Making a Trolley for Meet Me In St. Louis
Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Set Design and Construction
Forum Discription: Post your questions or suggestions about designing or building a set here.
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4685
Printed Date: 11/23/24 at 4:50pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 8.05 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Making a Trolley for Meet Me In St. Louis
Posted By: BelizeAA
Subject: Making a Trolley for Meet Me In St. Louis
Date Posted: 6/28/10 at 11:28am
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Okay, I'm up for any ideas on this one. The director would like me to design a motorized trolley for the show. It has to completely go across the entire stage right into the wings. ------------- Friendship is the wine of Life. |
Replies:
Posted By: MercyTech
Date Posted: 6/29/10 at 2:45am
Does it have to be motorized? I built our Trolley as a "Flintstone" vehicle, with a gutter up the middle for four crew to push it across the stage. It was a very simple and effective way to build it. i can send you the designs if you want. |
Posted By: BelizeAA
Date Posted: 6/29/10 at 10:18am
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I would love to see your designs. I'd feel better having another option. However, I've been given a thousand dollars, just to make this one piece to be the 'wow' factor in the show. The only thing I could think of so far was an electric golf cart. ------------- Friendship is the wine of Life. |
Posted By: MercyTech
Date Posted: 6/29/10 at 2:44pm
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I usually go for the simplest solution first, and avoid mechanicals if I can. When fully loaded, it was hard to get started, so we always used actors to give it a shove when boarding. But once it got going, it moved very easily on 8" casters. A dance number was choreographed just to have it spin around on stage while people boarded.
Let me know if you have any questions. Have a great show! Tim 
 
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Posted By: Kim L.
Date Posted: 7/10/10 at 7:41am
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Mercy Tech, Can you tell me what type of software you used for these lovely drawings? Thanks ------------- Kim |
Posted By: MercyTech
Date Posted: 7/11/10 at 3:41am
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Hi Kim,
Those were done in Google Sketchup. It's a very good 3d modeling program. Simple to learn and use, and has a great free library of models, so you don't have to custom make everything. Tim |
Posted By: Kim L.
Date Posted: 7/11/10 at 7:57am
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Really? I searched on Community Theatre and found that others use Google Sketchup, so I downloaded it. After playing with it for an hour, I hardly made progress on learning the tool. Do you have a specific version? Was yours free? How do you access the library of models? Thanks. ------------- Kim |
Posted By: MercyTech
Date Posted: 7/11/10 at 3:18pm
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If you are new to 3D, then I suggest using the training videos from the Google homepage: http://sketchup.google.com/training/videos.html Once you get the hang of it, you should have no problems. If you have any specific questions, I will try to help you out. I do use the paid version (Pro), but the free version should do everything you need. Once you have a model open, you can choose to load a model from the "Model Warehouse" They have quite a bit of content. |