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kriley
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bullet Topic: muslin flats vs. curtains for masking
    Posted: 11/03/05 at 6:53pm
i'm a high school drama teacher - a department of one at the moment since we're a new school. trying to mount a production and need a solution for masking 5 different areas of our "stage" which is really one end of the room. hopefully these could be lightweight and reusable ... thinking of muslin flats or curtains, but i don't know much about making, hanging, storing, or pricing of any of these options ... any and all input would be SO helpful!
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Linda S
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bullet Posted: 11/03/05 at 7:28pm

I was in your shoes once: a department of one. I went to the shop teacher and asked for his help in building flats. He was happy to help. I showed him what I needed in my old stagecraft textbook.  His class made me the flats I needed in a couple of days. After that his classes made me staircases and doorframes and window flats. It was a great win, win situation. I got the sets I needed, and his class got to build stuff that got used.

I haven't used muslin flats in years. I now make flats out of luan (spelling?). They are just as portable and much sturdier.

Good Luck,

Linda

 

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Gaafa
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bullet Posted: 11/04/05 at 12:32am
I prefer soft flats to the hard TV type.
For cost the soft are cheaper, especialy unbleached calico & more durable in the long run, by being very easy to repair & light.
Sure they might be slightly more difficult to produce, than just slapping on a pre cut or off the shelf board.
But I think they are more fun to knock them up & easily erected, even by one bod on their todd. Also when striking or bumping out, you only have to undo a few toggle ropes & the let the flats fall & float down softly on to the stage, there is no crash bang.
Roller bandage or strips of calico can be used to Dutchman the joints &/or give an invisible repair on the run.
Re skinning is cheap when needed.
Dead hung material works for legs, boarders, teaser & tormentors, as they are gaffer & flexible masking. But it is good to have them fire proofed /retardant. However if they are to mask out light, the material needs to be heavier than just muslin/calico, wool is good for smother drapes, but it will cost ya!

      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}

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Joan54
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bullet Posted: 11/04/05 at 9:09am

I agree with the concept of cloth covered flats.  Lighter and safer. 

Look for fabric at upholstery stores....I think it was Gaafa that suggested buying in bulk the fabric used to cover the undersides of sofas and chairs.  It's cheap and wide. I haunt the local thrift stores (mostly for costume pieces) and lucked into about two hundred linen table cloths donated by a catering company....got them all for ten dollars.  Ask the kids to bring sheets from home..everyone has some old ones.  After the fabric is stretched over the frame roll out a coat of good latex primer (nothing too cheap and never oil-based) and then put another cloth over it while still wet and prime that one.....makes a good strong cloth.  If you get tears just put a "band-aid" on it with more strips of cloth and paint.  I squirt a little fabric glue ( available at most fabric stores) onto the wet primer where the fabric will overlap.

I like the idea of having the shop teacher get involved with his class to make the frames but if he can't or won't do it you can make do without frames.  Once the fabric is primed and painted it will be heavier and stiffer and can be stapled to a piece of wood ( like a 2x4) along the top and the bottom and hung from the ceiling (more about that later).  The advantage of this method is that the drops can be rolled and stored.  Make sure that when they are stored they are rolled around a tube (plastic pipe works).  If the drops get folded they will crack.

One of the problems with hanging curtains is that ( particularily in a school) they will have to be certified fireproof.  You might "get away with it" and hang untreated cloth but rules are made for a reason and this is a good one.  Also, to hang properly the curtains must be heavy and you are talking about attaching them to a ceiling....you can't just tack them up.  It will be very difficult for you to devise a way to open and close a curtain so work with plays that don't require elaborate set changes and use brief black-outs to move people on and off the stage.

The simplest way to start would be with one "wall" across the back of the stage area....made of your cloth backdrop hanging about six or eight feet away from the wall.  This gives the students a "backstage".  They can all huddle there (learning to keep quiet) and make their entrances around either end.  To get more elaborate you can hang narrow drops in front of the rear backdrop...four to five feet in front...and make the side drops face the audience.  This gives the actors "wings" that they can enter and exit from and places to stash props.

I have seen some great student sets made with cardboard which - like cloth -  gets stiffer when layered and painted - so tell your students to start collecting big pieces.

If you can afford it and the shop teacher wants to help one of the things that will really help is to elevate your actors...in other words, build them a stage.  Raising them up even 8" - 10" will make a difference.  They will be seen and they will also have the valuable lesson of working within set parameters.  We built a cheap portable stage by getting wooden pallets from the local masonry yard.  Do you know what these are?  - the wooden platforms that hold anything that needs to be picked up by a fork lift.  The local lumber yard might give you some, or a roofing supply company.  Make sure thay are all the same height.  Lay them out in the size you want.  They don't have to be perfectly aligned....there can be some gaps...but they do have to be pretty close together in height.  Then cover them with the cheapest plywood you can get.....we used fiberboard or strand board...you know the kind with the large chunks of wood visible. Screw the plywood down and paint it.  If you get enough pallets you can even make the stage two layers high but make sure the pallets are stable and I wouldn't go any higher than two stacked.

Finally..hanging the drops.  I am still working on alternative methods for this myself but I think it may be best to get the shop teacher or even the maintenance worker at your school to install some permanent attachment points in your ceiling.  You can't  just run a few screws up into the ceiling.  They can bolt some plates directly into the structure of the ceiling and then you can suspend a horizontal rod from wire...kind of like a trapeze.  Then anything you want to hang can be safely suspended from that. Be careful with acoustic tile, suspended ceilings...those metal grids are not meant to hold the weight of a backdrop...

I guess I have blathered on long enough..good luck to you and check in and tell us how you solved your problems....we all have things to learn. 

 

"behind a thin wall of logic panic is waiting to stampede"
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Gaafa
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bullet Posted: 11/04/05 at 9:40pm
 G?donya Joan! I like your idea of creating stiff calico boards, I?ll have to try that!
As for producing a cyclorama, a cheap method is to use about 90% shade cloth, you can get this in 3.6 metre [12?] widths from garden & outdoor suppliers.
So what ever width your upstage area is you get the same in length & use it on it sideways across the stage.
You can get this in various colours including white, which is the best for cyc?s,. this offers a good neutral lighting palette to colour wash with X ray boarder or even leg boom side lighting.
Also it can double up as a scrim as well.
One small draw back is because it is a plastic fibre it can bounce the light in certain angles & have a soft sheen, but the punter has to really focus on the fact, which never happens.
If you use a wire suspension cable, plastic reusable electrical ties are great & cheap. These go through the holes in the cloth easily & around the cable at the head. Also you can add a tail batten of either a pipe or wood using the cable ties as well. Or just for a weight factor, a fairly heavy steel chain can be used & held on the coth upstage in the same way. [even make a tail pocket by rolling the cloth over]
If you can?t get anchor points in the ceiling, try the walls, if you have them in the wings {[OP & PS]. Check what type of wall it is first. Brick, cement,dry plaster or what ever}Then run the cable with a turn buckles at the end, so it can be  tightened up.
What also is a good clue is to get your maintenance bod to run ?Dexion? angle steel, around the wing & upstage area, as a bracing anchor railing, set at either your proscenium boarder or flats height.
This rail comes in handy for lots of things & will save making Swiss cheese of the walls & it?s better than a wooden dado rail, because of the all the pre punched holes available in the angle steel.
If your using the cable to run a traveller scrim or drapes &/or as tab. Use plastic conduit fitting nuts with cable ties holding the cloth This will run quieter than steel curtain rings & the plastic curtain rings won?t take the punishment of being pulled.
Using the unbleached calico as back drops, run the glued seam horizontally rather than vertically. With the panels hanging vertically the seams will pucker because the weight runs down it?s length & tends to swagger the cloth. With the seam horizontal the weight is spread evenly on the seam when hanging, the same happens if it is sewn together.
Further if it is to be a painted drop. It easier to make the seam line as part of the horizon or foreground line & easy to mask - put the cloth so the top panel is over the bottom one on the front side. This will avoid any build up of paint, that will always run later or take for ever to dry.
On back drops I normally wet the cloth first & hang it to dry, this allows the cloth to shrink evenly, rather than unevenly, if your heavy hand brushing the paint on in different areas.
I wait until I skin the flats before I wet the raw unbleached calico/material, so it tightens up like a drum after it is put on the frame.

The wood flat frame can built easy just with cutting the pine wood to length & forming it up loosely on the floor.
You don?t have to get into proper chippy joints {halving, mortis/tenant or a biscuit].
Just but joint the ends together [wriggly nails or  just pvc glue] with plywood gussets [keystones] glue & screwed on the back of the frame. [cut the ply into small squares & then cut them diagonally from corner to an opposite corner - giving triangular piece that will cover the joint adequately]
Remember it is not the quantity of glue you put into a joint, but the amount you can squeeze out that counts - use a clamp/cramp.
Actually I have found rather thegn using large sash clamps to hold the frame, while it?s drying, is to use those webbing adjustable auto - trailer load tied down straps, which are cheap & are not as heavy as the angle iron or pipe clamps. Also you can hook two or more  together for extended length clamping. They are great to keep a couple on hand, when doing sets!
Best of luck!
_________
Joe 

      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}

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kriley
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bullet Posted: 11/07/05 at 5:46pm
thanks, everyone.

now, any hints on building doors into a flat?

we're doing rumors, in our great room (which doesn't have a stage, though i do have some platforms) ...


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castMe
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bullet Posted: 11/07/05 at 7:11pm

kriley.  Get your hands on a copy of Parker/ Smith. Oren Parker and Harvey Smith.  I think the title was Scene design and Stage Lighting, but we called it Parker/ Smith.  It was always THE college theater tech book.

 

Basically you build a wooden frame out of 1x4 or 1x6 for your door including a wooden or prefabbed metal sill.  Door mounts to frame and frame slides into flat built to accept it. (maybe Mike can figure out how we can sketch on this site.  Damn, I'm no good without a napkin and a rollerball pen). The benefit of this is frame and flat can be reused and door can be hung in any configuation (hung from right, from left, open onstage, open off, etc.  Your door hangs from frame, so no stress is put on the flat.  We built or door from a nice piece of AC or AD plywood with the good side out and detailed with routed 1x3 or 1x4. Remember to build the frame about 1/4" wider and higher than your door.  Any daylight is covered when you add 1x2 up the sides and across the top. 

You use the same idea for windows.  Build your window and a flat with a hole in it large enough to accept the window unit.  We even mounted double sash windows that would open if the show called for it.

 

Parker/ Smith says and shows it better.

Investigate. Imagine. Choose.
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Gaafa
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bullet Posted: 11/08/05 at 6:13pm
Further to the suggestion of Castme. I normally use a couple of 1? or 2? jogger flats to house the door at the sides & add in a header above the top of the door &  a tail flat for a window, which allows the hanging of single or double & any size doors & most styles of windows.
Usually a door flat is used in most cases or is swung from the edge of a flat. If it is soft flats your using to hang your door, it is a good idea to use an architrave encasement to mount the door, even in a door flat. The encasement frame is set with a gap from the flat, so if the door is banged shut this cuts out skin flapping Or the bouncing movement in the sounding flats. A door iron at the base of the opening should be used, to stop the flat walking &/or movement caused with the use of the door.
This is a length of half round or flat steel [Aluminium] which is readily purchased or made up & attached to the bottom between the flats or door opening, as a spreader & screwed to the stage if possible.
As suggested you will find a lot of illustrated stage design books available to explain these methods.  

      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}

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