Self Moving Furniture.

[Ninja]

Hi,

 

For one of my college's show this year we are doing a story based on four traditional ghost stories. We are hoping to use many traditional stage effects.

 

I was wondering if anyone had any information on making furniture appear "self" moving, or the best ways to make it look like it is moving on its own.

 

Also what would be the best object to run from a smoke machine that can billow smoke into the air, which would then hopefully have a projection on that should like a ghost appearing and then disappearing.

 

Lastly if anyone has any great ideas that they think would make the show even more eerie, scary and ghostly please do share them.

 

Thanks

Adam

[AndyJones]

Have a Google for "Pepper's ghost". This should give you some eerie effects to play with. sorry I can't answer the original OP.

[Jivemaster]

On a budget of 50p or £50K?

[GridGirl]

Easy way to have furniture move (in a straight line at least!) is to put in a false floor with a gap in it, and put a wheeled carrier under the floor with something sticking up through the floor to attach the furniture to. Create an endless loop of rope with the carrier in the middle, and it's very easy to hook one end of a sofa/table/armchair/whatever onto the carrier, put a guide pin in the other end, and then you can pull the rope from offstage and the furniture will move seemingly by itself! Not cheap though, as you have to build a raised false floor for your entire stage...

[kitlane]

It's fairly easy to make a rocking chair rock with a piece of fishing line. I'll let you work out the details for yourself. Usually the last thing you want to do when projecting onto smoke is to make it billow. It is impossible to get anything like a focussed image so the result will be just a blob of light (which might be fine but you can probably manage this with a gobo)

[Jivemaster]

Heavy furniture can become stage trucks with battery power and remote control as a scaled up model of a RC car.

Pins get pulled out with string or relays and shelves tip and things slide. Pins retract into walls so that pictures fall off etc

[timtheenchanteruk]

smoke as projection can be very unreliable, tried it a couple of years ago at our local, some nights it was ok, others the wind was just right and the draught removed most of the smoke.

 

really good when it worked, unfortunatly this was for onle 30% of the time.

[kitlane]

Heavy furniture can become stage trucks with battery power and remote control as a scaled up model of a RC car.

Pins get pulled out with string or relays and shelves tip and things slide. Pins retract into walls so that pictures fall off etc

 

Spring loaded door closers are fun, too. Use a couple of screw eyes, a hinge pin and some string to make a trigger mechanism and you can have books flying off shelves, ornaments breaking, cupboards opening etc.

 

This is the sort of thing I mean

 

EDIT: Added link

[Ninja]

Thanks for the replies everyone, really helpful.

 

For the budget question, its would be as cheap as anything can be.

 

Please keep the ideas coming