Making something free fall / Phantom of the Opera discussion

[Eriksrocks]

Note: Spoilers for some effects in Phantom of the Opera follow. If you haven't seen the show, you have been warned.

I just saw the new US touring production of Phantom of the Opera tonight! It was excellent, although very different from the original in terms of staging. It was probably the most technically complex stage production I've ever seen, outside of Cirque in Vegas.

As you may or may not have heard, the chandelier in the new production no longer rises and falls from the stage in the beginning of the show and at the end of the first act. Instead, it is rigged at two points on vertical winches, and also is outfitted with a rather large repertoire of strobes and pyro effects.

I had heard prior to seeing the show that at the end of the first act, the new chandelier drops vertically onto the audience (stopping just above them, obviously) in a rather shocking manner.

I was expecting the chandelier to suddenly drop into a near free-fall, complete with pyro and effects on the way down, and a quick strobe + total blackout with a crash right before it appears to crash into the audience (there would be enough room left for it to safely decelerate in the dark). Or at least, this is how I would design it.

However, what I saw was a bit disappointing. While the pyro effects were certainly there (I had also heard that it released plastic shards of "glass" onto the audience, but I couldn't see that), the chandelier's "drop" was actually more of a controlled downward movement, with the winches alternating speed to give it a bit of a shake as it came down. Now, granted, it wasn't exactly slow, but it wasn't nearly fast enough to be shocking - in fact it almost felt a little gimmicky. In my opinion, the original chandelier was much more effective in that (at least from my memory), it actually looked like it was falling onto the stage. Watching a video of the original on YouTube, it appears to fall just as slowly as in the new production.

So I guess my question is, does the technology simply not exist to drop something as if it's in free-fall for a short period of time? Are there not any commercially available winches or motors within the industry that can drop something that quickly?

I swear I've seen this effect done before, whether it was in another production or within the theme park industry or somewhere else. Is it just not possible, or did the production team simply decide against a rapid fall for Phantom for whatever reason?

Thanks for any insight!

P.S. The new production also has a new vanishing illusion, and it is much more effective than the original, in my opinion. I won't spoil it here, but suffice to say it's pretty awesome.

 

[techieman33]

Sure it would be possible. There are potential cost and safety problems that go with that fast decent and sudden stop though. The system itself would be a lot more expensive to design and build. I imagine certain components would have to be replaced much more frequently as well. As they say it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the bottom. The same is true for machinery. The safety aspect is more about the audience then the chandelier itself. Yes almost everyone knows the chandelier moves in the show, that doesn't mean people won't panic if they think it's falling for real though.

 

[Eriksrocks]

Yeah, I realize the sudden stop could be an issue, although I would think it could be designed such that the blackout is early enough and the chandelier has enough time to (relatively slowly) decelerate so that there aren't crazy stresses applied every time the chandelier hits the bottom of the rig.

 

[Amiers]

You mean kind of like this? We had this setup for us when we did POTO. I agree it was very invovled for what little it did but it got the point across to the audience and they enjoyed it.

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[soundman]

So I guess my question is, does the technology simply not exist to drop something as if it's in free-fall for a short period of time? Are there not any commercially available winches or motors within the industry that can drop something that quickly?

Half ton chain motors doing 64 FPM are common. With a little hunting you can find some chain motors that will do 128 FPM at 1/4 ton. FTSI's M winch will do 75 feet a second or 900 FPM. So you can get an object moving pretty damn quick. Think about the average venue there is maybe what 60 or 80 feet of travel for the chandelier? Doing that in a second would mean that there would be a good chance people would miss it. By the time it gets moving and blacked out some people would have just started to turn their heads. Accelerating something towards the ground is easy, but the faster the top speed is the sooner you have to start ramping it down to avoid a shock load on the system, meaning the move would get even shorter. Also what would happen in an estop situation? A rigger would have to take that into account when giving the building the point load for the show. During a normal move it might not see more than 110% of the load but an estop at full speed could double or triple that, and in a touring situation that can make it real hard to find a place to hang it.

As one of my design professors liked to say just because you can doesn't mean you should. When I saw the touring show ten years ago I thought it was pretty slow to fall but remember this is live theater not a big budget action movie.

To answer your question, the technology exists but either due to budget restrictions or choices made by the creative team it was not used for this show.

 

[Eriksrocks]

You mean kind of like this? We had this setup for us when we did POTO. I agree it was very invovled for what little it did but it got the point across to the audience and they enjoyed it.

This is closer to the movement in the original touring production, but I would still cause this rather slow. Pretty impressive for a regional production though.

soundman, thanks for the response. You raised some issues that I didn't think about, like loads during an e-stop. I guess the fact that the show has to tour makes it that much harder.