fake stiletto knife
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Topic: fake stiletto knife
Posted By: Guests
Subject: fake stiletto knife
Date Posted: 10/01/04 at 1:57am
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Hey there, we're doing Arsenic and Old Lace and the director has decided that Jonathan needs to have a realistic-looking knife to flash around. The knife doesn't need to actually cut anything, it just has to look real/scary/etc etc. Seeing as it's high school, our producer is extremely loathe to let us use a real knife. I've scoured everywhere for fake knives that look realistic but have come up with nothing. Any ideas? (I know that using a real knife and dulling the blade is a solution, and that is what I personally would like to do, but with laws being what they are in schools that's not possible) Much thanks, Jesse |
Replies:
Posted By: sparf
Date Posted: 10/01/04 at 9:53pm
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How close will your audience be? If it's a typical proscenium stage, a realistically sized fake knife would be passable. The audience won't care, as long as the actors make them believe the knife is real. ------------- That is not dead which can eternal lie / and with strange aeons even Death may die. |
Posted By: Gaafa
Date Posted: 10/02/04 at 1:51am
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For a ?Stiletto? {Flick or switch blade knife] We purchased a novelty comb, which was in the form of a ?Switch blade knife? & replaced the plastic comb blade, with a rigid piece plastic of plastic, & sprayed it chrome using an auto chromium spray can. It did look real & the flick switch worked surpassingly well. Chookas ------------- Joe Western Gondawandaland turn right @ Perth. Hear the light & see the sound. Toi Toi Toi Chookas {{"chook [chicken] it is"} May you always play to a full house} |
Posted By: Gaafa
Date Posted: 10/02/04 at 2:03am
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One small point Ofloe - If you just dull the blade of a real knife, in an attempt to make it safe - it's actualy unsafe! Just remember the old adage of ?A safe knife is a sharp one". It is still a weapon, no matter how you treat the blade! & they can be more dangerous, because they are handle with less care - in the belief because the blade dull it is safe? Chookas ------------- Joe Western Gondawandaland turn right @ Perth. Hear the light & see the sound. Toi Toi Toi Chookas {{"chook [chicken] it is"} May you always play to a full house} |
Posted By: eagle
Date Posted: 10/03/04 at 10:19am
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Get a knife from a toy shop and then paint it dull silver if it looks too plastic. Some books say you can add black or a metallic dark colour to add in a shadow. But just chrome/dull silver would do.
We got a carpenter to make a set of three wooden knives based on a sketch and we painted those which looked quite alright. They were daggers for Macbeth. One was bloodied in advance. Real knives, I think, like fire should be avoided on stage. And quite agree, whether or not they are dangerous, prop weapons should be treated as if they were the real thing. |
Posted By: Gaafa
Date Posted: 10/04/04 at 12:51am
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Your right Eagle - but if my memory serves me correctly in ?Arsenic & old lace? a stiletto is actually called for in the script - I might be wrong/ But I?ve found that just silver paint, depending on the lighting used, doesn?t flash as much as chrome would do when using a flick knife - although in most respects any style of knife will do ------------- Joe Western Gondawandaland turn right @ Perth. Hear the light & see the sound. Toi Toi Toi Chookas {{"chook [chicken] it is"} May you always play to a full house} |
Posted By: dougb
Date Posted: 10/04/04 at 12:05pm
| When we did Arsenic, Jonathan was played by a doctor who came up with all sorts of horrible looking instruments none of which were knives. After he lit the candles, he took the items out of his bag one at a time and showed each one to Mortimer so the audience could see them. We left it to the audience to imagine what he was going to do with each. It worked for us. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 10/05/04 at 8:00pm
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Thanks a lot guys, that helps a lot. I'll probably end up trying Gaafa's
idea. much thanks! (Btw, our director has decided that Jonathan is going to randomly wield a knife at various points in the show, thus why we need them) |