CAMELOT Theatrical Special Effects

There's an old joke, a really old joke, that goes like this:

Cecil B. DeMille is shooting a phenomenal battle scene: 10,000 extras costumed as Roman soldiers and barbarians, 5,000 horses, chariots, catapults and even some elephants. At the end, the mountain erupts in a massive volcano and rivers of flaming lava cover 80 acres. Everyone who hasn't been slaughtered perishes in a fiery death. The scene has cost millions of dollars to build and it can only be done once so DeMille has three camera crews covering it from different angles. "Action!" he shouts and all hell breaks loose for 20 minutes.

When the smoke clears, DeMille yells to the first camera: "Did you get all that?" "Aw, geez," says the guy. "I had the damned lens cap on!" "That's okay," says DeMille, then hollers to the second crew. "Sorry, C.B.," yells the photog. "We lost power when the volcano blew and the camera died." "No problem," shouts DeMille, then hollers up to the third crew through his megaphone: "Hey, Louie. You okay?" Louie yells back: "Ready when you are, C.B.!"

Hahahaha! Ha. Pretty funny, right? The reason I brought this up is that I just finished reading a wonderful coffee-table book: No Strings Attached: The Inside Story of Jim Henson's "Creature Shop" by Matt Bacon in which the author describes the difficulties of shooting a three-year television series ("Dinosaurs") featuring animatronic characters versus building a one-time special-effect creature for a movie (like the brontocrane in The Flintstones.) The problem is that the effects are complex, intricate and fragile so they're fine for a one-shot appearance but need to be continually rebuilt during a long-running show.

In live theater, we're faced with runs of anywhere from a few weeks to many years and, barring some touch-up maintenance, lubrication and tightening of screws, our effects have got to last as well as be repeatable time after time, sometimes in multiple shows per day. We must always build for longevity. The motion-picture special-effects shop can say "The arm will fall off this thing after a few swings but who cares?" whereas we have to say: "I dare you to break this thing!" and build it to remain trouble-free despite the dreaded Actor Factor (an actor will find a dozen ways to screw up a foolproof gag, just like they will gravitate to the dark spot on an otherwise well-lighted stage in the amazing Reverse Moth Effect.)

The traveling show is one of our greatest accomplishments. I've loaded enough Children's Theatre Company productions in and out to appreciate their construction: never use wood when steel angle-iron is available, never use a 1/4" bolt when you can use a 1" bolt, weld everything. Who cares that it requires a fork lift to move the stuff? It won't break!

Think about this the next time you go to the movies: Where is that thing now? It's long gone, merely a memory on a strip of film. Theatre effects, on the other hand, simply go back into storage to await cannibalization of their parts for another show. "But Craig," you say, "you just finished writing about building stuff out of cardboard! Now you're talking about welded steel?" Yes, but I'm also talking about moving parts. Carboard props, gessoed and painted, last almost forever and are easy to rebuild if need be. But animatronics and machinery in live theater need to rival that stuff that NASA sent to Mars.

posted by C. J. # 9:42 AM