Design You Can't Take It With You

[shakenblaken]

My theatre is doing the show You Can't Take It With You, and I am the Assistant Lighting Designer, and we are trying to come up with a way to produce fireworks exploding onstage, any suggestions?

 

[shakenblaken]

My University is doing the show You Can't Take It With You and the show requires fireworks bursting onstage, any suggestions? We are thinking about using real fireworks onstage, and if that doesn't work I need another way.

 

[icewolf08]

You could call your local stage pyro company. Othewrwise I would say fog machine, stobes, and fireworks gobos.

 

[derekleffew]

... We are thinking about using real fireworks onstage, ...

Bad, bad idea. NFPA 1126.
It's been forever ago, but I think when I did the show, we staged it so that Grandpa? was doing all his experimenting and demonstrations "in the basement." Thus the cast crowded around the basement door, through which I flashed red/orange/yellow lights. I also believe blank-firing pistols were involved.

 

[shiben]

Stage an OWS protest on your stage? The police can provide fireworks... But the real question is do you want the look of a fireworks display in the air or the effects on the ground?

 

[coldnorth57]

Do you want to see fireworks or do you want to see your actors looking a a fireworks display? Two very different things. I have seen the second in a play and all the audience sees is the red, blue and green light from the fireworks on the actors, I thought it was very well done.

 

[shakenblaken]

I want it to come out of a doorway coming from the floor, like they are flying in the room of the De Pena's House

 

[gafftaper]

In that case, flashing white, red, amber, green, should probably do the trick just fine, maybe throw in a little fog if you want some smoke to billow onto stage. I've used 4 or 5 scoops nicely for this sort of thing. Just setup a boom offstage pointing the fixtures through the door. You can either program a semi-random chase sequence or just use bump buttons to operate it.

 

[SanTai]

I agree with derekleffew!

Unless:
1. You hire some one with professional experiance with proximityfireworks on Stage. Certified means as always VERY little here. More is required.

2. You have high enough budget to do it. It is going to cost you a lot and trying to get away cheap might cost lives. The effects made for use on Stage cost a lot, and that is only the minor part on hiring a pyro company to do it.

 

[Van]

I agree withthe previous posts. Every time I've seen the show the fireworks have been staged in the basement, or, once I saw a production where they had a smoke machine behind the couch.

 

[shakenblaken]

It is more like shooting sparks from the ground going up

 

[shakenblaken]

I want to use pyrotechnics to produce sparks through the door I want it to look like the flash that the Phantom disapear's after "Why So Silent."

 

[DuckJordan]

Then talk to your local fire marshal. Your td and call in the pros cause this not a DIY effect.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

 

[shiben]

My University is doing the show You Can't Take It With You and the show requires fireworks bursting onstage, any suggestions? We are thinking about using real fireworks onstage, and if that doesn't work I need another way.

A real firework has a ridiculously huge airburst, I think some are hundreds of feet across. You could do some sort of Pyro shot, but I think lights are a far better idea. Far better, less dangerous/expensive, and easier in general.

 

[shakenblaken]

I was wanting to use pyro to simulate fireworks exploding in a basement

 

[mstaylor]

Actual pyro involves a licensed shooter, permits and the local fire marshall to inspect. It is much more cost effective to simulate it than actually have it.

 

[josh88]

we've got two threads on this mods, maybe want to merge them?

http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting-electrics/26585-you-cant-take-you.html

 

[Rem]

I did that show a year ago and used sparklers, and firecrackers for the disaster scene. The firecrackers were set off back stage, but they fly around enough you may get some flying out a door if you wish.

 

[mstaylor]

Shooting firecrackers without permits, a licensed shooter, a permit and an inspection by the fire marshall is illegal.

 

[waynehoskins]

Suspension of disbelief.

Use light, don't try to use pyro for this. There's no need for the danger and trouble of pyro for a brief effect that happens behind the door of a box set.

When I was in high school in the late '90s, I lit this show, and (though I wasn't a good LD at the time) we set up some P56s with color -- reds, blues, NC, that sort of thing -- offstage of that door, mostly on the deck. That's the approach I'd still take today.

You could write an effect on the board to suggest the "explosion", and I bet a burst of stage fog or smoke, or both, through that doorway might seal the suggestion.