legally blonde the musical trap door and tracks

[tinygiant]

hi,

I have been looking at the set design of legally blonde the musical (plenty of videos on youtube) and they have a big trap elevator thing centre stage. they also have lots of tracks for the set to move on and off. I understand vaguely how the trap lift works and I understand (again) vaguely how the tracks work. but there are several parts where the tracks run over the lift.

 

EG (this is just before the song 'positive') there is a door upstage centre, the chorus has just been brought to the stage via the trap lift. they are now in dialogue with other characters and while this is happening the door moves downstage on to the lift. it then goes down and the stage closes after.

 

I dont understand how this can work because I thought it was a continuous cable running through the stage but that way it must be severed when the lift goes down.

 

anyone got any ideas as this is really bugging me and I would like to put the same thing in my model theatre but cant work out how.

 

thanks,

alex.

[kitlane]

Probably not a cable driven truck. Maybe it has a friction drive motor. Maybe it is something like this http://www.visualact.net/

[blackbird]

I believe it is cable driven, but from the upstage edge which prevents it from having to cross the trap.

[kitlane]

So if the door goes down on the lift it must decouple from the cable. If so, I wonder if it is some clever electromechanical system or just someone pulling a pin?

[tinygiant]

So if the door goes down on the lift it must decouple from the cable. If so, I wonder if it is some clever electromechanical system or just someone pulling a pin?

 

yeah that's what I was thinking but the set peices are not light though they weigh loads! especially as the door that I put in the example also spin on it's own motor as well. its baffling ** laughs out loud **.

[Smiffy]

I just found a clip that seems to show the offending items.

 

It puts me in mind of the Castle Truck from Beauty and The Beast, which was all sorts of clever (travelling downstage, rotating, and changing its rake in the process, as well as housing all the kaka to transform the beast and all of the batteries and wireless DMX kit for the set lights). I believe that that was essentially friction drive, however it was also self steering, and if I recall correctly, even had a wee GPS type thingy so you could park it where you wanted. That was over 10 years ago, so it wouldn't be at all surprising to find that it has since been much improved and put into good use on Legally Blonde, allowing the traps to be an entirely self sufficient and completely independent item without the need for cunning (and therefore most likely unreliable) disconnection mechanisms for cable drives. The truck on Beauty was a HELL/Brilliant Stages collaboration IIRC.

 

HTH

 

Cheers

 

Smiffy

[kitlane]

So basically, something along the lines of the Visual Act product I linked to in my earlier post.

 

Could you post a link to the clip you found please?

[Smiffy]

Your link to Visual act just took me to their home page, and although not really knowing the company at-all, I would imagine it could be something that they would produce, looking at the sort of thing they do.

 

The original Clip I saw was the UK version and I couldnt make out any Tracks. This is the US version and there looks to be a few tracks although again, I suspect the main truck to be of the FD variety.

 

 

Cheers

 

Smiffy

[b-phillips]

Sorry about the late reply, I have just come across this thread and hope I can answer some of your questions. I am Head of Automation on Legally Blonde at the Savoy. As you may or may not know the London production is scaled down in comparison to the original Broadway production.

 

Our show deck is made up of a lift with drop & slide, much like you can see in the video and 4 floor tracks. Its very difficult to see in the clip exactly where the tracks are. However we use a door identical to the one you can see, but ours doesn't travel down on the lift due to space sub-stage. The door truck we use is manually pushed downstage and returned upstage in the same way. I can only assume this is how they achieved this in America, possibly with a guide track running over the lift itself to simplify aligning it correctly. The crew could then have exited upstage through the black sliders which you cant see in the video, before the lift travels down (hence the small delay).

 

As Kitlane mentioned if may have been achieved using friction drive, but I doubt this is particularly cost effective mainly due to the wireless control and batteries required.

 

Please do let me know if you have any further questions,

 

Ben

[tomrbland]

due to space sub-stage.

 

Or serious lack of as I remember!

 

Dam you Ben, I was reading down this thread thinking "yay finally something I can contribute to" then I discovered you beat me too it. I was the guy that came from Autograph to watch Mark mix a show last month. Please pass on my thanks for taking me for the evening, and my A-level results turned out well - I'm off for a degree in Sound, Light and Live Event Tech.

 

BR

Tom

[kitlane]

- I'm off for a degree in Sound, Light and Live Event Tech.

 

BR

Tom

 

See you in September

[tomrbland]

Cheers, I'm looking forward to it.