[blondy]

Our amdram group are doing a traditional Cinders and want flashes as the fairy godmother comes and goes. we arnt allowed pyros in the hall so have read some items on the forum it would seem using a stobe for the flash might be the way, can anyone suggest what type of machine and where I could best hire it from . We are located in the Southwest.

[Brian]

Or a vertical jet from a smoke machine with a bit of top light?

[Andrew Edwards]

clicky (for example). Which ever size you think suits the size of venue, lighting desk etc.

You could also use a disposable camera and a suitable length of bell wire to the shutter release if necessary. Quick blast of smoke and maybe a well timed sound effect...voila.
(some disposables need a button to be pressed to recharge the flash so make sure it is an auto recharge if you need multiple flashes).

[Wingwalker]

How about using a couple of molephay's?

David.

[Seano]

Brian, on 05 January 2012 - 01:44 PM, said:

Or a vertical jet from a smoke machine with a bit of top light?

Or CO2 perhaps?
Might even be feasible with a simple fire extinguisher (various caveats, risk assessment, blah blah blah) - or would that be too pyro-ey?

[bigclive]

Interesting question. An alternative effect to the traditional flash-pot or pyro cartridge to hide the actors appearance or transformation. Strobes are pretty unpleasant devices and could pose an issue with epilepsy sufferers even in short bursts. I like the idea of the CO2 fire extinguisher because of it's sudden high volume of short term fog and lack of pre-spitting that a smoke machine would have. More-so if there were a couple of ordinary 500W halogen floods pointing up the way to illuminate the cloud of vapour.

[ramdram]

Strobe unit, apart from the possible, even anecdotal, problem of induced epilepsy, may not be a particularly convincing as a replacement for a glittery pyro.

I believe we are going for the DBO (as Fairy gets onstage) followed by a reasonably swift fade up to open white spot, whilst the tinkly bells sound and glitter dust sparkles all around, as opposed to a snap displacement of Fairy from her normal ethereal realm to the corporeal.

On the topic, but slightly offside as in the SFX dept; we have the traditional "Fairy" doing her thing between changes...does anyone know the instrument which produces the tinkly bell sound whilst magic in progress interlude?. Plenty of free SFX on the www. but I would prefer to have the option of doing it live just in case the Fairy muffs it and the band can carry on doing the FX for as long as.


Ref the CO2 bottle...good visual FX with a lantern but would that not be a tad on the noisy side?



(Also anyone recommend a UK source of glitter/fairy/pixie/magic dust???)

[J Pearce]

How about an airburst of glitter from a non-pyro air cannon (co2 extinguisher?) with a nice bit of uplight to pick it up?

[IRW]

ramdram, on 05 January 2012 - 06:52 PM, said:

...snip...
Ref the CO2 bottle...good visual FX with a lantern but would that not be a tad on the noisy side?

Surely no more noisy than the usual theatrical flash??

[Brian]

J Pearce, on 05 January 2012 - 06:54 PM, said:

...glitter...

Just don't use the small stuff.

[J Pearce]

Indeed, I should have clarified I don't mean arts+craft glitter, I mean the big squares of silvery plastic.

[ramdram]

Excellent heads up on the glitter, thanks.

The CO2 bottles are a lot louder than you might at first think and a lot louder than a sparkly pyro for a lot(?) longer, assuming you did not mean the "banging" type pyro. In which case then you are of course quite right, they can be "jolly loud" (and I confess I've jumped even when I do the fire thing).

[GridGirl]

ramdram, on 05 January 2012 - 06:52 PM, said:

On the topic, but slightly offside as in the SFX dept; we have the traditional "Fairy" doing her thing between changes...does anyone know the instrument which produces the tinkly bell sound whilst magic in progress interlude?. Plenty of free SFX on the www. but I would prefer to have the option of doing it live just in case the Fairy muffs it and the band can carry on doing the FX for as long as.

A celeste would be my first thought - most half-decent keyboards should have a celeste sound if you don't want to get the real thing (expensive, heavy and fragile)

[Glyn Edwards]

We've always used a mark tree for fairy magic, so far it's been 100% successful

[ramdram]

Thanks for that GG, a celeste or possibly celesta(?) was mentioned but it appears to be quite large...and the local VH band consists only of 3 guitars and drums, no keys at all.

Mark tree is the actual kit I was looking for, having seen one when when Tinkerbell does tinkerbell stuff. Thanks very much for that Glynn, much obliged.

For them as interested:

http://www.music.vt....m/Marktree.html