# Wizard of Oz - no great balls of fire allowed! How to make it work?



## Delighted1 (Feb 14, 2013)

Great site and info, but this one's got me stumped.

High School production of the Wizard of Oz, and we can't use any pyrotechnics - no flash paper, powder, nothing - so how do we do an acceptable fireball from the witch to the scarecrow?

The witch will be on a platform, the scarecrow on the stage, and the best we've come up with so far is a short zipline on which we can hang a red, yellow, and orange gelled clear plastic mayonnaise jar - the witch "throws" the jar by grabbing it during her windup for the throw and then propelling it down the line. The jar can slide down the line to a hard stop near the scarecrow. 

I'm looking for suggestions on other easier ways to do it, or comments on what can be used as a constant light source within the jar when it's "thrown" by the witch. For an extra POP at the end of it's travel, we have access to a good supply of old-style photographic flashbulbs, so an inertial trigger of some sort and some batteries within the jar might fit the bill (i.e., when the jar comes to a sudden stop at the end of its travel, we'd like to use the impact against the stop to provide the force needed to close a contact and fire the flashbuld within the jar).

Am I making this more complicated than it needs to be, and/or has anyone fiddled with cobbling together this sort of rig? As usual with school productions, budget's an issue, and creative workarounds plentiful.

Any assistance and suggestions will be most appreciated!

Thanks!


----------



## Skript (Feb 14, 2013)

Compressed CO2 (basically something similar to a fire extinguisher) can be used to "spray" the scarecrow. The flow is then lit with reds and oranges, giving it a firey color. A very simple, and inexpensive fire-less fire.


----------



## gafftaper (Feb 14, 2013)

Imagination my friend! As I mentioned in a few previous posts, the Seattle Children's Theater (which is a huge multi-million dollar theater company) did Oz recently. I went expecting fire, flying monkeys and all kinds of cool stuff. Instead we got the "acoustic" version of the show. They used a foger when the witches appeared and they flew the hot air baloon at the end. Other that it was all simple imagination. When the witch throws the fireball, she mimed throwing, all the cast "followed" the fireball through the air, and then a bright yellow/orange combination of light hit the scarecrow with a burning fire sound effect, low in the background. Keep it simple, let the actors act, and just go with what you have.


----------



## Van (Feb 14, 2013)

I actually kinda like the zip-line Idea. I also like the CO2 idea.


----------



## Delighted1 (Feb 14, 2013)

Van said:


> I actually kinda like the zip-line Idea.



Thanks, and thanks to the rest for the other responses. The zipline came about to ensure the "thrown" object got from point A to point B with a minimum of deviation, provides the ability for the "hard stop" we were thinking of using to simply trigger the battery-rigged flashbulb using not much more than the battery pack's momentum, and not having to hit a target receptacle or have someone chase the thrown object as it bounced past the scarecrow.

I like the CO2 idea too, as well, so it's back to the Director to offer the options after a little trial and (hopefully) not too much error.

Thanks again!


----------



## Timboman92 (Feb 21, 2013)

*Making scarecrow appear to be smoking*

Hello all,


I'm the LD for our upcoming show of Wizard of Oz. the directors want the scarecrow to appear to be smoking when the witch shoots him with "fire" the only solution I've seen is cloth that smokes when you ignite it but you have to totally protect the actor. Are there other solutions? 
Thanks.


----------



## sk8rsdad (Feb 21, 2013)

*Re: Making scarecrow appear to be smoking*


----------



## Timboman92 (Feb 21, 2013)

How would the actor be able to conceal that and discharge it though?


----------



## sk8rsdad (Feb 21, 2013)

*Re: Making scarecrow appear to be smoking*

Concealment is a problem for the costume designers. With all the straw and stuffing it shouldn't be too hard to find a place. 

There are lots of devices for triggering a spray can or extending the nozzle. If 'twere me I would keep it simple and have the scarecrow squeeze a trigger or some such while trying to pat out the fire.


----------



## Delighted1 (Mar 10, 2013)

Van said:


> I actually kinda like the zip-line Idea. I also like the CO2 idea.



Well, the show closed yesterday after selling out all four nights. You can get a look at the results of the mayonnaise-jar/zipline/LED/flashbulb contraption at http://fishtp.seizethefish.com/NotKansas/Fireball.mp4 , and a good time was had by all!


----------



## dvsDave (Mar 11, 2013)

Nicely done. Would you mind taking some pics of the assembly of the device? 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


----------



## shayward (Mar 11, 2013)

Very interesting solution. Would you mind providing a little more information on how you used the flashbulbs to create the psuedo-flashpot at the end? (Like how you rigged the device, where found the flashbulds to use, etc.)


----------



## Delighted1 (Mar 11, 2013)

dvsDave said:


> Nicely done. Would you mind taking some pics of the assembly of the device?



Pics of the fireball are available at Index of /NotKansas . It was a ghetto-fireball project, in that I used odds and ends to pull the device together. The socket for the flashbulb came from a broken lamp, the LED array came from a $2.99 Harbor Freight work/flashlight, the battery holders and switches came from Radio Shack, and the mayonnaise jar (Hellmann's - I wanted the best!) was of a size that everything fit and stayed neat. I eventually swapped out the eyebolts for a couple of fishing tackle snap-swivels so that it would stay on the zipline for the whole length of travel but be easy enough to remove at the terminal end. Three AAA batteries in a holder powered the LEDs, with a strip of mylar breaking the contact until the ball was "thrown" and the mylar stayed behind at the pole the cable ran from - a rocker switch on the bottom allowed the Tin Man and Dorothy to turn off the LED at the far end. A momentary switch on the lid was tripped by the black lever in the first picture when the lever came in contact with a washer at the stop in the line at the scarecrow's end, allowing the 9V battery to fire the flashbulb (No. 11 type). The flashbulbs were new, old stock I received from a friend who had a bunch. We tried having the witch push the device free (got it rocking and swaying too much), but ended up using the same type of metal hook and eye you find on an old-time screen door, running some monofilament from the hook to remotely release the "ball" from behind the witch's platform (much smoother and reliable for getting it to trigger and slide the way we wanted it to). Also eventually traded the green gel over the LEDs for a combo of yellow and red for the performances. A bit of trial and error to get the length of the mylar right (needed enough momentum to have it pull out rather than tether the "ball"), but the rest pretty much worked from the first test run to the last performance.


----------



## Delighted1 (Mar 11, 2013)

Oh, and the bulb in the pictures is the size we used for rehearsals - only about 1/3 the size of the No. 11 bulbs used for the shows. The last pic shows the mylar in place and coming out through the hole in the back/bottom of the jar.


----------



## cadcoke5 (Mar 15, 2013)

I had been thinking about solutions for this effect myself. My current thinking was to put some LEDs in either a Nerf-ball or a whiffle-ball. The LED's would be driven by a standard tea-light flicker LED, which would be used to drive some brighter LEDs (see Does this LED sound funny to you? | Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories ).

There would be a delayed-off time created by wiring the momentary-on-switch to a MOSFET with a capacitor in parallel. Then a resistor (actually a pot) would drain the capacitor, and eventually turn the device off at some point after the momentary button is released.

My preference, if the staging will allow it, is for a hooded black-ninja crew member to make the device turn on by holding down the momentary switch, and hold it above the Witch's hand. Then, follow her movements, and actually throw the ball. The fireballs delayed off time would be adjusted so that it would go off by the time the ball hit the floor. Note that I would prefer the ball to hit upstage of something that would prevent it from rolling any further. But, an additional protection against rolling down stage would be to add an illuminated silk flame to the fireball with a wire inside to hold its shape.

I was thinking about adding smoke to the scarecrow's arm, for use both here and at the Witch's melting scene. I have made such devices by using electronic cigarettes and tiny computer chip cooling fans. But, with all the motion and the brevity of the fire, I don't think the smoke on the arm would show up. For the forest scene, a small fog-machine puff coming from inside the stage is one option, if it can be blocked that way.

My real thinking for the Scarecrow's fire, is a set of LED's inside his patch of straw on his arm. I would be concerned about making them flicker, because I don't want the electronic nature of the flicker to be seen as they quickly move around. Simply steady on, in a few different colors. He might have a toggle switch on the patch to turn on or off. Although the fire is on him for such a short time, I wonder if it is of any real value.

I haven't spoken to the directors yet about this, so it is just a preliminary concept at the moment. I will post here about it, if I implement it.

Joe Dunfee


----------



## Delighted1 (Mar 16, 2013)

Delighted1 said:


> Oh, and the bulb in the pictures is the size we used for rehearsals - only about 1/3 the size of the No. 11 bulbs used for the shows. The last pic shows the mylar in place and coming out through the hole in the back/bottom of the jar.



One more clarification due to my own confusion: No. 11 bulbs were used for rehearsals, while No. 50 bulbs were used for the performances. Got the two reversed in my head. Sorry.


----------



## Amiers (Mar 21, 2013)

Delighted1 said:


> One more clarification due to my own confusion: No. 11 bulbs were used for rehearsals, while No. 50 bulbs were used for the performances. Got the two reversed in my head. Sorry.




Ive been reading about this since FEB im glad you figured something out cuz it looked good. I hope that video was of a rehersal because the witch barely put any effort into looking like she was throwing it lol.


----------

