Pantomime buckets of 'water'

[ojc123]

I want to do the pantomime bucket of water filled with glitter (or whatever) that can be thrown about. I've seen it work well and I've seen it work badly. Can I ask the combined wisdom of the Blue Room on how to get this effect to work well. I want the stuff (whatever it is) to go a reasonable distance rather than just make a little cloud of glitter.

 

My other concern is something that can be cleared up fairly quickly. I don't want the crew to have to slow up the action while they clear up, nor do I want to be picking up little bits of glitter for months.

 

There will have to be compromise and I'm prepared for that.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Jivemaster]

Flutter fetti? but a Kilo will not fill a bucket. Make a huge firework cake of tubes full of streamers that fire (CO2 or springs) on demand -streamers can be picked up easily

[bigclive]

This made me ponder.... Has anyone used a cheap snow machine to do a slapstick creaming of someone with no excessive mess? A snow machine built into a bucket with consideration of airflow requirements so that stuff just spews out the end of the bucket in a rather weird and random manner.

[SoLiEn]

An airzooka filled with flutter fetti goes a fair way I seem to remember...not strictly a bucket though..

[Andrew Edwards]

I've done it by sticking unravelled streamers round the inside rim of the bucket. With the right loading and technique you can get them to go out quite far and has the added bonus of no mess to clear up. You don't need a huge amount and perhaps could slightly weight the loose ends to increase throw distance.

 

(PS. make sure the crew member who gets the joyous task of unravelling the streamers doesn't leave the 2 bin liners full lying about to be collected up by the clearners!)

[ImagineerTom]

With comedy confetti, less is more - a handful of flutter-fetti will produce just a big a response as 2kg of any old confetti; You need just enough (and preferably glittery) so that there's a split second reaction when the eye sees the moving confetti and isn't 100% sure it's not water so makes the "victim" instinctively panic or duck. It's the moment of relief another split-second later that produced the laughter/pleasure.

 

In circus and proper clowning its more common to have a handful of satin ribbon (ie slightly shiny so they catch the light a bit like water) attached by one end inside the bucket in a way not dissimilar to andrew's streamers suggestion. In this instance literally a dozen pieces of confetti are all you need to add as again it's the split second of movement that triggers the audience response.

 

Clive - I've built a whole range of slapstick/gunging devices (including a gunge-zooka for audience gunging) which are essentially hybrid snow-machine technology. Been renting 'em out for panto's for 10 odd years; great minds :-p

[ojc123]

Thanks for the thoughts. Any others welcome.