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Props, Scenery, Costumes and Makeup
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leoknite
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Quote leoknite Replybullet Topic: Free Standing Door Help
    Posted: 8/08/12 at 2:31pm
Hello the theatre company I work with has a free standing door as an abstract set with no braces, it is used twice in the show once on a side profile and the other flat to the audience.  The direct refuses to use braces and prefers to find some other solution to keep the door frame steady.  He states the door from is a rental and drilling into would be a no go, drilling into the stage itself is a no go because we're renting the space. I wanted to ask if there any solution out there to make this happen? We did thinking about hanging the door frame on a wire of some sort but because we move the  door to two different positions, the wire idea just seemed like it would not work.
If I was a resonable person, I would have chosen the life of a politician or a chemist, but I not reasonable so I'm a theatre major.
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David McCall
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Quote David McCall Replybullet Posted: 8/08/12 at 8:39pm
Is it an actual door or a doorway? A door needs a lot of support on both sides and it has to be rigid enough to stay flat so that it will close properly. A doorway is a lot easier, but still a challenge. If he can't have any visible support the you need to build the base and frame out of steel welded together. There will need to be a base plate roughly 3' x 4' to keep it from tipping over. I'm not a steel guy but I would think 1/8"-1/4" is about as thin as you can go, and even then it may need reinforcement where the upright attach to the base. This may be too heavy to carry,but you may be able to side it around by attaching carpet to the bottom.
 
We recently did this, but the director allowed us to use heavy duty shelf brackets to keep it upright. We had a plywood base with 2x4s added on the sides to give something rigid to bolt the brackets to.
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TonyDi
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Quote TonyDi Replybullet Posted: 8/09/12 at 6:46am
While DAVID is being diplomatic and solution oriented, I on the other hand will not be - THE DIRECTOR IS AN IDIOT simply put.  If they have no concept of the construction required to make a door work properly for real OR ONSTAGE then they just need to learn to get their head out of their butts and let someone who does know deal with how to handle it effectively, safely and securely.  Apparently you have a completely unreasonable and ignorant director - there I said it - insult and all.  BUT as David said there HAS TO BE some sort of bracing and the ONLY alternative is to use a steel frame that can withstand the swing and sway of a real doorway.  Steel framing would be costly, a flat steel plate as he describes WOULD work but would most certainly be heavy but it's the best alternative.  If people - including directors - who do theater do not understand how to make construction issues work then they just need to trust someone who does and in turn keep their traps shut.  They can want all they want.  But if it's impractical, impossible or foolish then they just need to shut up and learn that having to compromise a little bit and adjusting for the REALITY of construction that HAS the be a certain way is required and then they should leave the suspension of disbelief to an audience.
 
I MUST APOLOGIZE to you all however - not a good day for me to be responding to a question like this.  As a director, actor, technician, set designer/builder - I've been there, done that, learned a lot (still have much to learn) and just cannot stomach when some idiot director has not got a lick of good sense to know that certain things with no budgets, not their own space and so forth, cannot be done as they'd like them to be.  And they just need to learn what they should - to make better decisions than what they're asking you to do or shut up and accept that certain things are out of their understanding or capacity to do themselves....and out of the realm of being possible they way they wish, then they should therefore just close their mouth and live with it.
 
Again apologies to you and anyone else this offends.  But some people are just too thick to get it and understand that a bit of flat black paint can cover a world of things onstage and what doesn't get covered should be left to the audience to correct in their own minds - and yes for the most part they have the capacity to do that - but directors (and I AM one) have a tendency to think that audiences are often stupid (and they sometimes are).  BUT you cannot approach anything as though they are - you just have to trust convention, instinct, common sense and an audience who may or may not know what or how you did what you do - but accept it regardless as no-other-way!!
 
Again a million apologies for my rant - too early, too tired and too annoyed at the stupidity of some people who you can never seem to make understand what it takes when YOU know and they do not.
 
I stand down with great humility - really I do!!
 
TonyDi
 
 
By the way as David said - if you were to use steel base plate it HAS to be AT LEAST 3' square since most doors - especially if they're entry doors and not interior doors (but even then sometimes 3') then the base plate HAS to be as large as the door swings which is it's full 3' and BETTER if you have it at least a foot larger than the 3' door.  If done using a steel base plate that could be WAY heavy.  We used 3/4" plywood and THAT was heavy enough too...so steel wow!!!
 
We did an opera last year and I used a free standing door - but it had a 4' base with braces to keep it 90 Degrees upright to the floor.  We couldn't drill into the floor either but I DID use a wooden door frame with a 1' flat on either side of it to help hide the bracing a bit but didn't worry too much about it.  And I did two window units that same way - free standing and I used loads of concrete weights to help offset any imbalance.  But didn't have the restriction of a borrowed door so we could create our own door frame and so forth.  Windows were fake and still had a 3' X 3' square base.  Both the door unit and the window units required the base but the bases were flush with one edge - so that the base plate was at the back weighted down so the unit would stand upright like an L shape.  But I braced all these units with conduit, flattened on both ends and drilled with holes for screws to attach to the frames and the base to hold it upright.  All was painted flat black and with the right lighting and back curtains they were seen - just not obvious and audience can look past that stuff and see what's prominent and painted with brighter colors.  At any rate that still means bracing on a sturdy base plate that should be 4' X 4' if it's a 3' door.


Edited by TonyDi - 8/09/12 at 7:02am
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David McCall
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Quote David McCall Replybullet Posted: 8/09/12 at 9:39am
Kinda like good cop/bad cop  Approve
 
I tend to center the door on the base. My reasoning is that it is easier for an actor to pass through without tripping, and it's more stable. But I'm no actor so I could be wrong.
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Quote TonyDi Replybullet Posted: 8/10/12 at 7:30am
No I agree with you David - that works BEST - but this door I didn't want the baseplate to show that much.  Actually I used a steel strap on the bottom of the door frame that held the width at the bottom in proper alignment.  And everything that was supposed to not show was painted flat black so most everything disappeared or wasn't prominent.  DIDN'T worry what the audience saw as I said - because I know they disregard things that normally wouldn't or shouldn't be there.  And if they did see it, or notice anything - nobody said anything - or they just ignored it and cleared it up in their own heads allowing them to "see" it as it should normally be.  That's the nature of what an audience can do.  Anytime you see anyone doing any flying on stage- you see the wires normally and you KNOW what they're doing - but you alow yourself to suspend your own disbelief and enjoy the technicality of how they do it to melt into the entertainment value of what you allow yourself to see.  YES ACTORS are KLUTZes - for sure!!! Clap
 
TonyDi


Edited by TonyDi - 8/10/12 at 7:31am
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Quote pdavis69 Replybullet Posted: 8/10/12 at 8:16am
There is one option.  If you can leave the door open, just with people passing through it.  The open door can be used as the third point to hold it upright.
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Quote vickifrank Replybullet Posted: 8/15/12 at 6:12pm
The solutions provided above are clearly better than what I am going to add.  So do them if possible, but if not....
 
Option #1:  You can hang the door frame from wires above and also at floor level use tensioned cables to the frame.  These must be there at the floor to give stability, so you will want to cover them with carpet, etc.  to hide them and prevent an actor from tripping on them..
 
Option #2: if the door is placed on a small platform to make it look like a step in or sunken living room, etc, you can use the platform to brace it from below.  I'd place a 2x4 under the platform and drill the door threshold to the that 2x4 through the platform plywood top.  AND, cut slots for two upright 2x4s  or steel shelf brackets to anchor to the sides of the doorframe.  This platform needs to be at least the 3' x 4' as mentioned above for the steel plate solution.
 
And 'yes' the director is an i-d-i-o-t .
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Quote gelcat Replybullet Posted: 9/20/12 at 1:33pm
Thank you TonyDi!!  We recently traveled a cutting from a show, and for the sake of ONE door slam, the ever atrocious 'free standing door' was required. God, I hate it when they get that idea.  It could have been done with a sound effect or the sound system, or with a door slam setup off stage, but no, it must stand on stage and cut down playing space and distract the audience becuase there is no way to secure the damn thing down to the stage floor since it has to go away in less than a minute after the cutting is done  -then the director is unhappy because it's ugly!
I hate this no win situation - and want to throttle a director everytime the INSIST it CANNOT be done without a real door. 
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Quote Majicwrench Replybullet Posted: 9/20/12 at 3:58pm
Hope your day-night gets better Tony. I do think that was a bit harsh.
          Keith
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