Independently controlled clock hands

Another post where the pictures are not as awesome as I would like (the next three or four might be like this) but the project was cool so I'm posting it anyway. 

This clock needed to have two independently controlled hands so that the time could be reset by the actor every few minutes (when he would pop through the face as a Cuckoo clock bird.

For the actor, we marked each time on the back and gave him an exact landing point for the wire he was moving (since he had no visual of the front of the clock).

The minute hand was attached to a 2" copper tube. On the front side this simply required a bit of glue, and a bit of gaff tape, to hold the foam-core clock hand to the tube. On the back side, to affix the wire the the actor manipulated to the tube, I needed to use JB weld (if you haven't used it before, JB weld is a two part adhesive designed specifically for attaching metals, it is available at most hardware stores and is amazing).

Once the hour hand was set, the minute hand was easy. I attached the hand on the front directly to my wire, fed the wire through the copper tube, and bent it over in the back to make it easy to turn.

While the back of the clock looks pretty silly when the hands started moving on the front of the clock it looked pretty magical. 

Just because I'm impressed ...

Every year at christmas I am excited to see what sort of new lights come out. In the past few years, as LED technology has progressed rapidly, there seem to be newer and cooler versions of small battery operated LED lights every season. 

In this show (a twist on a pretty typical cabaret show) we decided it would be cool for the music binder to glow when the magic arrived and the music began.

This year martha stewart came out with a line of LED lights that were about the size of a grain of rice, and ran in series along two thin, uncoated wires (those little white flecks in the image above are the lights).

When one string of lights, shining out from behind the pages wasn't enough, I decided to fold the lights into a piece of reflective tape, to try to multiply the points of light.

The tape worked reasonable well, and the light got more and more impressive (to me) as I added a second and a third strand.

The whole rig was almost invisible when the lights were off, and I hid the battery pack inside a hollow stack of foam core, that blended perfectly into the stack of sheet music.

In this image, and the one below you can see (sort of) the lights lit inside their rig. (it was considerable more effective in a dark theatre.

I wired a switch into the circuit, and placed it on the side of the book where it was very easy for the actor to slyly flip it on. 

It worked like I wanted it to, I was very proud of it, and then during tech it was cut. What it came down to was that, as impressed as I was with my new toy (these awesome new lights), the director wasn't. This in no way should be taken as a bitter statement. The director wasn't impressed because, while there were over 90 points of light around the edge of the book, they were still visible as individual points of light. For a show where all of the other magic was smooth and crisp, this book still looked like a "trick."

When I looked at the book, my thought was, "that looks like magic, because before now I never could have put so much light in such a small space." The audience doesn't know how hard that is, and would probably just think, "look they hid a light inside that book."

This was still a really great project, a great experiment with some new technology, and something I might copy again on a different show, with a different feel, where the audience is a bit further away. For this specific show though I had to be willing to let go of something I liked, because it wasn't working in the moment with the rest of what we were doing. 

The Dish and the Spoon Puppets

I wish I had many more process shots of these puppets, but decided that it was worth sharing them anyway.
The dish and the spoon were mostly 2D puppets for Goodnight Moon. Part of the challenge was that they each needed to be easily operated with one hand, because the same actress was operating both puppets at the same time (in addition to playing a third character herself, quite a feat). To start I created a base shape for each puppet on a piece of 1/4" ply.

The mouth operated similar to the mouth of the parrot and the curious child that I built previously. The mechanism requires a plate on a pivot to function as the jaw, a string to pull the jaw down on the pivot, and a spring to pull it back up.

On the two previous projects, where I was creating mouths in heads that had dimension, I was able to attach the pivot point of the jaw somewhere inside the head. In this case, since my 2D puppet did not have a place like that, I used heavy gauge wire to create the fixed pivot. To attach the plywood of the jaw to the wire pivot I drilled a series of holes in the plywood and used another wire to create a series of loops (like a spiral notebook)

Once it was completed, the actor could easily operate the mouth with her thumb, while holding the spoon with one hand. 

To create the look of the front of the spoon, I first added a layer of foam board on the handle and around the face. In addition to giving the spoon some basic dimension, it also served to reinforce the plywood without adding almost any weight. I sculpted the rest of the dimension of her face with Crayola model magic. After the model magic was set, I took a large piece of stretchy lycra fabric and used it to skin the entire puppet. To attach the skin I used spray adhesive, spraying on bit at a time working from the most detailed portions of the face outward to the smooth edges. At the opening of the mouth I cut several slits in the fabric so that I could pull and attach the fabric to fit smoothly around the opening. Add some paint for red lips, pink cheeks and blue eyeshadow, some large googly eyes, and some pipe cleaner eyelashes, and she was ready to go.

The mechanism of the spoon started off in a very similar way, but the operation of the mechanism ended up being very different.

Since there was no way for the actor to hold the dish below the mouth, and be able to pull directly down, I had to use a series of eye hooks to move the strings to a place the actor would be able to access it. As you can see, my initial design had the actor holding the spoon by a handle, where her thumb would have been able to pull in on the string closest to the top.

In the end, she found it worked much better for her hand to be placed directly against the back of the spoon, and to pull up on the string by using a ring attached to her thumb.

To create the face, again I used foam core to create the basic dimension along the lip of the plate, then model magic to sculpt the face. I used a cream colored lycra to skin the plate, and then added a bit of paint, and of course the awesome felt mustache and uni-brow. 

My day job

I've never written about it on here before, but I was talking to another props master recently, and we were talking about money troubles and being freelance. I figured I should be honest. I have a day job.

I had a mild panic freak out about three months after I moved to the city. Money was tight, but things were starting to pick up a bit. I was hopeful. Then I found out that a costume designer I was working with had a day job cutting fabric and teaching classes at Joanns. This was a successful designer that I knew was working in multiple larger theatres around the city. She had been around for years. If she couldn't make a living doing it, could anyone? Is it absolutely impossible to make a living being a totally freelance designer in Chicago.

I am stubborn and hardworking, I thought, I can do it. I did some math and decided that I was going to be able to make it. For almost two years, each time money got really tight or I got worried, a big show seemed to show up and I had enough to continue on (not living well, mind you, this was always paycheck-to-paycheck stuff). I had just enough to hush that voice in the back of my head telling me that I would never make a living.

Finally, last November everything broke down. For a couple of weeks I was dead broke, eating cans of soup from the back of the cabinet, can't take a toll road today because I don't have the $0.80 broke. The worst part was that on paper I should have been fine. Between reimbursements I was owed and pay checks, I had three theatres that owed me, collectively, more than $4,000. Then my car broke down.
My parents were able to help me out with the car, my boyfriend was able to help me with some cash, some of the checks I was waiting for finally showed up, and I got through it. That was a bit of a turning point for me though. I was ready to look for a day job.

My problem was that I needed a day job that was consistent. I had tried working at Joanns, but shift work was too unpredictable. My schedule changed every week and I was never able do do things like plan meetings. The same applied to temp work. They wanted to know when I would be busy, but I never knew far enough ahead of time. I couldn't take a full day job without completely giving up propping. I needed 20 hours a week, roughly the same 20 every week (with a little flexibility). I needed to be able to plan production meetings and work calls around something and I needed time every week when I would be free so I could go shopping when the thrift and antique stores were open. I started asking around at the start of the year to see if anyone had any leads.

Around March I interviewed to become a nanny for a baby that was due to be born in April. I was offered the job in late April with a start date of June 1st. About the same time as the nanny job came up I started getting offers for summer gigs. I had enough offers to financially get me through the summer, and things were starting to materialize for fall gig offers. I could keep going, freelancing, watching things getting slowly incrementally  better, or I could turn down half of the summer jobs I had been offered (all with good theatres I wanted to work with) in exchange for a bit of stability. I had to make a decision. I took the nanny job.

I watch a sweet baby girl two days a week now, and (though it sometimes requires more night and weekend hours than I used to work) I get all of my props work done during the rest of the week.
It might be technically possible to make a living doing props freelance, but I am no longer interested in proving it. My game plan now is to be a little more selective in the shows I take, make sure that I rock every show that I do (which should be easier when I'm not overwhelmed with too many shows at once), and build a solid reputation that I can use to earn that awesome full-time job doing props, when one of the few that exists opens up. In the mean time I have the comfort that comes with knowing where a little bit of money is coming from every single week.

The Red Balloon

 The red balloon was one of the trickiest pieces to figure out in Goodnight Moon. We wanted it to be able to move around the room, tip side to side, and move up and down. After some crazy ideas involving fishing poles rigged with right angles, tracks and pulleys running around over the set, etc. we realized the easiest solution was yo make the balloon a marionette operated from the catwalk. 

(Big shout out here to the run crew person who climbs the ladders, makes the balloon dance and then climbs  back down a dozen times per show). 

 The balloon itself is just thick paper mache formed around a large rubber playground ball. It has four screw eyes around the sides where the strings attach and are run to the grid. 

At the top of the strings is this this cross piece. Each arm corresponding to one side of the balloon. Instead of tying off at each point, I put an eye hook at each point and continued running each string through screw eyes, over the top of the crosspiece, and down to the handle where the operator will be holding the piece. 

 At the end of the handle all of the strings are run back to this fishing reel. The reel allows the puppeteer a wide range of up and down motion. Also, by counting turns she is able to hit designated heights consistently. 

 Hanging off the end of the crosspiece is this clip. The clip allows the puppeteer to clip into the grid where ever she is over the stage. The balloon clips into the grid, balances on the bar nearby and the puppeteer can leave it whenever she needs to to run downstairs to operate any of the other puppets. 

The cow jumps over the moon

By now it should be pretty clear that everything in Goodnight Moon moves or comes to life. The paintings are no different. For the cow jumping over the moon, we needed to cow to jump out of the frame three times and return again each time. 

this is the, terribly uninteresting view from the back side of the wall. Here you can see that the dowel attached to the cow is leaned against a piece of angled 1x2 and attached to the wall with a bolt. 

Jumping the cow out of the frame was just a matter of pivoting the dowel around the bolt.

We didn't want the cow to back up into the frame though, so once we got to this point we kept going until the dowel was pointing straight down. (it's hard to see in these pictures, but the 1x2 was attached to the back flat, and there was a gap between the 1x2 and the front flat the allowed the dowel to swing through). 

To get the cow back into the frame, the run crew uses the 1x2 as a guide to slide the cow smoothly into place. Once it is at the right height, they simply slip the pivot bolt back into its hole and the cow is ready to jump again.

The final time that the cow reappears in the frame, she has just successfully jumped over the moon and has been given a gold medal to celebrate her bravery. During previews several kids asked the director after the show why the cow didn't have her medal when she returned to the frame. Answer: because it hadn't even occurred to us. So after the show I whipped up this quick medal. 

I folded a piece of plumbers strap to fit over the cutout, covered it in white Gaff tape, with red and blue spike tape for stripes, and added a felt furniture glide painted gold. 

The piece slides easily over the cow's neck while the cow is out of the frame between scenes. 

Dancing bookcase dolls

One of the more challenging and magical moments in Goodnight Moon, involved these dolls. 

Early in the show the dolls are taken off the bookcase and given to Little Bunny in his bed. About halfway through the show he places the dolls back on the shelf. Moments later the dolls magically start to move. 

To achieve the magic, both dolls were built with hooks coming out the bottom, that slipped into holes in the bookcase. 

As soon as they were placed on the bookcase, the run crew member backstage quickly attached hooks to the loops. 

To allow the space needed under the dolls, the majority of the books on this section of the bookcase were just bindings glued onto a piece of foam to hold them in place. 

The mechanisms within the dolls were difficult to photograph (pretty much impossible with all the fabric and stuffing surrounding the hardware). I figured a drawing might be an easier way to explain the way the dolls moved. 

The boy doll had wires in each arm The arm wires were attached to the wire going down through the bookcase, and a spring attached to the top of the dolls head. When the wire was pulled down it forced the arms up. When the wire was released the spring pulled the ends of the arm wires back and the arms went back down. 

What is not shown in the drawing is that the wire coming out the bottom is run though a piece of PVC to prevent it from getting snagged on anything. There are also too large dowel rods run from the seat of the doll all the way to the top of his head so that pulling the wire actually stretched the spring instead of just squishing the doll. 

The giraffe was rigged with a nodding head. A large trampoline spring was installed in his neck and heavy duty thread was sewn in from the font of his chin, though his body and down through his foot. when the wire was pulled from below, the spring was forced to bend and the giraffe nodded. When the wire released, the spring sprung back and the giraffe returned to it's initial position

I did have to insert some heavy bolts into the back legs of the giraffe to counter weight him. We were having problems with him tipping over when the string was pulled even slightly too hard. 

Mantle Pieces

These mantle pieces were a quick project for Goodnight Moon.

To make them I used circles cut from 3/4" insulation foam and these glass bottles I found at American Science and Surplus (originally lava lamp bottles). 

I carved the foam to shape, attached everything together with Liquid Nails. 

Side note: make use when gluing foam that you use the Liquid Nails with the blue label. That is the one that is safe on foam. Other will eat through your foam, ruin you project, and produce some pretty toxic chemicals in the process

Finally I painted over all the foam with Elmer's glue to allow it to take paint, and spray painted them blue to match the clock on the fireplace.