Community Theater Green Room Discussion Board: Flats look too tall

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   I've been directing high school plays for a few years. I have inherited and built a number of 10' tall flats (both muslin and "hard"). We have a modest sized stage: about 39' across at the proscenium. From my reading I believe the "experts" feel a 10' flat is a minimum and 12' and even 14' are often described. But aren't walls in most rooms 8'? Even at 10' some interior walls just look unnaturally tall and things don't look in the correct proportion. Does it make sense to mask the top two feet or paint the top two feet black to give a more reasonable height to the walls? Or is this something I'm worrying about needlessly ... that the audience will get used to and it won't seem odd to them.

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jmausser Walk-On Joined: 1/16/09 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 0	Topic: Flats look too tall Posted: 1/16/09 at 11:00pm
	I've been directing high school plays for a few years. I have inherited and built a number of 10' tall flats (both muslin and "hard"). We have a modest sized stage: about 39' across at the proscenium. From my reading I believe the "experts" feel a 10' flat is a minimum and 12' and even 14' are often described. But aren't walls in most rooms 8'? Even at 10' some interior walls just look unnaturally tall and things don't look in the correct proportion. Does it make sense to mask the top two feet or paint the top two feet black to give a more reasonable height to the walls? Or is this something I'm worrying about needlessly ... that the audience will get used to and it won't seem odd to them.
	Director in Leavenworth

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Nanette Celebrity Joined: 8/01/06 Online Status: Offline Posts: 399	Posted: 1/17/09 at 8:04am
	In my schooling I learned that you should always have something, be it moulding, boarder, or whatever, to stop the eye from traveling upwards.
	In a world of margarine, be butter!
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vickifrank Celebrity Joined: 9/21/07 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 332	Posted: 1/17/09 at 11:24am
	Nothing is inherantly wrong with 8 foot flats on a small stage. You are the expert for your space, so if 10 foot seems too tall, masking/painting the top 2 feet black is ok....as would be making 8' flats from here forward.
	_____________ http://www.studio-productions-inc.com 1-800-359-2964 The theater scrim people
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caldair Walk-On Joined: 10/30/08 Location: Norway Online Status: Offline Posts: 0	Posted: 1/20/09 at 3:35pm
	This is a lighting tech's guesswork, but would the 10'-and-up thing be for an audience looking _down_ at the stage, perhaps?
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Coconut Walk-On Joined: 8/09/07 Location: Virgin Islands Online Status: Offline Posts: 0	Posted: 1/27/09 at 8:32pm
	How tall is your proscenium? That will have a greater bearing on the appropriate height of your flats. 8' flats on anything but the smallest stages look tiny and deprive you of the opportunity of using various levels in front of them.
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David McCall Celebrity Joined: 1/28/09 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 299	Posted: 1/30/09 at 11:16am
	A lot of us would consider 39' to be a decent size stage It really depends on the scene you are trying create. If you are doing the tack house for Oklahoma, or portraying a the home of a lower income family, then 8' is fine. You might want to paint the top black and place or paint molding at around 8'. If the set is to be more upscale, but not a mansion, then you might want to put your line at 9' and paint it near white. More opulent scenes might want to be 12'. Add 2' to the top of the 10' flats and put molding to cover the crack and paint the top white.
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