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Topic: need advice for muslin backdrops( Topic Closed) | |
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ChanaGoanna
Player Joined: 10/05/10 Online Status: Offline Posts: 16 |
Topic: need advice for muslin backdrops Posted: 11/28/10 at 1:35pm |
I posted earlier about the dinner theater show I'm doing in our school cafeteria. For the set, I'm renting some 8'x8' screens from a catering rental place. These consist of large upright poles with horizontal poles that slot in at the top. Instead of their curtains, I'm going to hang painted muslin scenery. I'm doing this instead of flats because we don't have any proper flats, and also, I have very little stage area (only 16' square) so this is perfect space-wise and time-wise.
I'm planning to buy heavyweight muslin, size it, apply flame retardant and then paint with water-based paints with flame retardant additive. .
Here's my first question: Do I need to attach the muslin to a frame to size it, given that it will be hanging from a pole instead of stretched on a flat? We have extra shipping pallets around the school and I was planning to knock together four or six of those and staple the muslin to it for sizing and painting. Am I better off doing this or just laying down heavy tarps and priming and painting the muslin on top of that?
Second question: What's the best way to size it?
Third question: There will be two signs, one of each side of the stage, that are taken down at the end of the play and replaced with one large sign. I was thinking of having the kids paint the signs on long rolls of paper, getting it laminated and then attaching velcro dots/strips to the signs and backdrop to accomplish this. (I will secure the bottom of the drop to the frame somehow so that it has some resistance when they push on it to hang the new sign.) Any better ideas on this?
Thanks in advance for any help. This is such a great and supportive forum!
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JoeMc
Celebrity Joined: 3/13/06 Location: Australia Online Status: Offline Posts: 832 |
Posted: 11/28/10 at 11:21pm |
I feel it would be easier with the pallets, just to remove some of the planking leaving the end & centre planks only to give a stable construction & keep the frame square. Use two of the removed planks & attach them flat on across the ends of the pallet stiles as the top & bottom rails.
Also you can use angle corner brackets to secure the frame as a sturdy unit.
You would have constructed a quick cheap Flat easily, which would leave you enough timber planks to make up some "french Braces' [Jacks] to secure these improvised flats & also as a toggle rail between the side stiles.
then attach your unbleached muslin {Calico} to the side stiles, top & bottom rails.
The using any cheap white Plastic [latex] paint watered down to about a milky consistence, this will shrink the unbleached raw cotton cloth [Muslin] to as tight as a drum. This will also serve as to size the cloth for painting later, similar to giving a 'Whitener' base.
One tip when attaching the cloth to the frame allow it to sag slightly in the centre, which allows for the shrinkage & relieves twisting & pulling on the frame or getting the it out of wack!
I'd suggest with the backdrop cloth allowing for a head & tail baten pocket, this can be done by making a fold to accomodate the diameter of the pipe.
Or with the tail pocket to take a chain or utalise a steel water or conduit pipe to add weight.
Glue the edge of the folded cloth with a 2 part epoxy glue, which is easier than sewing it in.
Also tie on stage sandbags to hold down the tail pipe pocket & you may need to use cloth stretchers or curtain 'Holdon clips' http://www.holdon.info/banners.htm
to take the hour glass efect out of the cloth edges.
Edited by JoeMc - 11/29/10 at 7:28am |
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[western] Gondawandaland
"Hear the light & see the sound! TOI TOI CHOOKAS {may you always play to a full house!} |
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ChanaGoanna
Player Joined: 10/05/10 Online Status: Offline Posts: 16 |
Posted: 11/29/10 at 12:26pm |
Thanks, Joe, once again for your generosity in sharing your technical expertise. You are truly a wealth of information and so kind to share it with a newbie like me. You covered things I never even thought of! I will definitely have to give you a shout-out in my playbill. I was thinking I'd use the pallets since the planks on the face would support a ~9x9' piece of material better, even given some shrinkage after sizing, but you think they would interfere with the sizing and painting? Or that it will make it more difficult to leave enough slack to allow for shrinkage? I'm not sure I can take the pallets apart; the maintenance department might want them back when I'm done. In that case, I should build a frame to support it during sizing/painting, as you suggest, with no crossbracing?
I don't want to use flats on this stage because I can't spare any room to support them from behind.
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JoeMc
Celebrity Joined: 3/13/06 Location: Australia Online Status: Offline Posts: 832 |
Posted: 11/29/10 at 11:30pm |
G'day I'd be rather concerned with the pallets being free stranding without any bracing or being anchored safely. Most pallets are just expendable packaging, thus deemed to be sacrificial by the transport & handling companies. However if maintemce department must obviously have there dibbs on them it might be prudent not to mess them about. Would it possible to get your casts father or brothers involved in assisting with the construction of the 9' wide flat rather than using the pallets, in producing either 'Broadway' [soft] flats or 'studio' [hard] flats. The most reusable resource in ameatre is People - so get as many involved.
Have you thought about using cardboard which would get the students more involved;- http://cortecscenery.com/
The site has a free dowwnload manual on how to do it, along with some of the sets George has produced.
This could be a simpler option & 2nd cardboard is fairly easy to find & recycle.
Also thank you for the playbill shout!
But I think if any credit is being dished out, it should go to the 'GREENROOM FORUM' [possibly along with it's logo - as I believe that 'this is what it's all about' Edited by JoeMc - 11/30/10 at 3:57am |
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[western] Gondawandaland
"Hear the light & see the sound! TOI TOI CHOOKAS {may you always play to a full house!} |
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ChanaGoanna
Player Joined: 10/05/10 Online Status: Offline Posts: 16 |
Posted: 11/30/10 at 7:27am |
I'm certainly amenable to the idea of using flats and should be able to get them built with no problem. In fact, acquiring reusable flats is one of my main goals for the theater.
BUT...don't they need to be supported from behind? I've looked and looked on various websites but can't find a definitive answer on how you support them from behind so that they don't topple over, but everything I found seemed to suggest that supporting them from behind would add depth to the total dimension of the flat. My stage is already very small, so I hesitate to subtract anything from my usable space; that's why I thought the muslin hanging behind from poles offstage would be a good solution. I was only planning to use the pallets as a temporary surface for sizing and painting.
Once this play's over, can't I have flats built and then attach the sized and painted muslin to be painted over for the next play? That way it won't go to waste and I'll have the flats to use on our auditorium stage, where space isn't an issue. Not sure I'm ever doing another show in the cafeteria after this one!!!
And I'll definitely credit the Greenroom Forum with the logo! :-)
edit: WOW...the CORTEC guide is amazing! Thank you for the link. That looks perfect for the scenery we're using to the sides of the risers.
Edited by ChanaGoanna - 11/30/10 at 8:03am |
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David McCall
Celebrity Joined: 1/28/09 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 299 |
Posted: 11/30/10 at 12:27pm |
Flats made with muslin that is presized are usually not tight enough to be satisfactory. That is why we buy the unsized muslin for flats so that we can use th sizeing process to tighten the fabric after we attach it to the flats. I found a local (almost) manufacturer of cardboard, and they were willing to donate any reject material they have on the floor. For the Seussical set used mostly cardboard for the set, and people thought it looked fine. We had a lot of issues with it curling and had a hard time keeping the moisture even on both sides. The other issue was that all too often the material would fold along the corrugation lines and leave a crease (this was all single layer). The pieces that they had that day were about 33"x 64", but it depends on the order they are currently running. The examples in the Cortec guide sure are nice though.
Normally we support flats by attaching "jacks". They are right triangles typically about 8' high and 2' deep. We then put stage weights toward the back to keep the flats from tipping. You might be able to tie your flats to the pipe structure of the pipe and drape rig that you we planning to use before, but you may still want to ad weights or attach the bases to the stage if possible.
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David M
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JoeMc
Celebrity Joined: 3/13/06 Location: Australia Online Status: Offline Posts: 832 |
Posted: 11/30/10 at 9:50pm |
follow on from the good points raised by David as he suggested, ensure the muslin is a raw cotton weaved untreated cloth, even pre flame retardant treated, will be as useless as boobs on a bull!
I use unbleached & untreated Calico wich I get @ mates rates from a Lounge Furniture Manufacturer, who uses it for covering under the seats of Lounge chairs ect. {Lots of years ago I would buy Calico off cuts & end of weave loom run pieces, which came in One Hundred Weight [Cwt] Hessian Bales from India. Mainly because they were sold by weight @ $1/Pound [lb] - but that's all another story!} This link may give you abetter idea of the 'french Brace [Jack]';- http://www.ia470.com/primer/scenery.htm it is also useful if you want to make your own flats. You can actually buy flats in DIY kit form which is a fairly cheap way to go from Theatrical suppliers & Chandlers.
With jioning flats together while I prefer & love to use 'cleat & lashing' method, http://theatre.sjsu.edu/~culley/LashHardwareTypes.html {because it makes for a quicker Bump in & out [set up & strike] also easier when Floating the flats on to the deck} it would be possibly more practical, as posted by David, for you to opt for the ' loose pin 2 part hinges' http://www.doughty-engineering.co.uk/cgi-bin/trolleyed_public.cgi?action=showprod_T61700 You can make them up yourselves by grinding of the pins head from an ordinary butt hinge & making up a pin to suit. Further with the Broadway [soft] flats you can tear off strips of the muslin [calico] to use as a 'Dutchman' in masking the joints of the flats. The rag Dutchman are easily applied by paintig them on with base colour paint each time & easily removed when the set is being Bumped out. As the Dutchman are the same texture as the flats skin, this will give a backcloth finish to the multi joined flats. The rag Dutchman works better with the Hollywood [Studio] hard flats, if they are [Gesso] skinned with muslin over the hardboard surface. The Calico is also used to make up backdrops using the epoxy glue method for putting together the horizonal panel strips & making up the head eyelet tie on strip webbibng & tail baten pocket with the deck skirt.Edited by JoeMc - 12/01/10 at 1:25am |
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[western] Gondawandaland
"Hear the light & see the sound! TOI TOI CHOOKAS {may you always play to a full house!} |
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ChanaGoanna
Player Joined: 10/05/10 Online Status: Offline Posts: 16 |
Posted: 12/01/10 at 8:53am |
Okay, I think you guys are right that it would be more useful and practical in the long term to build flats. Since the cafeteria production will be done on 2' risers, I'll need taller flats because I decided I can either put them against the wall and brace them with the risers themselves, or use jacks and simply pull the risers forward. However, that means I lose 2 vertical feet of the flats. If we modify the design to build them 10' high by 4' wide, will the basic diagrammed instructions you linked to before still work? The extra height wouldn't be a problem in our regular auditorium for future productions there.
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David McCall
Celebrity Joined: 1/28/09 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 299 |
Posted: 12/01/10 at 9:24am |
What if you put the jacks on the floor in back of the riser and put the flats at your stage level. If you had 8' jacks and the flats started 2' up, then there would still be 6' left to attach the flats to.
If you do build flats try to convince the school that it is a capital expense because the flats will be used for many years if they are well built out of decent quality 1"x3"s.
Remember to set the corner blocks back from the edge by 3/4". You will find this to be a big help when putting the flats at an angle to each other.
My personal preference is to have bare wood at the edges of the flat rather than wrapping it around. To accomplish this put glue only on the face of the flat. when putting on the muslin pull it over the edge and staple it, but leave the excess hanging. Once the glue sets-up then go around the face of the flat with a box cutter or matte knife about 1/4" in from the edge. You can then just peal off the excess muslin leaving a clean edge. This way the flats will fit together much better.
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David M
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JoeMc
Celebrity Joined: 3/13/06 Location: Australia Online Status: Offline Posts: 832 |
Posted: 12/01/10 at 6:51pm |
To follow on from David just a quick tip when skinning your flats, use water based wood glue like ;- http://www.selleys.com.au/Selleys-Aquadhere-Interior/default.aspx or an elcheapo generic product available, add water & mix to a milky consistance as it runs off the brush. Paint on to the flat frame surface of the Stiles & rails, but not the Toggle rail As this should remain free of glue. In fact to give the cloth sag put an old pot or something similar next to the Toggle rail, to hold off the cloth from being glued to the toggle rails surface.
Edited by JoeMc - 12/01/10 at 6:58pm |
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[western] Gondawandaland
"Hear the light & see the sound! TOI TOI CHOOKAS {may you always play to a full house!} |
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