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Making a man (but not his clothes) disintegrate


Watson

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For a play about an early-twentieth century stage illusionist I have to make a full-size figure of a man vanish. The figure will be wearing a head-covering mask and long flowing robes, which don't need to disappear: the effect is that the person is suddenly gone leaving mask and robes to collapse in a heap. The figure will be revealed from behind a curtain only seconds before the vanish and won't need to move about (though a slight movement of the head would be good).

 

An ideal method might be to have a lightweight head-and-shoulders form which the robes could hang from, suspended on a quick-release wire or similar. But I wonder if there's an approach which doesn't involve hanging from above: a collapsible lazy-tongs device raised from a base, with the head-form at its top? Some sort of telescoping pole? Perhaps even a blow-up figure, rapidly deflated?

 

Any thoughts will be very welcome. Many thanks.

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Is the curtain remaining in place? If they're horizontal opening ones could there be someone behind the curtain? I'm thinking literally someone holding a broom upright through the curtain (being the shoulders) keeping the puppet upright until the moment it needs to drop and they drop it to the floor, onto a mat if sound needs to be deadened?
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Ninjadingle, thanks for that. The curtains will actually be across an alcove, where the figure will be discovered. The rear of the alcove could probably also be curtained (maybe disguisedly so) which makes your idea very workable.

 

I wonder though if a falling broom might not be a little too apparent visually (as you say, the sound could be dealt with) - how about making the broom head (or the custom-made shoulder-form) detachable from the supporting stick, with a release at the operator's end? The pole/broom handle could then could be rapidly pulled back through the rear curtain once the release had been made. With luck, the flurry of movement and material as the figure drops would be enough to divert attention from the receding pole.

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If there are other characters on stage as this happens, you can use a distraction technique, i.e. some surprising sudden action which pulls focus momentarily away from the masked figure at the moment of collapse. Needs to be very well-timed, but will help to disguise the mechanics a bit.

 

Also, stretched bungee cord can help things happen very fast when tension is released.

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The curtains open to reveal the alcove with the figure "standing" there. Behind the figure is a board covered in curtain/black out material. In the board is a hole with a peg through supporting the "shoulders" of the figure. Peg withdraws, figure collapses. Head and neck of figure can be a two dimensional flat plate or wire frame which lies flat after collapse.

 

Not sure if that is the sort of thing you mean but it is simple and can be automated or done by a stage hand.

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Many thanks for the new replies. Andy_s, it would be appropriate to have a flash or similar to mark the vanish but logically it should be at the point of the disintegration rather than elsewhere. It could possibly still serve though to mask the withdrawing of the support.

 

Kerry Davies, what you describe is very much on the lines I'm thinking of, except that it would be good, if possible, to have the figure slightly away from the background rather than obviously (and suspiciously?) right up against it. This would mean something longer than a peg for the support mechanism, which could bring in a problem of visibility when it's withdrawn: it's not a huge obstacle but it is the reason why I've been wondering about a self-contained support-and-release hidden inside the figure itself. But I agree: simplest is almost always best.

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Many thanks for the new replies. Andy_s, it would be appropriate to have a flash or similar to mark the vanish but logically it should be at the point of the disintegration rather than elsewhere. It could possibly still serve though to mask the withdrawing of the support.

 

Kerry Davies, what you describe is very much on the lines I'm thinking of, except that it would be good, if possible, to have the figure slightly away from the background rather than obviously (and suspiciously?) right up against it. This would mean something longer than a peg for the support mechanism, which could bring in a problem of visibility when it's withdrawn: it's not a huge obstacle but it is the reason why I've been wondering about a self-contained support-and-release hidden inside the figure itself. But I agree: simplest is almost always best.

 

I was thinking more along the lines of a person drawing the attention of the audience by some fascinating or startling patter or some-such as per a magician's act rather than a theatrical flash. I saw Derren Brown do this last year - he did a substitution thing that baffled me at the time, but thinking back afterwards I worked out when he had distracted us all in order to make the distraction happen... all done with talk and misdirection, nothing in the way of pyrotechnics at all... needs a clever and imaginative director to pull it off, I guess.

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Alistermorton, thanks for that; I've been thinking along broadly similar lines. Andy_s I take your point but if the momentary glimpse of the figure can be kept just that - momentary - and if the collapse can be made to work as well as I hope it can, I think we could be bold and actually focus attention on what's happening rather than distracting from it.
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The curtains open to reveal the alcove with the figure "standing" there. Behind the figure is a board covered in curtain/black out material. In the board is a hole with a peg through supporting the "shoulders" of the figure. Peg withdraws, figure collapses. Head and neck of figure can be a two dimensional flat plate or wire frame which lies flat after collapse.

 

Or the shape of head & the shoulders could be balloons, popped by pins or pyro, with the sound "explained" by a small flash close by.

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MarkPAman, thanks for that: using balloons is an intriguing thought and one which hadn't occurred to me at all. I think it could work, though the robes would have to be very lightweight for the balloons to support them.
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