Hiding Lift Lines for Hard/Soft Portals

[rochem]

Hey all,

I imagine many of us have dealt with combination hard/soft portals where the 3 or 4 feet surrounding the portal opening is a hard dimensional flat, and outside of that is a soft surround masking. Usually when I've done this, the soft goods want to sit just upstage of the hard surround so that the inside edge of the soft goods is hidden by the portal. When you do this, are there any good techniques for running the pick lines for the hard portal behind the soft portal, in a way that doesn't show creases from the cables on the soft goods? Hope that makes sense. Thanks!

 

[RonHebbard]

Hey all,

I imagine many of us have dealt with combination hard/soft portals where the 3 or 4 feet surrounding the portal opening is a hard dimensional flat, and outside of that is a soft surround masking. Usually when I've done this, the soft goods want to sit just upstage of the hard surround so that the inside edge of the soft goods is hidden by the portal. When you do this, are there any good techniques for running the pick lines for the hard portal behind the soft portal, in a way that doesn't show creases from the cables on the soft goods? Hope that makes sense. Thanks!

@rochem Perhaps I'm being obtuse. With a hard or soft valance (matching the house curtain) / Border (matching the masking) Header as the most DS piece followed by Your SR & SL hard portal legs followed by your SR & SL soft portal / legs I'm not seeing / comprehending your problem.
In both the installations I'm recalling, the most DS piece [the valance / header / 1st border however "they" were referring to it] was flown from the 1st system pipe with your SR & SL hard portal legs followed by your SR & SL soft portal / legs flown from spot sheaves above the grid, an absolute minimum of depth was required as all 4 of the portal legs were supported between the 1st & 2nd system pipes. I believe I'm recalling the manually flown house curtain on set 2 in one case and a motor driven set for the house curtain track in the other jammed in as set 2 or jammed in between sets 2 and 3. As a bonus there was also a surtitle screen flown from spot sheaves DS of the "valance" during opera's.
Line set 3 was usually left clear for breathing room / clearance with set 4 serving as #1 LX.
Whenever a road show rolled in and "demanded" to hang their 1st LX from set 3, we'd fly set 4 (our 1st LX) in, breast it US, fly set 3 in below our 1st LX on set 4 then breast set 4 above set 3 and store our unused LX over the road show's for the duration of their run.
Quoting Ricky Ricardo: "Splain Please"
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Rochem - trying to understand.
Do you want portal ds of masking because masking has fullness and doesn't look good against portal?
Are you using a decorative house set or blacks?
To be honest, when I was in design and production long ago, I always built portals to go out of is site, so didn't have the problem, and believe they should be first - most ds.

 

[MarshallPope]

I imagine something along these lines might work to provide a channel for the soft goods to sit in, though it might be a bit front-heavy.

Portal

• MarshallPope
• Jul 12, 2017

 

[bobgaggle]

I think OP is talking about build scenery, rather than stock venue goods. If that's the case, you usually build your portal tall enough to hide behind the in trim of the nearest DS border...

Unless you're talking about a different color main rag and valence, black AC will disappear in front of a black velour header...

 

[kicknargel]

I got 'ya, OP. Talking about a hard portal with masking around and above it, but you want to see the outer edges of the hard portal. So, the masking needs to fall behind the hard portal, except that would reveal the lift lines of the portal. Similar to MP's plan, I've done this by extending the skin of the hard portal past the frame a few inches, and tucking the soft goods in between the skin overhang and the lift lines.

 

[kicknargel]

Here's a photo of the piece.

 

[rochem]

Thanks for all the replies, guys! I guess I wasn't very clear in my initial post, so I've attached a quick 3D model I sketched up. I know I've seen this done a handful of times, but perhaps it's not as common as I initially thought. Basically, there's a relatively narrow hard portal, around which sits soft masking. The masking isn't just a black, it's scenically treated as an extension of the hard portal, so lift lines in front would be quite visible.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Well, you could hang on same line set and do what Nick suggested of slipping edge of soft masking behind a lip of face panel. Hung on same batten, it shouldn't be hard to stoll balance portal.

If you want then separate and definitely want soft behind hard portal, and especially if soft is special to show - bag the portal lines with same fabric. Works a little better if fabric has fullness but should be just about invisible. Try not to cross light (side) the bagged liftlines.