Tis the season to cover the stage in snow

DGotlieb

Active Member
What are some of your favorite techniques for puts snow on you stages.

I am talking anything from falling snow; snow machines, snow bags, snow drums.
But also making your stage look covered in snow; Snow banks, snow on trees, snow frosted windows etc.

I personally hate snow machines (to noisy) and prefer snow bags, my artist director is the exact opposite.

I have tried using the white cotton fluffy sheets they sell at big box stores for snow banks on the stage they look good during tech but anything near actor traffic patterns is destroyed by opening night.

Snow in a can products from the Xmas supply section also looks OK as long as no one touches it.
 
I prefer a snow tube and shredded plastic or paper snow.
There was a post recently about the Old School snow used in Wizard of Oz... it was asbestos.
 
Is everyone on the planet doing Almost, ME right now? :D I'm trying to brainstorm a walkable slope bank with a platform. Not a big slope but a taper from about 5" off the deck to the floor. Thinking of cutting plywood ribs with a taper and covering with more plywood then coating with dope or the like. Just worried about traffic. Set design would be a lot easier if it weren't for the actors having to actually use the set.
 
I'm actually working on Nutcracker, the straight play. It's... not good. So I am personally looking for way to add small piles of snow that are on steps. A snow covered xmas tree. and windows covered in frost.
the windows last time we did black window screen and then "snow in a can" spray which looked ok until someone touched it and then least marks in the frost.

But mainly I am just opening up the topic for discussion across the board because I'm sure soon a large chunk of the forum will be working on some show involving snow in some way. So just opening up for any one to share stories about things that went well or terrible working with "snow".
 
I can tell a horror story that's embarrassing; remember this was long ago when I was young and dumb. Was doing a winter-themed walk-through environment and the AHJ would have nothing to do with polyester batting snow blankets, so we built a frame, covered with aluminum foil to make slopes, then sprayed with drywall mud through a hopper gun and sprinkled glitter. The good news was this was the last event in the venue before being bulldozed, so strike and cleanup weren't a problem.
 
For "Terra Nova", a GREAT show BTW, we did a super heavy military grade canvass ground cloth with a white and bluish snow paint job on it. We had to be able to drag the sleds across it so we needed something resilient It worked really well. The glaciers, boulders, and other ice features were covered is Visqueen and then over sprayed with White and blue it looked so much like Ice it was astounding... as long as no one touched it. That's always the deal with snow; you can make drifts out of sculpted foam but the minute Tiny Tim whacks it with his little crutch and it gives out that polystyrene squeak the jig is up.
 
We did White Christmas last year and had it snow on stage and in the audience. On stage we used fishing nets filled with cut up plastic bags. The crew was up on the catwalk and shook the bags over the stage. It ended up being more practical than hanging homemade snow boxes. In the audience we used ground Styrofoam that looked more realistic close up than the bags did. All in all it was a really affordable solution that was received well by the audience.
 
Is everyone on the planet doing Almost, ME right now?

You mean the top most produced high school play for at least the past five years? Yes!

Almost Maine Set.JPG
We started off with a 8' x 8' snowbank stage right, but then the stage looked weird, so we continued the snowbank all the way across the stage. Built with a wooden skeleton then used a roll of white plastic table cloth to cover it, and then added the roll of batting. Once it was together we 'roughed up the batting to give it texture. I don't believe this was the finished product, but it was pretty close.

20171117_205609.jpg
 
For "Terra Nova", a GREAT show BTW, we did a super heavy military grade canvass ground cloth with a white and bluish snow paint job on it. We had to be able to drag the sleds across it so we needed something resilient It worked really well. The glaciers, boulders, and other ice features were covered is Visqueen and then over sprayed with White and blue it looked so much like Ice it was astounding... as long as no one touched it. That's always the deal with snow; you can make drifts out of sculpted foam but the minute Tiny Tim whacks it with his little crutch and it gives out that polystyrene squeak the jig is up.

Did that show in college and agree with your review. Great show. We also tackled the snow the same way.

Another way I've done is is build snow dunes/drifts in different sizes all around the stage and paint the stage white with textures. That way the dunes can be plywood ribs with chicken wire and canvas and shapes/form can be a little more fluid vs having to make them all weight bearing.
 
I have only ever done dry snow for budget reasons. I have a huge box of fake snow and then I built three snow bags with some heavy muslin. I made them in 10, 15, and 20' lengths and they zip together. That way I can have snow in lengths of 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, or 45'. They are 3' wide, hang between two battens, and the upstage side has v-slits in it so when you toggle the upstage batten up and down it lets snow fall through the slits.

I also have another bag with much larger slits that I built for larger flower petals and leaves so I can do things like autumn leaves falling, cherry blossom petals, daffodils for when we did Big Fish, etc.

I also have an old-school half-round snow shaker with hardware cloth that I refuse to use. No matter what you do, it drops snow all the time giving away your effect before you need it.
 

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