are spiral lift and ribbon lift units out there for large platforms that need to travel longish distances without benefit of a cylinder well, but nothing that I know of that's small enough for what you need. The ribbon lift is three metal tapes with hooks on the edges that lock together to form a triangular column, something like a three-sided zipper.

Another thought is inflatable scenery, but the noise factor of fans might be an issue.

Your Chinese lantern idea suggests chinese fans, perhaps even ones covered in netting instead of paper, allowing flowers/leaves to be applied like on a netted cut drop. Mount vertically, opening l/r, and let the ghosts deploy them, or perhaps a mechanism for remote control.

Colored gobos/projections on scrim panels come to mind, but may not be substantial enough to look 'real'.

 

[Van]

Here's a REALLY quick sketch. notice the nylon/poly tubing goes down each upright tube and tapes onto a central piece of tubing that runs the length of the gag.

 

[mstaylor]

FatherMurphy kind of threw away projection at the end of his post, but couldn't that be a viable solution? You could have whatever plants you want on timelapse and let it go away.

 

[Van]

FatherMurphy kind of threw away projection at the end of his post, but couldn't that be a viable solution? You could have whatever plants you want on timelapse and let it go away.

Don't think that would work for an entire stage. it would be great maybe for a background effect. but I believe the OP was for an all over the stage effect.

 

[mstaylor]

Good point, I guess you could do the whole cyc but would require overlaying several projectors, which may be more trouble than it's worth.

 

[FatherMurphy]

Edge blending several projectors together on a cyc would be easy enough, but I was assuming the OP wanted several layers on stage, so that it was a multi dimensional garden, not just a backdrop. Thus, several layers of screens would be needed, and they'd have to be transparent for the dead garden, yet opaque for the growing garden. That, along with the light levels needed, both in terms of projector brightness, and stage lighting adjusted to not wash out the projectors, makes projecting a garden kind of tricky. I'm also assuming that the garden is supposed to be hard-real when done, not ghostly-image real... the show already has plenty of ghosts in it.

 

[blackisthenewblack]

Your Chinese lantern idea suggests chinese fans, perhaps even ones covered in netting instead of paper, allowing flowers/leaves to be applied like on a netted cut drop. Mount vertically, opening l/r, and let the ghosts deploy them, or perhaps a mechanism for remote control.

If you used a Chinese fan device, mounted from the middle, arms controlled with small motor, the fan out could take a while and depending on the scene, start as a dead tree, with the leaves unfolding on the tree. This would work better with the leaves mounted on netting or scrim that would unfold overtop of "dead" branches. Another solution would be to mount from the top of the tree and work upwards with the unfolding life.

 

[csilvia9]

I don't know if this helps but I saw two shows in the past year with growing foliage. The first Walking With Dinosaurs, had inflatable plants and flowers the grew along the edge of the stage. Problem is making all the inflatables.
The second show was Cirque du Soliel's OVO, they had giant flowers the bloomed over the stage. These looked to be air actuated. You should be able to control the speed on any air cylindar with a flow valve. Hope this helps