Set is loaded in!

Week one of my hell MONTH is over and we were successful. We got the set pieces all moved in and installed. There is a little bit of finish painting to do, including the floor, but overall, it is all in.  So, the following is a sequence of pictures taken by Kathleen over the two days of work...

DAY ONE...

The first platform goes up.

All of the platforms are in place, but not yet braced.

Glenn and Jeff anchoring and bracing.

Larry applies the decorative column covers.

Melanie tests the weight bearing capacity...

Next are railings and escape stairs.

Walls go up...

Lots of black paint... Thanks, Kathleen, Melissa, Luke and Marshall!!!

And then around 2:30, Scott comes to check out the progress and give his blessing!

      And so ends day one...



DAY TWO

The moon goes together in the center of stage.  Because it is so dominant and right in the middle of everything, we waited until the second day so that it wasn't in the way for getting the rest of the set up.




Then we installed safety railings, the two large windows that hang above the fire escape, and...

The conceptual Christmas tree...














With the last of the paint touched up and the mess cleaned up and supplies put away, we rolled out of the theater about 2:30PM.

The cast showed up at 6:30 for their first rehearsal on a substantially completed set!
(Thanks, Luke for the pic)

Kathleen, Melanie and I headed to IL for the third blocking rehearsal for The Diary of Anne Frank.  Nothing like a busy weekend to keep you out of trouble.

Wednesday, we will paint the floor and couple of wall panels repurposed from Night of the Living Dead.

Next task is lighting!  That starts Monday night with planning, light plot on Tuesday, and hang and focus beginning Friday evening and all day on Saturday.
R

Ready or not...

Well, I've spent the last week or so picking up loose ends on the set pre-build.  There were a couple of things that I had been avoiding, mostly because I knew that they would be a pain in the ass.  I finally had to tackle them.

The first one was what to make that Mark and Roger can "burn" stuff in in the opening number when they have no heat and are trying to stay warm.  Originally, I had planned to put an "illegal wood stove with the flue going up through a skylight" as the original script had called out.  But after the redesign, the stove went away and I really hadn't readdressed it.  In the movie, they light a metal garbage can on fire.  So that was easy enough.  I figured I'd throw a couple of the silk flame effects units in the bottom of a beat up old can, hook them to a dimmer channel and call it done.  Except that the guys have to actually throw papers IN the can and we risk the papers landing on the silks and pinning them down. The flicker stops and the effect is shit.

So, I turned back to a technology that my father first made in the 80's.  It was a home-made version of the GAM Flickermaster DMX8 units that they sell for $800 big ones, if you can even find it anymore. But for $50 in electronics and a couple of hours time, I have a worthy substitute.  In the 90's, dad improved on the technology, making it two channels and making the power source "dimmable" so that you could fire it from a light cue. It is even more clever when you think that he came up with the idea before GAM. His career was in electronics, working for the library system of a metro school district, so he got to play with cool things all the time. The electronics ran off of a 9V battery and kept going, but the 120V bulbs that you are flickering dim as they continue to flicker.  Pretty cool!  But I could not find that old unit anywhere. Apparently someone borrowed it and it never made its way back.

So, last Monday morning, I picked up $100 worth of crap at Radio Shack and made my way to my dad's. We spent the morning recreating his second generation device, only with improvements...3rd generation!  This unit has 3 channels that flicker at different preset rates, plus a fourth pass-thru channel so that a bulb is constantly on, but dims with the rest.  He even had an old galvanized trash can that he didn't want anymore. So, I loaded all of that into my car (getting REAL tired of my new car being my truck!)  Back at the shop, I wired pairs of sockets into 4 circuits and mounted them about 6" from the bottom in the can.  Connected the controller and WA LA... if you don't see the bulbs, it looks like random flicker of flames.

The last big thing that I had on my list was to put legs on the moon.  Now, this doesn't seem like a big deal. I put legs on platforms all the time. However... This thing is made of 4 pieces of a 12' circle.  OK...so 4 legs per section.  EXCEPT, it slopes.  So, no two legs are the same. And I am dealing with platforms that are essentially each 6' equilateral triangles. AND the legs all inset from the edge so that there is knee space under the disc when it becomes the table in the cafe at the end of Act 1. So, after some math and time figuring out how to assemble this beast, I finally had a plan.  I made the legs and managed to get the thing together with the help of my good friend, Glenn Saltamachia. We numbered each leg and marked where it went underneath so that we could remember how to put it back together on Saturday. This took all morning, but just having the legs worked out should cut the assembly time dramatically.  Once the legs are under it, we can brace it and screw it to the floor and it should be rock solid.


Originally, I was going to skirt the base in luan, bent on the radius and painted black.  Then when we stepped back and looked at it on legs, Sharon suggested that I should just use black fabric...BRILLIANT! That is a huge time saver. The amount of fabric that I need is the cost on one sheet of luan, so I save the cost of two additional sheets and no painting. DONE!

You can see from the photo, that this moon platform is huge! But we have it done and it is ready to load in.

So, Saturday morning, we will load the trailers at 8AM and head to the theater. By 9AM, I plan to be dragging stuff up the fire escape to the stage door and on to stage.  If this goes together as well as Night of the Living Dead last September, we should have platforms up by noon, walls by two, decorative pieces, stairs and railings in another hour...out of there by 3 or 4 at the latest.

That is the goal...we will see. I'm getting excited and am anxious to just get it done!
R

This week's progress...it is in the details.

This week, it feels like I didn't get squat accomplished, but that really isn't true.   When I left you last, we had 4 of 6 brick panels carved.  Last Wednesday, I succeeded in stinking up the office with burning styrofoam and completed the last of the foam carving.  Gary returned from vacation Wednesday morning and wasn't up for spending a ton of time in the office. So, when he left, I got out the hot knife and finished the last of it.  The nice pink/purple color and Owens Corning stamp really makes it convincing, doesn't it?

On Thursday afternoon, Sharon and I donned a couple of brushes and 1/2 gallon of medium gray paint and attacked the foam.  Immediately, the textures popped out as the discolored pink vanished.



I had hoped to finish the panels and get them stored away, but ran out of time. I had a 6PM call for a production that I am in.

On Saturday, I came in to add the additional colors to the surface of the brick, but Gary's sister had an art student and needed the nice, warm studio. So, I couldn't paint and moved my efforts to the shop.  I began the pay phone.  I tackled the cabinet first.  The rounded corners are easy to achieve in machine-formed aluminum.  In wood, it is a bit more of a challenge.  On Sunday, I built the base and stand for it and painted undercoats on both pieces.



I was out of silver spray paint for the aluminum portion, so I grabbed a can from home Monday morning and came in and put a dusting of silver over the gray cabinet.  While that was drying, I made the sign that says PHONE in Photoshop and printed it on glossy paper, trying to model it after the old AT&T signs from the 90's.




On Tuesday afternoon, I mounted the payphone in the cabinet









The sign, stuck on with spray adhesive, was the finishing touch.  I'll get Gary to make it look beat up and weathered sometime this week and it is good to go.  One note: the cabinet and base weigh nothing. That freakin' pay phone weighs in at about 50 lbs.  Don't knock it over... :)

(I'll screw it to the floor once we get it in place, don't worry)

This afternoon, after the driveway was cleared of snow and I could get out of the garage, I went in the the shop to tackle finishing the brick.

In order to give the brick the distressed texture of real brick, I need to layer several colors the on the surface of the brick, while leaving the joints dark gray.   I start with the darkest colors and work to lightest.

Starting with chestnut brown, I dabbed a speckled coat over all of the surfaces using a natural sponge.

Next I mixed 2/3 chestnut brown with 1/3 cherry red and dabbed another layer.

Finally, intermittent spots of primary red, just to pop some highlights.

This is enough for now. It gives a decent, consistent aged brick appearance. Once we load-in and install the panels, I will tape the seams and coat the tape with the same process.  Then we can distress it, add areas of water damage, mildew staining, and graffiti. (if I can find a graffiti artist who works for tickets)

I have two more projects to complete in the next 10 days.  I need to make the burning trash can for the opening number where Mark and Roger burn manuscripts to stay warm.  And the last big monster that I have been putting off...the base/legs for the moon.  

That is a serious challenge because it slopes, it is in four pieces, and it has to support 8 cast members dancing.  Hmmm...  Well, I think that I have it figured out. I just don't want to haul out the four sections of moon and man-handle them on to legs.  They are freakin' heavy! But I really need to assemble it once in the shop and then take it apart and haul it over. That way we know how it goes together and can reassemble it a lot faster during load-in. 

OK, until next time... I'm getting excited about loading this baby in and seeing it all together.   

R