Schniapereli
Active Member
We have a local ballet company that rented out our school for their ballet performance of Nutcracker which will happen next saturday. For their show, they have 3 backdrops which they want to use (2 20' drops and 1 40' drop which is supposed to "grow" upwards). They thought this would be easy because our vice principle told them that we have fly space. This vice principle was drastically misinformed, seeing as we don't.
So now I am left with trying to figure out how to make all of this work. And, we have to make it happen in one week with a choir concert one Wednesday, a clogging dance company rental on Thursday, and have it be done by the matinee in by 10:30am on Saturday to be ready for rehearsals.
I have talked to the master carpenter at a local theatre about Olio or Roll drops, and said that would work best, but I have read other threads on here that make me think that is not such a good idea for me and my students to rig all by ourselves.
So, I tried to come up with an easier and less dangerous idea. I came up with a scrolling type rig, which I think should work nicely, but I have never really heard of anyone else doing it, so maybe someone else has tried this and found this to be a bad idea.
Here's a picture I made in paint to illustrate. Sorry if it is hard to read.
Our third electric would be lowered (our electrics fly, but there is no space above to fly a drop out), and have a pole attatched to it, and then put a sort of PVC pipe around it so the pipe is free to roll, and then we would put guards on the sides so it doesn't move except by rolling in place. We would also probably like to put another pole at the bottom that the drop could be wrapped around that could also turn freely, so that the drop is not just a big clumped up mess. We might also just make it wrap around the top pole, so there isn't a bunch of the drop coming from the top that we don't know what to do with. (It would make the drop move slightly forward as the roll gets thicker, but that's ok.)
One thing this scrolling idea would accomplish, is we would be able to make the tree drop grow, when an Olio drop would not make this possible. We can take the drop up and over, so it's as though we actually had fly space.
Then, to change to the other drops, we would tape them together, or fasten them in some other way. The drops are all 20' but our proscenium is 15', and so there would be 5' or so of material at the bottom that we can work with to make sure all of these are connected well enough. We would also make sure to scroll by rolling the bar with ropes, so that the drops raise up evenly, instead of just pulling on each corner.
So, in the end, we would have this 80' long SuperDrop that would scroll from one scene to another much like a color scroller.
Will this work?
Would Olio drops be a better option?
Any things that I could improve to maybe move in the same direction?
Thanks =)
So now I am left with trying to figure out how to make all of this work. And, we have to make it happen in one week with a choir concert one Wednesday, a clogging dance company rental on Thursday, and have it be done by the matinee in by 10:30am on Saturday to be ready for rehearsals.
I have talked to the master carpenter at a local theatre about Olio or Roll drops, and said that would work best, but I have read other threads on here that make me think that is not such a good idea for me and my students to rig all by ourselves.
So, I tried to come up with an easier and less dangerous idea. I came up with a scrolling type rig, which I think should work nicely, but I have never really heard of anyone else doing it, so maybe someone else has tried this and found this to be a bad idea.
Here's a picture I made in paint to illustrate. Sorry if it is hard to read.
Our third electric would be lowered (our electrics fly, but there is no space above to fly a drop out), and have a pole attatched to it, and then put a sort of PVC pipe around it so the pipe is free to roll, and then we would put guards on the sides so it doesn't move except by rolling in place. We would also probably like to put another pole at the bottom that the drop could be wrapped around that could also turn freely, so that the drop is not just a big clumped up mess. We might also just make it wrap around the top pole, so there isn't a bunch of the drop coming from the top that we don't know what to do with. (It would make the drop move slightly forward as the roll gets thicker, but that's ok.)
One thing this scrolling idea would accomplish, is we would be able to make the tree drop grow, when an Olio drop would not make this possible. We can take the drop up and over, so it's as though we actually had fly space.
Then, to change to the other drops, we would tape them together, or fasten them in some other way. The drops are all 20' but our proscenium is 15', and so there would be 5' or so of material at the bottom that we can work with to make sure all of these are connected well enough. We would also make sure to scroll by rolling the bar with ropes, so that the drops raise up evenly, instead of just pulling on each corner.
So, in the end, we would have this 80' long SuperDrop that would scroll from one scene to another much like a color scroller.
Will this work?
Would Olio drops be a better option?
Any things that I could improve to maybe move in the same direction?
Thanks =)
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