Pyro Fallout Tricks

[Feedback Ferret]

Being panto season I am working on a panto! As with pantos we are using theatrical flashes for the Fairys entrance. We have just changed to a differant colour.... however this colour seems to cover the fairy in burning embers & she spends the duration of her speech coughing!!! I know you should not alter pyrotechnics in anyway but is anyone aware of any tricks to prevent the fairy beating the hell out of the pyro guy?

 

P.S She is no where near the pyro until seconds after it has gone off.

[Luke]

Could she perhaps enter a little more upstage?

[gareth]

Forgive me, but I can't work out how the fairy can be "covered in burning embers" if she's "nowhere near the pyro until seconds after it has gone off". A theatrical flash is an instantaneous effect of extremely short duration - if he doesn't get close to it until a couple of seconds after firing, I don't quite understand exactly what it is that's getting onto her if she's "nowhere near" the effect ....

 

Having said that, whatever the circumstances, if one of your performers is getting caught in the fallout of a pyro effect then you really have to move either your performer or the location of the pyro. All pyrotechnics have a 'fallout zone', which might be larger or smaller depending on the type and size of the effect - if you're getting people caught in this fallout zone when the effect is fired then you're doing something very wrong and you need to take a good look at your safety procedures.

[Feedback Ferret]

The problem is the dust in the air that remains after the pyro has fired, she is out of the specified fall out zone until after the pyro and it only happens with this particluar colour (Red). We are of course taking extra precautions at the moment and I dont think there is going to be anything else we can do to solve the problem?

[Brian]

I'm guessing you've changed from a standard Le Maitre Theatrical Flash to one of their Coloured Flashes?

 

The coloured devices do tend to have more fallout than the normal TF (which is a very clean device). As others have said however, this should be taken into account as part of your tests and risk assessment.

[gareth]

Brian is absolutely right. If you change from one particular pyro effect to another which has different characteristics (effect height, fall-out radius, effect duration, etc.) then you can't really just make the swap and hope for the best - you need to start again from the beginning, re-evaluating your operational safety considerations to take into account the characteristics of the new effect.

 

The answer to your question of what you can do to alleviate the problems you're experiencing with the new effect are fairly obvious, if you think about it - you can either relocate the effect or reblock the fairy's entrance (in terms of time or position) so that she's not affected by the increased fallout of the new effect ; or you can go back to the original effect and stick with your current positioning/blocking setup.

[Jivemaster]

It could be an adverse personal reaction to the smoke from the coloured flash. Boring I know but can you revert to the plain TF, If it works --stick with it.

 

Can you arrange a fan to blow the smoke away from the fairy's flight path, so that she enters after the flash but the pall of smoke is drifting away from her.

[Feedback Ferret]

A fan, that would work perfectly, that was so simple but excatly what would solve the problem. There is me trying to come up with a technical soloution but this would work much better! Thanks very much.

[gareth]

A fan? It would work for dispersal of smoke, yes - but in your original post you said that the problem was that the new effect had a tendency to

cover the fairy in burning embers

I wouldn't have thought a fan would help much with this particular aspect of the problem, surely it would just redistribute the "burning embers" around the stage towards other potential landing sites ....?

[Luke]

A fan? It would work for dispersal of smoke, yes - but in your original post you said that the problem was that the new effect had a tendency to

cover the fairy in burning embers

I wouldn't have thought a fan would help much with this particular aspect of the problem, surely it would just redistribute the "burning embers" around the stage towards other potential landing sites ....?

 

I.e The audience?

[Feedback Ferret]

All points noted but the stage is empty and audiance a fair distance away, will carry out tests of course before we use it in a show.

[Ellis]

After 36 performances of pyro smoke in the flies I am becoming a connoisseur of pyro smoke.

 

Different pyros have different compositions, each with a different amount and composition of smoke. All of it stinks, some gets in the back of your throat and can be quite unpleasant - when will stage crew realise that the reason the fly-boys are in a hurry to drop the preset in is because they really would like to breathe!

 

If your turn has problems with the smoke from the particular type of pyro you are using, you have 3 options:

 

1) Separate turn and pyro smoke by moving one or t'other and/or using ventillation to control the movement of the smoke (e.g. open the grid windows/vents to draw it up if you have a fly tower)

 

2) Change the pyro to one that does not have the effect ont the turn

 

3) Find a turn that does not have the same problem with the smoke.