I have done the show twice. I like the idea of the window screen, but have never used it. Both times I got a local glass company to donate a thin peice of plexi glass. We set the glass in at an angle, so that it didn't reflect the stage lights. It was real easy to paint on, very light weight and easy to install. Good luck. It's a great show.

Another way of doing windows in-expensivly is to get the plastic sheeting that is used to seal your windows in the winter. It's a thin plastic sorta like Saran-Wrap that you attach with double stick tape. You then heat it with a hair dryer and it shrinks to take out the wrinkles. Not sure about painting on it, never tried that.

Dan

If anyone's looking for a recipe for candy glass, try http://www.whatcomcleaner.com/break_away.htm - http://www.whatcomcleaner.com/break_away.htm  or http://www.angelfire.com/movies/nobudgetsfx/candyglass.html - http://www.angelfire.com/movies/nobudgetsfx/candyglass.html

A caveat: I've never made it, I just checked out the web for recipes. However, I'm interested in hearing from anyone who's used this stuff before: how easy is it to work with, and which recipe would you recommend? Any experienced candy glass makers out there?

I've used Candy glass for breakaways. It is probably too off balance to use in a Picture window. (It works well in small panes.) It acts as a prism due to the sugar crystals. It breaks easily and messily.

In short, if you want it, OK. But make sure your Light designer likes you and your SM loves you.

I have used candy glass and it's not too hard to make in small pieces, just don't try to do anything too large with it. The key part of the recipie is the temperature, you get the best results between 310 and 320 degress, so you really got to keep an eye on the thermometer.

I used candy glass in one of may favorite stage effects. For a production of Corpse some needed to shoot a picture that was hanging on a wall. We put the candy glass and picture into a frame and secured it to the flat right over a small hole that was lined up with the middle of the picture. A stage had stood backstage and put a screwdriver throughout the hole so it was against the back of the picture/glass. When the character on stage fired the blank pistol the stage hand hit the screwdriver with a hammer, thus putting a hole in the picture and shattering the glass.

We could have used real glass for this, but the candy glass was much safer, especially since the scene went on for quite some time after not leaving time for cleanup. Also the glass made a nice shatter pattern, but since it is sticky it tended to stay in the frame which made for a nice effect.

Dan

I attend the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts in Hartford CT as a Theater Design and Production major. We are putting on a show right now that we need a small pane of fake glass in a full window to be broken every night. We used a product called "smash plastic" it?s a two part plastic (1:1 parts) that you mix together. When it hardens it is technically plastic but breaks like (but easier than) glass. It is very easy to clean up and you don?t have to deal with the gross sugar on the deck every night. The way we made our panes of "glass" was to take a pane of plexi glass cut out of the opening the smash plastic was to go into and formed an aluminum foil frame around it. We then removed the plexi and poured the smash plastic mix into our new flexible mold. You just need to make sure that the corners are not tightly folded together so they do not pull up and cause the plastic to be thicker in some parts and thinner in others. It is also very important that while the plastic is setting up that it is level for the same reason. I am not entirely sure where we bought this from but it is a great product. the only thing is that air bubbles get trapped very easily inside the plastic and there is almost no way to get them out. We hear that the only good way to get them out is to put the unset mold into a vacuum chamber as it sets and it will suck out all the bubbles. Also the tin foil makes lines in the rear sides of the pane but they are barely noticeable during the run of the show. I hope this is helpful.

Originally posted by Li'l PIMP Are there any easier ways and mabye quicker ways to make this fake glass?  If there is I'd like to no please.

I attend the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts in Hartford CT as a Theater Design and Production major. We are putting on a show right now that we need a small pane of fake glass in a full window to be broken every night. We used a product called "smash plastic" it?s a two part plastic (1:1 mix) that you mix together when it hardens it is technically plastic but breaks like (but easier than) glass. It is very easy to clean up and you don?t have to deal with the gross sugar on the deck every night. The way we made our panes of "glass" was to take a pane of plexi glass cut out of the opening the smash plastic was to go into and formed an aluminum foil frame around it. We then removed the plexi and poured the smash plastic mix into our new flexible mold. You just need to make sure that the corners are not tightly folded together so they do not pull up and cause the plastic to be thicker in some parts and thinner in others. It is also very important that while the plastic is setting up that it is level for the same reason. I am not entirely sure where we bought this from but it is a great product. the only thing is that air bubbles get trapped very easily inside the plastic and there is almost no way to get them out. We hear that the only good way to get them out is to put the unset mold into a vacuum chamber as it sets and it will suck out all the bubbles. Also the tin foil makes lines in the rear sides of the pane but they are barely noticeable during the run of the show. I hope this is helpful.