dropping curtains

[techieguru]

our next production is west side story and from the transition from the drees shop into the dance the director wants pieces of red fabric to immediately drop on command, flying these in isn't an option because he wants it to drop fairly quickly. but we will be able to fly them out if anyone has any suggestions that would be great

 

thanks in advance

Taylor

[Andrew C]

The technique is ofen called a "Kabuki drop", have a look here for a few threads.

[Bryson]

I'm not sure if it is a kabuki drop, from re-reading the OP. Techieguru, can you clarify:

 

Do you want to have some red drapes up, that then drop to the floor on command, and are struck from the floor off into the wings,

 

OR

 

Do you want to have no drapes, and then drop a red drape in quickly, and then fly it out when you're finished?

[Andrew C]

I'm not sure if it is a kabuki drop, from re-reading the OP.

Hmm, yes, I see what you mean... And people say you don't need to be clear in what you write. Ho Hum.

[andyc]

I saw an effect on a rent ballet show I worked on where a red silk was dropped in as you described and flown out with a series of draw cords.

 

Basically the silk was tied to the bar as usuall, then severl drw chords were attatched to the bottom of the silk...along the bar and terminated hanging down at the end of the bar.

 

The cords were fed though a seies of small rings attatched to the silk runnin vertically at each drop of the cords so when they were drawn the silk was pulled up from the bottom and "bunched" up at each place a ring was sewn, just like how a blind works.

Very simple and very effective.

 

Hope you get the jist of this from my description.

 

Andy

[damian666]

there is various way sof doing things. a little more information/description on exactly what is needed?

[Grahame]

This sounds similar to the banner drops in Matthew Bourne's 'Swan Lake', where four banners drop on cue and are later flown out. I'm sure this has been mentioned in a previous post, but I can't be bothered looking for it.. ;)

What you do is make little U-shaped bags of canvas as wide as the width of your cloths and long enough to wrap round your cloth when rolled up. Attach wood battens to the ends of the bag, and put at least 2 screw eyes in each batten (more if your cloths are wide), facing 'inwards'. Tie one batten to the flying bar so that the bag is hanging downwards. Attach your cloth to the bar, and roll it up, holding it in place with the bag.

You will previously have tied a long line to the flying bar somewhere past the bag, and ran it off past the cloth bag to the end of the bar where it will drop into the wing. A pulley at the end of the bar is a good idea, and you can stop the line from swagging into view by a few short loops of string round the bar, or even large cable ties to act as guides.

Now; leaving enough slack in the end of this line, attach shorter bits of string to it where your screw eyes are, and tie the ends to stage pins that you will use to hold the two sets of screw eyes together.... you begin to see the picture?

On the cue, pull the string from your offstage position in the wings, the stage pins pop out of the screw eyes, the bag opens and the cloth drops. After the scene, simply fly the bar out to get rid of them.

You can make the fixing more secure by using double sets of screw eyes in the batten that is secured to the bar and fixing the drop end screw eyes in between the two 'bar' ones.

Hope that makes sense!

[techieguru]

that is exzactly what we want to do but could you reclarify eeh screw eyes and stage pins. I cant quite grasp the concept

thanks

[Grahame]

Difficult without a picture, but let's see...on the batten that is fixed to the flying bar, mount pairs of screw eyes facing downstage, each eye parallel to the other and vertical, with about 8mm space between. The other batten has single eyes mounted so that they will fit between the two on the fixed batten, giving you three eyes in a line, all vertical. The stage pin then slots through all three, securing the bag in place until pulled out. Add as many of these sets of eyes as you feel you need to support the width of the cloth.

The stage pins are all tied with short lengths of string to the longer pulling line, which runs off the bar.

Does that help make it clearer?

[chrisdavies]

good news, I have done a very similar drop. we used a sharkstooth gauze to project onto at the beginning of one of my last productions, and then 2 minutes in, the screen dropped to the floor to reveal a dance sequence behind. after spending a lot of time staring aimlessly at the drawing board, I came up with a system of using two solenoid release mechanisms. the release units are still available from flints, and I have a control unit with a safety key, load light, and go button. have a look at flints website, and see if their solenoids will work for you, though I am 99% sure they will. if its what ur looking for I can give you more details on how to set the system up, and I can lend you the control unit.

 

good luck

chris