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Thursday, September 23, 2004

Bloody Brilliant!

While we're on the subject of Halloween, I've received a lot of questions lately regarding "stage blood" such as "What's the best brand?" "Where do you buy it?" "How do I make it?" and "How do I clean up the mess?" I usually direct folks to the Stagecraft FAQ (see link in the list on the left.) Just scroll down to item 3 in the Special Effects section: "Stage Blood" and you'll learn everything you need to know. Hint: while yummy on hot dogs, ketchup is not the answer.

One interesting question was posed on the Magic Cafe forum in which the magician needed blood with very unique properties: it had to be sprayable on an ordinary tablecloth and then easily cleaned afterwards. Here's what I wrote:

Let the tablecloth clean itself: Make yourself some red disappearing ink (as opposed to the normal blue) which will evaporate to colorless in a few minutes, ready for the next show. The disappearing ink is made by dissolving a small amount of phenolphthalein in ethyl alcohol, then dilute it with water to consistency. The red color is obtained by the addition of a small quantity of sodium hydroxide (lye) although I would think that any base, such as baking soda (not powder!), would work and be less caustic. Juggling the percentage of water to alcohol is how you control the "disappearing" time. More alcohol, disappears more quickly. More water, disappears more slowly. A little vermouth and an olive instead of the laxative phenolphthalein and you have a "Houdini Martini" which disappears immediately!

Haunted House Ideas

A little over a month until Halloween. If you haven't started that "haunt" project yet, you're up against a tight deadline, especially if you've never done one before. I've been visiting the haunt forums lately for new effects and, while there's not much new this year, there are hundreds of great gags available on the internet.
Haunts are usually summer projects: the gags are built in someone's garage or workshop, then installed in the venue starting about now. If you weren't aware, haunters make up a huge subculture and they really live to scare the pants off people. Thousands of haunts are built and operated each year, many by volunteers as a charity or fundraiser. After all, if you're going to give someone a heart attack, at least they'll be glad that it was for a good cause!
Your venue may be a school, church basement, empty warehouse or, if you're lucky, an abandoned, creepy, old mansion that is donated each year. Perhaps you're just looking for ideas for a great Halloween party and don't know where to start. Mark Butler's site has 663 great projects and is probably the "motherlode" of haunting ideas which will make you scream with delight. You may never leave it... moohaha! http://markbutler.8m.com/monsterlist.htm

Friday, September 17, 2004

The Sky Captain Syndrome

Every time that a new technology becomes practical, it isn't official until it appears in a major motion picture. I always watch these carefully to see what their impact will be on live theatre, especially at the community level where budgets are tight. I'm not necessarily interested in whether the technology is applicable to live theatre special effects; it usually isn't. I'm more interested in the "jading" of the audience to the point that people cease expecting anything on stage that is nearly as exciting as what's available down at the movieplex.

In the last decade we've seen morphing appear in "Terminator 2", computer-generated actors such as velociraptors in "Jurassic Park" and Jar-Jar Binks in "Star Wars First Episode," and now, a completely computer-generated set in "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow." Boy, movies are fun, aren't they? Makes the old stage look pretty boring.

George Lucas was asked, in regards to Jar-Jar: "If you can make a realistic actor out of nothing but pixels, how soon before we see a movie starring dead screen icons in major roles?" Lucas replied that, while he "could" do that, he had no intention of doing it as he disagreed with the concept. Shortly after that, Fred Astaire appeared selling Dust-Busters on TV and folks let out a collective howl. Now here's Sir Laurence Olivier, who died in 1989, playing the villain in the 2004 "Sky Captain." While Olivier (and the dust-busting Astaire) were not computer-generated like Jar-Jar was, they were edited together from live footage taken during their lives and inserted into places they never imagined they would be. Sounds a bit ghoulish and creepy, doesn't it? But at least it's honest: They aren't recreated in total digital format where they could then be made to do things they would never have done and say things they would never have said. That would be meddling with history in a way that could be politically frightening and truly obnoxious: Imagine JFK and Marilyn Monroe in a movie about, well, JFK and Marilyn Monroe. What would be the difference between actors playing JFK and Marilyn as opposed to CGI images? The latter could be deceiving, possibly even finding their way into history as actual events in the hands of a shrewd revisionist. Yes, all film is suspicious these days. I assume that Olivier's heirs approved of the "Sky Captain" scenes and as for Lucas, well, Industrial Light and Magic did have a hand in the visual effects although George cannot be faulted for changing his mind; he hasn't built a pixellated dead icon yet.

As far as the imagery goes, it's amazing to watch the actors instead. Now, this is "pure" acting at its best; they are reacting to things that aren't happening and looking at things that aren't there. The entire movie was shot on a Chromakey Blue set which leaves a blank background that can be filled-in in the computer lab. It's an old technology (watch Colin Mockerie's on-the-spot reporting on "Whose Line is It Anyway?") but has never been used for an entire motion picture. Plan on seeing this one several times, once for the full rush, once to watch the actors and once again to watch the intricate prop insertion: in one shot, Gwyneth Paltrow steps down onto the wheel of an airplane. Not only is the airplane not there: the wheel isn't either! Breathtaking stuff.

Does any of this translate to the live stage? Maybe when holographic projection becomes readily available, that is, reaches that stage where the hardware and software fall into the gap between "available to professionals" and "available to every kid on the block." In the meantime, consider optical illusion more strongly: imaginary sets and props of the Kurt Wenner type and projected background tricks like "Anderson's Ghost." After all, the audience expects us to justify the ticket prices even if we don't sell as much popcorn as "Sky Captain."

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

I'm Back - Magically!

I apologize for my protracted absence (about 180 degrees... hahaha!) from this Blog but I've been researching the world of magic on the internet.

Why? Well, stage magic and theatrical special effects are two sides of the same coin and I've been trying to make heads or tails of it all. Hahahaha... okay, I'll settle down now.

There are oodles of magic discussion forums on the world-wide-web where professional magicians, amateur magicians, David Copperfield wannabes and just plain curious, annoying little buggers compare opinions and ideas then spend the rest of the time slagging one another off. Apparently, the most controversial site on the web is The Magic Cafe founded by Steve Brooks three years ago and boasting 15,000 members. It's very tightly policed by aides as far as language, content and a paranoid fear of something called "exposure" where newbies ask how tricks are done and get yelled at for asking or where people are expelled for telling them. The Cafe is divided into rooms and once a user reaches 51 posts he can enter a secret place called "The Banquet Room" where it is allowed to talk about how tricks are done. Natch, this is the place you want to reach because why else would you go to The Magic Cafe? In the Banquet Room is a forum called "Secret Sessions" (moohaha) containing the heart of the entire site: a topic called "Howie Diddits" consisting of 14 pages (at this writing) of extremely useful information for the theatrical special effects designer. It takes a while to post 51 meaningful messages but once you have, the door opens and there you are; shove a ream of paper and a new ink cartridge into your printer and print, print, print until you've got it all.

One would get the impression that a number of people don't like The Magic Cafe by the sheer number of anti-Steve Brooks blogs on the internet. We can assume that these are all maintained by people who've been expelled from The Magic Cafe for writing bad words or slagging off some of the regulars there; the Cafe Police enforce a "Let's all play nice" policy and encourage the 15,000 subscribers to rat on one another when somebody writes "Bullshit" on the blackboard (even though it's a popular Penn & Teller TV show.) The paranoia is a bit overwhelming: posts contain phrases like "st***ed d**k" to fool the Cafe Police into thinking they might not be talking about a deck being stacked. Nonetheless, some of the anti-cafe sites have useful information as well as being refreshingly hilarious, so you might want to check out The Magic Circle Jerk, Magic Rants and The Gunnsight just to keep your scorecard on "who-hates-whom-today" up to date. After all, you wouldn't want to make the mistake of getting too close to anybody on these forums or you might become what Donald Rumsfeld euphemistically calls "collateral damage."

Other interesting and occasionally useful forums, of the dozens I've visited, are:
The Penguin Magic Forum of Penguin Magic Inc.
The Genii Forum of Genii Magazine
Street Magic Revealed
and Ellusionist.

There are lots more; you can make yourself crazy by searching for them all. Of course, you'll notice right away that all of them look exactly alike and have posts by the same people. Sometimes you need to look at your browser address bar to remember which forum you're in.

Now that I'm armed with all of this magic information, I'm ready to tackle the special effects for the upcoming GLAPA production of "Once Upon A Mattress" where I need to teach the "Wizard" how to turn a silk scarf into a cane and how to produce a flower bouquet out of thin air. How will I do that, you ask? Well, I don't want to "expose" any "secret methods" but I just bought one of these and one of these. Shhhh... don't tell the Magic Police or I may be expelled or, worse yet, slagged off!

It's great to be back.

Camelot Theatrical Special Effects at Blogged