Quick and Easy Trees?

[JHWelch]

I'm the Technical Director at a Theatre summer Program and we are putting on a production of Into the Woods. We go up in less than two weeks and I think having a few realistic (as possible) looking trees would really help things. My team consists of mostly younger students, with a few older staff members who are not particularly experienced.

I was wondering if there was any go to methods to putting up trees that look pretty good that are relatively easy. Or just any creative Ideas. I'm willing to go more to the stylistic side of things if it is a good product. There are a lot of other aspects of the show I'm in charge of so I'm worn pretty thin, but short of cutting down a few trees and putting them on stage I'm at a loss.

Thanks for any help!

 

[JohnD]

You might take a look at post [HASHTAG]#10[/HASHTAG] in this thread:
http://www.controlbooth.com/threads/large-3d-tree.35744/

 

[danTt]

You joke- but I've seen a few successful productions with real trees on stage, the one trick is that you need to remove the real leaves, and replace them with ones that wont start falling off after a few days in the theater.

 

[Skervald]

I once attached long cloth tubes of varying diameters to round-ish plywood ends. The plywood ends kept the tubes collapsing and gave them a tree trunk shape. One end went to the batten and the other rested on the floor. The cloth I had on hand was brown and grey of varying shades. I added quick bark detail with paint after they were hanging. The cloth wrinkled naturally giving a little more texture. Leaf breakup/branch gobos in varying colors added to the forest feel. It wasn't a hyper-realistic representation but it was a quick, cheap way to build a forest. The ability to easily fly the forest out and have the trees "grow down" from the sky was an added bonus. We discovered it looked best when trees came down at different rates. The right lighting along with a little bit of low lying fog totally sold it.

 

[kicknargel]

You might think about 2D cutouts. With a nice paint job the can look nice, with a range of available realism vs. stylism.

 

[StradivariusBone]

A friend and I always help our music teacher wives build a set for this elementary music camp they do. We built a large apple tree from the book, "The Terrible Plop" (not a potty-training book mind you), that needed to have that 2D, cartoony feel. Built a support frame out of 2x4 and then screwed this purple styrfoam material we found at lowes for $8-10 per 4x8 sheet. It's usually for insulation in a small wall, it's about the thickness of drywall and weighs next to nothing, but it rigid enough to stand up essentially on its own. Each long end is tongue and groove, so you can put pieces together easy gaff them on the back side. It took paint like a boss. We needed something lighter than hardboard and wanted to build this thing like a hollywood flat and this stuff fit the bill. I'll try and find some photos when I get home and post if I do.

 

[StradivariusBone]

Here's the tree-

It had to be light enough so there wasn't a ton of weight overhead. We braced it and weighted the base, but the stuff was so light it really didn't need it.

 

[RickR]

For "Into the Woods" I suggest avoiding individual trees and going for the forest look.

 

[SHCP]

I used a combination of cut-out trees, paper covered "sonotube" type cylinders and large paper drops for our production of Into The Woods.
My tree technique is to wrap wrinkled building paper around the trunk. The branches are wrapped building paper around chain link fence wire and smaller cardboard tubes.
It's a pretty economical way to go. Use a lot of fire retardant spray.
I often stop by local printers and sign painting shops asking if they have large cardboard tubes that they can donate. I ended up with several regulars who donate the tubes to me several times a year as well as lots of cool plastic cutoffs and clear material.
My set had to have a large open area in front because another group needed the stage right in the middle of our production. As a result, I had to push everything pretty far upstage.
The big middle tree is rigged to fall over on it's side during the Giant rampage. You can see the safety cable.
Tim