Hanging Someone

[paulears]

To be honest Mike, If you find all the Blue Room topics over the years when there has been talk of lifting, hanging or flying people, there have been two constants. Hi-Fli and Foys. I think it pretty solid ground to state that whenever people ask about doing the things covered in topics like this, the posts always state DO NOT DO IT - contact the experts.

 

I can only use myself here - I've been involved in getting performers off the ground many time now, and although I'd like to think I am working within the guideline set down by the equipment provider, there are often 'worrying moments' - usually when a member of the production team, trained by the specialists when they installed the rig, do things unexpected. As an example a motorised system with a performer on a crescent moon, being flown by a powered, pre-programmed system. During the scenes it was used in, it did some nice looking fast flyouts and tracks, and some fast dropping, slow landing stuff. Everything fine, until cue 5, when for some reason the op pushed 7, despite having done it 40 times before. The fast drop started (should have been a slow drop and track) and the slow down and land didn't happen, because at that point some steps were rigged, and the frame completed it's programme exactly as programmed, onto the stairs. Damn scary.

 

The safety record of the equipment is assured, the two main firms have excellent staff, records and CV - no dispute there at all. In fact, they are so safe as to be not really part of this topic. Indeed, the entire topic sort of says DO NOT DO THIS, use the experts. We've had some good and bad ideas on hanging people here, but taking advice from an internet forum on this kind of subject is pretty crazy. The only answer for this kind of topic is to get people to talk to people like you.

 

Perhaps if the wording had been "any method (that you have considered) is very dangerous, that's why you need to talk to the experts" this would have been accurate, but I know what the member meant. You're in a very special position - being the exception to the sensible rule.

 

It would be pretty bad form for experts to explain in detail publicly, how they do certain spectacular stuff, not just from the commercial viewpoint, but from the safety aspect - sometimes the bodges created by our members are truly terrifying!

[steve1981]

I quite like the idea here of focusing attention on the feet, not the neck, and a good sound effect of the trap opening would work well for me.

 

Tthanks paulears, sounds like I may have actually got something right on here for a change. I got the idea from The London Dungeon if anyone has been. You follow Jack the Ripper through old time London and you eventually catch up with who they believed to be him. You finish in a smelly underground type room, then all of a sudden a trap door in front of you opens with a loud bang and a pair of feet and legs come dangling through. It looked very effective.

[librarian28]

I was really just being pedantic and challenging the assertion that it can't be done safely (depending on one's definition of "safe").

I would say, though, that if I were in The Gaffa's situation, I would probably consider nipping the idea in the bud also. I don't think it's unfair to suggest that students have less experience and there's a possibility of them doing something unwise. Or, in the pressure of performance for an actor or ASM to miss something. And even if a tutor has eyes in the back of his head, he can only be in one place at a time. If a firm hires a bit of kit and it is mis-used, they probably wouldn't bear much responsibility, but I guess that the college principal would be holding the tutor to account for his perceived lack of diligence.

 

As regards your anecdote, I'm sure some are wondering what procedures the management put in place following the incident.

[Roderick]

I was really just being pedantic and challenging the assertion that it can't be done safely (depending on one's definition of "safe").

Being pedantic myself, I don't think there is more than one definition of safe....

[librarian28]

I was really just being pedantic and challenging the assertion that it can't be done safely (depending on one's definition of "safe").

Being pedantic myself, I don't think there is more than one definition of safe....

 

My dictionary has 10 definitions. One is a metal storage box. Though I was thinking more along the lines of - "Is air travel safe?" Because our Joyce doesn't think so.

P.S. I'm not really pedantic myself - I was just being unusually so on that previous posting.

[Mispet]

my thinking do you need the actor at all, why not have a manakin in the actors place, thus the doll hangs.

[TomHoward]

my thinking do you need the actor at all, why not have a manakin in the actors place, thus the doll hangs.

We did once have a drama exam candidate who made his own manakin (for a piece about Derek Bentley) out of a pair of old jogging bottoms that he had sewn a pair of trainers to and stuffed with hay. When they came to drop the manakin, the inertia of the trainers proved too much for his stitching, they fell off and it dumped hay all over the stage. The audience burst out laughing and it was more hilarious than poignant.

 

(I'm not saying a manakin isn't a good idea if it isn't well executed.)

[JimWebber]

......... the inertia of the trainers proved too much for his stitching, they fell off and it dumped hay all over the stage. The audience burst out laughing and it was more hilarious than poignant.

 

(I'm not saying a manakin isn't a good idea if it isn't well executed.)

 

Well I would say that it had been well and truly executed...

 

Jim