Breaking a Window

[mikeburnie]

We are putting on a play called The Exorcism next year.

 

In the play the characters have difficulty trying to break a glass window but later in the play they do in fact break the window.

 

Obviously buying real glass and breaking it is going to be dangerous and therefore a no no and sugar glass looks like a pain in the preverbial.

 

Anyone got any suggestions as to how the effect might be achieved ?

[Bryson]

Sugar glass.

 

Yes, it's a pain, but it's the correct way to do it. The only thing is, it's pretty fragile, so you might want to do a sneaky swap of the window just before they break it, as the "aborted attempt" might be a little too successful!

[mikeburnie]

That looks like it could be a very interesting experience trying to make large window sized sheets of sugar glass, keeping it cool and stopping it from going sitcky and horrible.

 

Anyone any idea how long this stuff keeps for - I might have to make it all a week in advance as we have no way of making it during the week.

[T*ny]

Yes, it's a pain

 

Surely it's a pane!

 

 

 

 

 

sorry :P

[Bryson]

Useful link (Note, if you're squeamish, there's an unpleasant, but fake, photo on there.)

[JohnW]

You can buy the raw material already made up, you just need to melt it. I can't say that I have ever used it but it looks fun.

 

Good luck.

 

See here

[wycome5]

What about plexiglass which is rigged to break on cue and you can just piece it back together after the show.

[Andrew C]

I've done the show, but as SFX (there may be a saga in a "What went wrong" thread somewhere, I still get cold sweats). I'll see if anyone can remember how we did it, all I remember of the window was a Revox with breaking glass effect on it that I played instead of the door-bell.