Raising the curtain...s
Thu, 7 Dec 2006, 08:10 amkarlae7 posts in thread
Raising the curtain...s
Thu, 7 Dec 2006, 08:10 amHi,
Got a question... I've got a stage, it is circular but not rotating and is 6m in diameter. The stage is divided into 4 sections by scrim curtains, so imagine a pie with four slices cut out of it.
I need a method of raising or drawing these curtains either horizontally or vertically at a slow pace, as they are acting as a 'mental barrier' which is lifted.
The budget is $10,000, so not much in the grand scheme of things. I know I could use a pulley system, and rig it myself or get Showtech to do it, but the pulleys would need someone to pull them obvious, and we only have 2 SM's, myself and one other, but I'm going to be operating lights. Hiring extra crew isn't really an option as the directors are paying for us all to get to Adelaide.
I'm also trying to decide whether to use 4 seperate small curtains, or to use 1 long curtain to cover the diametre and then 2 smaller curtains to cover the radius??
What do you all reckon? How shall I tackle this beast?
different directions
Thu, 7 Dec 2006, 12:02 pmthere is a couple of directions (literally) I think you could take this. you could set up the pulley system and take it up. you could draw the curtain horizontally off stage (like a lounge curtain). you could probably set it up without a pulley so it rolled up onto a bar above the space like a garage door rather then lifted (you'd still need someone pulling a rope). you could set up a dropping system where the curtain dropped all at once (we used one in the last production I was in, very dramatic). you could solve the problem with lighting by having cloth that was semi transparent so a lit scene from behind could be seen. or I suppose for dramatic effect you could have the curtain made of paper material of sorts, where the actor literally rips through the barrier. The changing of the space seems to be fairly integral to the performance, i'd probably look into using the performers onstage to change the curtains themselves as part of their performance.
Hope this helps a little. most ways I could think of need a stage hand to work. in my experience off stage actors are an obvious choice but if you need someone extra you might want to get a little devious and pop into the local high school and offer some of the upper year kids a work experience gig (most will probably drop everything for a chance to be in a professional production pay or not).