Ghostly effects

[JCTechy]

Hi there!

 

My first ever post but here goes.

 

This is a bit of a multiple question/plea for ideas from anyone feeling creative. Basically I am involved with a show based around a series of ghost stories and am looking for realistic, and preferrably old fashioned ways of producing ghostly effects/appearances. I have already looked into peppers ghost and begun to plan a version of this for one of the tales but need some ideas for the other stories.

 

Also I would really like......my director would really like, some real candles to go out on stage on cue......

Any ideas?

 

Thanks

[Brian]

Try and track down a copy of...

 

'Magic - Stage Illusions, Special Effects and Trick Photography - compiled and edited by Albert A Hopkins'

 

It's a reprint of an 1898 book detailing many old tricks.

[GridGirl]

First, welcome to the Blue Room! :)

 

You can do clever things with a picture painted on the gauze and something creepy behind it - light the gauze from the front and you see the picture, light it from behind and you see whatever is behind it - we used a skeleton. Real candles going out on cue could maybe be achieved with a well-placed gust of air - a burst from an air compressor airgun? The candles would have to be close to somewhere you could hide a stagehand with the airgun though! Phantom of the Opera has about the best fake-candles-that-look-real that I've ever seen, but doubtless they're expensive and I have no idea what they are or how readily available they are! You can also get good effects with UV paint (Rosco Invisible Blue is a good one) - paint a set piece in regular paint, and then paint something completely different in the UV-reactive paint (obviously you have to paint it under UV light!). Hit it with normal light and it looks normal, then hit it with UV and you get something completely different.

 

Something else to consider is that a well-created soundscape can add hugely to the atmosphere of a show - you can have a lot of fun with effects speakers hidden all over the place!

[JCTechy]

Thank you both

 

I shall go on the hunt for that book now and start talking to the director about some of the effects you've suggested.

 

Cheers guys

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

All the ideas so far are great! I welcome any more, the more options I have the better it is :)

[musht]

Syringes connected by soft hose make great simple air cylinders for things like books and objects pushing off shelves.

 

Pull lines do everything from the tablecloth flying off , to, with good sequencing the french doors blowing open with the curtains blustering up.

 

Halloween sites can be a great source of ideas

 

http://wolfstone.halloweenhost.com/Welcome/Welcome.html

[Ynot]

+ for the gauze and certainly the UV. withUV one option might be localised effect with a tight and close-up UV source - ie paint a secondary picture in UV invisible blue over a 1m sq panel and then hit it from close range with a decent sized UV lantern - that way you get it to pick up more of the UV reactance than say from a FoH mounted cannon.

 

It's a trick I've used before when I don't need the whole stage flooded with UV. And there are some half-decent LED UV fixtures out there.

 

Other ideas might be shelves collapsing - dowel pin pulled from behind the flat - or pictures falling off walls, (same mechanism). they key to a lot of these is the KISS principle... (Keep It Simple). Don't try to over-engineer the gags.

 

Oh - possibly use a kabuki drop to let creepy crawlies or bats etc fall on thin elastic cotton from the grid...

[JCTechy]

Thanks

 

quick release systems for shelves etc sound like a great idea, just used something similar to do a vine drop for Little Shop of Horrors so still got loads of kit lying around.

 

Anyone got ideas about my self extinguishing REAL candles? :)

[musht]

Anyone got ideas about my self extinguishing REAL candles? :)

 

 

Push or pull?

 

Lamp wick through artificial candle with pull line, pull wick back into candle tube to extinguish.

 

Push or more puff, air line , don`t need to to be big, run tube either internal to candle or in holder and air duster or similar pressurised source, not hair laquer ;-).

 

Is there not an effect used for Beauty and the Beast with Lumiere`s (?) fingers?

[Jivemaster]

Make your own candle with a very short wick, as the candle burns the wick burns when the wick is gone the candle goes out. Needs special making for each performance and test.

 

Take a reasonably fat candle add a small bore tube up the upstage side pass air or CO2 or water up the pipe to extinguish the candle. Completely resettable

 

Just drill a radial hole on the back of the candle through the wick close to the top, when the flame gets to the hole the puddle of molten wax should flow away and the flame go out. Drill a similar hole add 1 - 2ml water cover with wax, flame will go out when it tries to burn water! You may get several uses out of each candle

 

As ever real flame in performance keep it simple and test to prove it's SAFE

[JCTechy]

Excellent! Very excited director now, but please keep ideas coming. As I said earlier the more I have to work with the better :D

[Jivemaster]

Piece of paper with a design panted on the front, and a additional design painted on the rear. When front lit the front image shows, when back lit the rear image is added into the picture (look at a £20 note one of the "graphics" becomes £20 when viewed through the paper. Try Face on one side and specs on the other side.

[Ynot]

Another one that can be effective with a bit of haze. Drill a few holes, close together in a random pattern in the upstage flattage. Have a small 650W lantern on a dolly. At the appropriate time lower the on stage LX and light the backstage lantern, moving it behind the set giving you shafts of light that 'move'... A bit close encounter-ish if you get my drift.

 

The holes can be disguised on set within a pattern, but obviously have a suitable cloth masking to prevent stray light shining through unwanted.