Marley's face

[MartyW]

I am once again doing Scrooge! the musical this coming Christmas. As I was checking out the BBoard, I began to wonder if you might have some ideas to share on how best to accomplish the face on the door knocker effect. In most Christmas Carol/Scrooge renditions, Marley's face appears on the door knocker of Scrooges front door. First year we did this with a cut out hole in the door, an opaque mask, and a back light. The next year we found a real cool door knocker with a face in it that we painted with black light paint and did the black light thing. We have seen fun house displays where there is a head that has a film clip projected on it, and where wondering if thats somthing we could do in the theater or if someone has a better idea.... any help would be appreciated...

 

Thanks

 

Marty W..

 

Till next we trod the boards...

[CPlater1]

http://www.dmx512.com/web/ref/shows/chriscar.htm

 

I know it isnt exactly as you asked, but the ideas given there are quite good

[Seano]

How about a "hollow face" illusion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow-Face_illusion

and a bleed-through, Pepper's ghost type thing.

 

I'm wondering if you could cast a concave Marley's face in plaster, and a convex door-knocker in some translucent (ideally half-silvered) material to fit over the top.

 

I guess some kind of plastic sheet, vacuum formed, would be the way forward for that, but I don't know much about these kind of materials.

 

There'd then be a hollow space between the concave face and the convex knocker. Lit conventionally from outside the knocker it'd just look like a knocker. But in relative darkness, with the 'face' lit from within the knocker - festoon bulb, little 12v halogen, LED maybe - the face would appear to be convex & 3d, thereby seeming to take the place of the knocker.

 

The added bonus if you can make it work, is that these "concave" faces have the eerie quality of seeming to follow you around, so from the point of view of each audience member who could see the effect, Marley would appear to be looking directly at them.

 

hth

Sean

x

[MartyW]

Thanks all... I appreciate the input...

[mike5]

I am doing a production of Christmas Carol and the whole backstage (and actors) have been asked to come up with ideas on how to get Marley's face as a knocker. We are an amateur dramatic society and so have a lot of older people in the audience which we are worried may not see it unless it is quite big.

Has anyone got any ideas?

 

 

Thanks.

 

Mike

Moderation: threads merged

[boatman]

Never done it, but try this.

 

Cut a hole in the door and cover it with a sheet of thin neoprene (wet-suit material). Paint it to match the door including the knocker and light it from directly above with a small pin spot. At the appropriate time someone pushes a dummy head through the rubber from behind the door and the overhead light will pick out the facial features.

[paradoxism]

Less surprising maybe but if there is an issue with visual impact then possibly rig a projector up to project onto the door and bring in a live video feed of marley's face projected onto the whole door. Comes away from the door knocker being the focus but would play to a larger audience. Otherwise just make sure that whatever effect you are using is highlighted by the lighting rig so taht attention is narrowly focussed on the knocker during that interaction.

 

A lot depends on the methods you use for the other spirit entrances - keep a good variety instead of using the same effect 3 or 4 times. You have plenty of artistic licence available as 90% of the audience know the story in the first place so the fact that you might do something different like a full door marley will be accepted as an adaptation to transfer to the stage.

 

My initial reaction though was similar to the other posters - some sort of stretchy fabric with either real or fabricated face pushed through. Just don't make the face too static - maybe a hinged mouth to give it some more animation.

[Andrew C]

Less surprising maybe but if there is an issue with visual impact then possibly rig a projector up to project onto the door and bring in a live video feed of Marley's face projected onto the whole door.

Projection was my first thought, but I'd not thought of the whole door. Maybe you could make the knocker his nose?

[Wuddy]

Hi,

 

Here's an Am. Dram. idea.

 

On your door, at the position of the knocker cut a hole the size and shape of a human head and cover the hole with a piece of grey gauze.

 

Onto the gauze paint a sparce line drawing of the Knocker so when front lit a styalized idea of a knocker is acheived.

 

Then your actor stands behind the gauze and is lit accordingly (from below accentuates facial features) when required, simeltaneously dimming the ambient light for effect.

 

The combination of dimming the ambient and lighting the face behind the gauze automatically draws attention to it.

[pantoman]

Less surprising maybe but if there is an issue with visual impact then possibly rig a projector up to project onto the door and bring in a live video feed of Marley's face projected onto the whole door.

Projection was my first thought, but I'd not thought of the whole door. Maybe you could make the knocker his nose?

 

what about a small lcd moniter set into the door ?

[boatman]

Looks like we'll be doing Scrooge this Christmas as well, so I'm just bumping this thread up to see if the OPs (MartyW & mike5) had any feedback to give us.

 

Edited: for SPaG

[smalljoshua]

My initial reaction though was similar to the other posters - some sort of stretchy fabric with either real or fabricated face pushed through. Just don't make the face too static - maybe a hinged mouth to give it some more animation.

As was mine.

 

When I acted in Scrooge a couple of years ago the set piece had the stretchy fabric in it which the actor pushed his face into.

 

Josh