Lay the panels out across the stage so the tail of the head panel, overlaps the head of the next panel for the seam. Two part epox glue works well & dries faily fast. Have the overlap downwards on the drop, so paint cannot pool in seam.

Run the seams lateraly across the stage, to reduce puckering & the panel lines are easier ro paint in as the horizon or building line.

If you run the panels up & down, the weight of the next panel will pull unevenly & create puckers. While laterley the whole seam takes the wieght evenly of each panel, thus spreading the whole drops weight evenly on each seam.

Make folded provisions for a tail pocket to hold a pipe. Fold over extra as a tail skirt, this will cover any uneveness of the stage deck.

Fold over & glue down about one inch at the head, so a hession webing strip can be glued along on to the header fold, to take the efelets for the head baten ties.

The eyelets & aplicator tool can be bought at any local camping or hardware shop. I find it easier to start at the center of the drop cloths reinforced  header  strip & place the eyelets evenly apart, at about 2' incriments from the cloths centre. Ensuring there is two together at each end, to tie of & stop any cloth travel along the head baten.

With the ties I prefer to use black cloth sash cord rather than plastic rope, which is a pain & tends to come undone. Check there enough cord lenght to take a Larks head [girth] & bow knots along with the wrap around the head baten folded in half as well - about 3' would normal do for each tie. If you get an 18" board or the back of a suitable chair & wrap the cord around the number of times required. Then cut the wrapped cords on one side.

Find a different colour piece of cord to go into the centre eyelet, this makes it easier when loading the cloth onto the centre of the fly batten, so the drop is centred on the stage or as required.

In the tail pocket you could put an eyelet at ech end to tie of on to the tail baten [pipe] to tention the cloth.

If you don't want to go to all that palarva, use releasable black plastic cable ties , which are cheap enough to buy.

You could make up your own cloth stretchers easily enough from to pieces of ply, metal thread bolt, washers & wing nut. That can be achored off stage to keep the cloth flat or get some plastic Hold On's from a theatre supplier.

Sorry if I drivel on, I find it easier to show 'n do rather than explain. I wished I was young enough to understand, how to place drawings on my posts?

I generaly get the calico from upholstry suppliers, which is cheaper, as it's used to cover under lounge chairs, but if there is a furniture maker localy, they might be willing to donate a roll for a few comps.  

 

I'm sure Vicki Franks http://www.studio-productions-inc.com">  would be able to help you with backdrops/Scrims, Matterial & ideas.

This is something that has only been enacted here recently, under the H&S Act.

Fire retardant applied to stage materials, is something I have been pushing for years, especialy in theatre. Not that any of the Am/Proeatrs here,  bother with it, for Flats, Drops, Drapes & costumes. I suppose it will take a major fire & having thier Insurance claims knocked back. To eventualy wake up my fellow lay back Ocker sandgropers!

 

 

Yes, I did all the backdrops for a large studio production of "West Side Story" using gigantic photos printed by a local billboard company.  They thought I was crazy!  I was the first theatre person to ever request such a thing.

 

This was in 2001.  I took digital photos of rustic exterior locations downtown, such as old brick buildings with grafitti and the underside of an old iron railroad bridge, etc...  Then they blew them up to 20 feet wide by 10 feet tall! 

 

They printed them on heavy stock paper in 5 foot wide rolls, so I had to piece them back together and staple them to my large flats.  I think I had 7 different scenes and it cost me about $1,500.00 for printing...(which is about what I spend on muslin backdrop rentals for a musical anyway).  The effect worked great!...and I still have the pictures rolled up in my office.

 

But nowadays the billboard companies mostly use vinyl drops for outdoor signs.  So, while it might be more expensive, your vinyl images would be much easier to hang...and would last forever...so you could recoup costs by renting them out.

 

Good luck with it!  -Dana

 

It was a pain in the butt, frankly.  We used paint rollers...(the really fluffy kind)...and "dry-rolled" liquid flame proofing onto the back sides of all the posters.   

 

The stuff comes in large 5 gallon cans and is called "New York Fireshield Chemical".  I got if from Stage Decoration for about $180 a can, I think.  You have to tip the can over and shake it well because the "salt" solids tend to settle in the can during shipping.  (I ruled out using Hudson sprayers or Wagner sprayers because I didn't want the "rain drop" pock marks all over the paper). 

 

I stapled the posters upside down and rolled the FR on very lightly.  I had a sheet of plywood next to my paint pan as a "test area" for the roller after each time I dipped it in the pan.  That way it went on evenly each time.  But if the roller got too flattened out and hard, I replaced it with a new one. 

 

The thick poster paper did not show the wrinkles on the front side as bad as you might think.  However, (since I was Lighting Designer too), I had to focus specials on each of the backdrops.  These were very low-angle lekos shooting straight in at the image areas from the audiences' sight line.  This acted to fill any shadows from ripples in the poster paper.

 

Gladly they have vinyl billboards now, so if I ever had scenery printed again, I wouldn't have that particular hassle.

 

 

 

 

As for the vinyl billboard- we have access to used billboards for free. We'd have to paint it ourselves. Not sure what type of paint would adhere and hanging it could be a nightmare.  But we'd need a letter from the manufacturer that it is fire retardant for our insurance. So that is probably out.... Sorry I am rambling

 

I'm not sure that I'd like vinyl if it had a sheen to it.

 

Yes, you can repaint muslin backdrops.  Our local community theatre has some 20 year old drops that have been repainted 3 or 4 times!  However, a new drop painted just once weighs about 40 pounds, while some of their old drops now weigh 100 to 150 pounds!!!

 

 

 

 

You have a really good idea here.  I may check with my local billboard company about using discarded vinyl drops for plays.  The only question yet to be answered is regarding the fire safety of vinyl drops.  (And I have tried to address that question on a new thread in this forum).

Thanks, Dana

 

One of the beauties of this paint was that you could easily make any color you wanted in any amount rather than having to go back to home depot to buy another can. I tried to get our group interested in Rosco supersaturated paint because it forces you to make up your own colors that can be much better suited to theater. I think they felt that it was too expensive. I felt that it was actually cheaper in the long run. Even though a gallon of supersat cost much more than home depot paint, it goes a lot farther, and you only mix up what you need, making it somewhat cheaper. I couldn't sell it here.

 

As to the "animal glue" I assume that this is what you get after sending the old gray mare to the glue factory. It came as crystals that you cooked in a double boiler. It smelled really bad especially if you let all of the water boil away.

Blimey David that takes me back to days of using Quasch water colours, poster paint & wallpaper size. Especialy Iddings, which is a milk casein product, that remains wetable, unless a glaze fixer is added over it. It comes in powdered form & will go off if left in open containers.  

http://www.rosco.com/us/scenic/iddings_deep.asp - Rosco US : Scenic : Iddings Deep Colors

 

 

http://www.rosco.com/us/technotes/scenic/iddings_deep_faq.asp - Rosco US : Technotes : Scenic : Iddings FAQ

 

The same with wallpaper size left over night in an open bucket, the gawd awful pong lingers for days & keeps on following everyone about.

 

The Iddings paint is good for scim painting & can be washed offlater, the Guru on scrims ect is Vicki Franks.

The powder paint used to be cheap untill the advent of arty farty craft shops drove the price up. we used to use it all the time untill cheap emulsions & plastic [latex] paint came on the market. Now as they save a lot of messing about, it easier to buy a can of white & mix tints to suit. Which also saves preping back drops with Whitener first & sizing flats.

 

 

 

Printing on Chameleon Scrim is cheaper than people think.  It costs $50 plus $1.5/sq ft plus the price of the scrim. 

 

But if that is beyond a budget, consider painting Chameleon Scrim yourself.  Its fairly easy to paint and instructions are on the company website.  http://studio-productions-inc.com/white_papers/wp_painting_scrim.html - http://studio-productions-inc.com/white_papers/wp_painting_scrim.html   a 15' x 30' costs $ 450  (Remember to treat with a flame retardant after the painting).

 

Finally if painted scrim is beyond your budget, consider renting a scrim ($195 two week rental of a 15' x 30' scrim) and projecting the set with a projector or shadow projections.  Its easy to do shadow projections for Seussical.  I'd recommend the lavendar 15' x 30' scrim to get the odd skies.