Ghosts Appearing!

[DickM]

We have a (amateur) performance of G&S's Ruddigore coming up early next year, and for those unfamiliar with this particular piece of contemporary drama ;) it includes a scene where the ghosts of several people should 'appear' from their portraits on the wall.

 

It's often done with paintings that are simply slid or rotated out of the way during a black-out or flash to reveal the people behind, but that's 'old-hat' according to our director who wants to be able to 'fade' between picture and person over a period of time (dramatic music), and is willing to spend a bit of money on new technology if it will help.

 

Just to make things interesting, we have no space under or over the stage, so lifts and flying are out of the question, and space behind the set is also extremely limited!

 

We've toyed with the ideas of using gauze, mirrors, projectors, and even plasma screens in place of the paintings, but can't really see how we can get any of these to work effectively, or within a sensible budget.

 

One suggestion was to use the same technique that is used in Phantom Of The Opera when the phantom 'appears' in a mirror and then somehow steps out of it. But, since I've not seen Phantom, I've no idea how this is done.

 

Has anyone had any success in making this a bit more dramatic than the usual black-out?

 

Cheers, DickM

[robert morley]

try making a large picture frame with the back sunk in enough for the actor to stand between the frame and the picture so when the actor steps out the picture there could be a outline already there in the picture to make it look like he has torn himself out of the picture or have a large print of a photo then on the scene before swap pictures if that makes any sense

Robert Morley ;)

[Jram]

Or continuing on from that idea, why not just make large 'picture frames' that have a recessed back to them.

 

On the back you paint a landscape of some sort, and the actor stands in front of this, frozen until required to move? Then, from a distance, the actor will appear to be IN the painting, as they will be inside the frame.

 

Kind of low-tech, granted.

[DickM]

Thanks for the quick responses... We do like low-tech-but-effective ideas, but perhaps I should have been a little clearer in my original description...

 

These 'paintings' are part of the set for the whole of the second act, and for the majority of the time they're supposed to be just that, paintings. They only 'come alive' for about 10 minutes, after which the ghosts go back into the portraits and the scene becomes 'normal' again.

 

So, have the actors stand absolutely motionless within their frames for an hour or so is just not going to be possible.

 

Cheers,

Dick.

[andy_s]

Or continuing on from that idea, why not just make large 'picture frames' that have a recessed back to them.

 

On the back you paint a landscape of some sort, and the actor stands in front of this, frozen until required to move? Then, from a distance, the actor will appear to be IN the painting, as they will be inside the frame.

 

Kind of low-tech, granted.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

low tech is often good!

the traditional way is to use a gauze reveal - the picture is painted onto gauze, actor stands behind (unlit) and a crossfade between front light and light behind the gauze reveals living actor. for the actor to step out of the picture, some way of removing the gauze is required - either flying it out, (which is not possible in your venue) or using curtain track, or having a disguised gap in the scenery that the actor can step through while audience can be distracted by suitably dramatic lightning flashes or sonme such device. chose thin actors, then the gaps don't need to be too big! I don't know how to do images on the forum but if you PM me I could send you a sketch of how the gaps might work...

[robert morley]

Or continuing on from that idea, why not just make large 'picture frames' that have a recessed back to them.

 

On the back you paint a landscape of some sort, and the actor stands in front of this, frozen until required to move? Then, from a distance, the actor will appear to be IN the painting, as they will be inside the frame.

 

Kind of low-tech, granted.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

;) that's what I was trying to say but you did it better

hope it all helps

[pete LD]

hi I have lit said show and the gauze worked fine. I assume you have enough depth to get a whole actor behind the pictures?

I used a pair of par 16s per picture.

I wouldn't go high tec it tends to go wrong when mixed with amdram actors!

hope this helps

pete

[mwp]

OK here's a pretty *brill* idea if I do say so myself but could be expensive and it depends on how many ghosts need to appear.

 

How about a very, very, thin cloth stretched and ironed across a wooden frame to act as the portrait frame. Behind the frame have a mirror and use back projection from a conventional PC projector onto the mirror and up onto the cloth.

 

Use some video editing equipment to film the actors before hand, and fade a still shot of a painted portrait onto the start and end of the movie.

 

Ensure that there is no spill onto the portrait itself from any lights above to enhance the projected picture quality.

 

Bit of a long shot but I bet it would look pretty good ;-)

 

[EDIT] - you could also hook up the laptop running the movie to your sound mixer using a jack to XLR lead so that the recorded voices could be played in sync. this could also allow you to enhance the voices with a bit of reverb ** laughs out loud **

[Jram]

These 'paintings' are part of the set for the whole of the second act, and for the majority of the time they're supposed to be just that, paintings. They only 'come alive' for about 10 minutes, after which the ghosts go back into the portraits and the scene becomes 'normal' again.

 

So, have the actors stand absolutely motionless within their frames for an hour or so is just not going to be possible.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Okay, two ideas - a low tech one and a hi-tech one.

 

Low: Exactly like I said above, but with a gauze/cloth on a curtain track that has the painting on it. The actors return into the paintings, there is some clever lighting/other effect and they pull the cloth across to cover the front of the frame - now you have your 'painting' which is static and will be for the rest of the show. The back of the frame is actually a door, so your actors can get out unseen from behind. If you make one side of the frame overlap the box, you will have a small recess in which to hide the wiped cloth.

 

<edit> You could always make the gauze permanent, by overlapping two pieces in the middle - your actor could then spread the gauzes apart and step through the gap. The problem then would be that you would have to paint them in situ, as aligning the two pieces while stretching them would be a nightmare - and constant use may make one or other piece sag and look weird.</edit>

 

High: Watch the Alice Cooper DVD 'welcome to my nightmare' because he does it beautifully. I have made all my mates watch this one effect because it is stunning. And I had the good fortune to work on a similar version just two months ago.

 

This takes precision timing, white spandex, and projection. Your actor is inside the 'frame' (a box as above), which has two strips of white spandex stretched across the front of it, overlapping but unattached at the centre - ie an actor can spread apart the two pieces and emerge, or go back in, and the two pieces will return to their positions.

 

You have footage of them 'frozen' as a painting. They come alive, and head towards the camera. At the point that they are about normal height, you do a 'jump cut' to an empty background. This can be timed to music, or cued. As this happens the actor emerges from the cloth and onto the stage. They then do what they have to do, and go back into the frame through the spandex, at which point there is another 'jump cut' (terminology?) to them walking away from the camera and resuming their original 'painted' position. You can freeze-frame this and leave it there for the duration. The actor can again leave freely from behind the spandex curtain.

 

It's a lot of work, but if done well it looks effing awesome - I think it's track 15 or so of the DVD, the song 'Escape'. If I had a burner I'd offer to copy you that clip :-/

 

The version I did was interesting but not great - it was an old charlie chaplin stepping through a movie screen upstage and appearing as a YOUNG chaplin, walking away from the camera in his inimitable style. Unfortunatley, the actor never got the hang of putting his cane in his LEFT hand, the hand the film chaplin carried his in!

[Jivemaster]

I Remember a topic like this a while ago about doors for dancing through. One answer was a modern smoke effect where the Gauze is actually literally a smoke screen kept in place with laminar flow air. Its freely walkable through and back as you wish.

 

http://www.fogscreen.com will be at PLASA show

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~ira/wave.html

http://www.infocomm.org/Newsnetwork/index....64971FBA9358204

[DickM]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far; both high and low tech are very interesting!

 

No one has yet commented on the 'Phantom' mirror effect I mentioned in the original post - I guess I'm not the only one who has managed to miss that particular show then!

 

On the low-tech, painted gauze idea... I was under the impression that if you painted on gauze it would lose it's reflective nature when lit from the front (because the paint would be darker than the original bright white material) so the audience is much more likely to see what's going on behind (as some light is bound to spill through the holes). However, it seems that some of you guys have already done this pretty successfully, so we should probably investigate this idea further.

 

Thanks again,

DickM.

 

Right, who do I know who's likely to have some Alice Cooper DVD's......

[andy_s]

painted gauze has been used to do dissolves like this for many many years and with careful lighting works beautifully. In fact I'd be very surprised if this wasn't how it was done in the original Ruddigore by the Doyley Carte Co. The "gauze reveal" was also an essential part of many pantomimes.

 

I haven't seen Phantom, but you might try a search for "pepper's ghost" which is an effect using glass and mirrors to make something / someone appear to be where it / they are not. (another old victorian or earlier stageing trick). You can buy acrylic or polycarbonate two-way mirror, but it's not cheap, and you would still need to paint the portraits on to gauze - using a mirror behind the gauze would allow your performers to be not directly behind the paintings, which might make their secret entrances and exits easier to manage, but you're adding another layer of illusion to eat up precious tech time as you try to get it right! I'd say keep it simple.

 

I think I've probably mispelled "Doyley" but frankly I don't care.

 

Oh and by the way, "welcome to my nightmare" is well worth a look as a very early example of theatrical rock shows - filmed at our very own Wembley I believe in the seventies. Also the first LP (seventies speak for "CD" or "MP3") I bought with my very own money - involving many hours on the headphones in the record shop before making the decision to purchse.....Alice Rocks...)

[pete LD]

I have seen Phantom and its not the sort of effect your after. its a mirror for a start! christine is looking at the mirror which is reflective and she can see herself in it and you can here the phantom singing. as he sings the line "look at your face in the mirror, I am there inside" he becomes viserble through it like a gauze bleed but using a thin shiny product. after he is reveled the mirror "glass" slides to the side to alow christine to wander through. as you do when a strange man appears in your mirror!! So joe public is sitting there so taken in by the music and the fact that the phantom appears they don't notice the glass slide out!

I would like to say that I have never worked on phantom nor been back stage that is how I think it works from a lampie in the audience point of view.

hope that clears that up

pete

[mac.calder]

<SNIP>

<edit> You could always make the gauze permanent, by overlapping two pieces in the middle - your actor could then spread the gauzes apart and step through the gap. The problem then would be that you would have to paint them in situ, as aligning the two pieces while stretching them would be a nightmare -  and constant use may make one or other piece sag and look weird.</edit>

<SNIP>

 

It does not necesarily have to be done in situe, you just need to sew the gauze at the top and bottom of the split together, paint then place.

 

I love gause.

[Jram]

On the Phantom front...

 

I saw it a good six or more years ago now, so don't remember too vividly how it was done. As I have an interest in magic and illusion (in how to achieve the effect rather than in performing it myself) I looked closer than most to see how they did stuff.

 

As PeteLD says, the glass slides to the side while the audiences attention is misdirected. I remember there being a lot of smoke in that scene too, to help disguise the fact.

 

Like Pete, I've never worked on it or seen backstage, this is just from a semi-educated observation.

 

As far as I recall, Paul Daniels was the Magical Adviser to the show.

 

 

And O/T I cannot wait to see Alice Cooper live again this year - fourth time and the first time he's had a support band I also want to see, in Twisted Sister. I love the fact I wasn't even born when people were buying his 70s records :blink: (sorry Andy!)

 

Back On Topic, kinda, - the live effect as he used it was: He was in a graveyard being chased by four ghosts/ghouls/whatevers. They put him in an upright coffin and closed the lid, he burst through the lid and ran out of the coffin, out of the film and onto the stage, the ghouls then also ran out of the film and onto the stage, before leaving the stage and appearing back in the film. Not what you want to achieve, except perhaps in principle. He used a cloth that was cut in many vertical strips, rather than just one gap for entrance/exit, but that was due to the choreography of that routine.

 

<edit to take in the above post>

 

It does not necesarily have to be done in situe, you just need to sew the gauze at the top and bottom of the split together, paint then place.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Surely though, when you go to attach it to the inside of the frame there's a danger of it stretching apart at the middle and the image becoming disjointed, if it's been painted over the join? Haven't done it, just curious.

 

</edit>