# Hotel hallway doors



## carsonld (Jan 14, 2014)

Most of you I am guessing are familiar of the show Thoroughly Modern Millie, one of the scenes is in a hotel hallway, we are pretty much recreating this:



I will be flying on a batten. This for us is actually going to be pretty easy, the problem is: the doors need to be usable. is this possible if we fly them? I imagine there is a way, As you can see it looks like they have done it. Please any ideas.


----------



## MarshallPope (Jan 14, 2014)

Your main consideration needs to be to make sure that they are not able to open in flight. The easiest way to do this is to have a barrel latch on the back of each door, with someone assigned to latch/unlatch them when they fly in/out. Apart from that, you can build the wall just like you would any other piece. You may want to include a threshold piece at the bottom of the doors to keep the openings square, but I prefer not having anything to step over on a flying piece if there is even the most minuscule chance of something failing and it flying out when someone is walking through. Without the threshold, you will want your doors to be lightweight to try to avoid transferring momentum to the rest of the piece. When I've done the show, we built the doors similar to a very pared-down Broadway flat, framed in 1x2 with minimal cross-bracing. 
You'll just want to make certain that the entire thing is square and that you are flying from each wall section in between the doors and all of the gaps are securely framed. 
(I'm trying to be as vague as possible as to the actual rigging of the piece, since that's something I prefer not instructing online)


----------



## urban79 (Jan 14, 2014)

Sending a call out to @VCTMike - I saw his set for this show and it was very, very similar...


----------



## Footer (Jan 14, 2014)

Use a piece of strap steel for the threshold. It will keep the frame square and you won't have the tripping issue.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk


----------



## techieman33 (Jan 14, 2014)

Footer said:


> Use a piece of strap steel for the threshold. It will keep the frame square and you won't have the tripping issue.
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk



I don't think he was worried about tripping. He was worried about someone stepping over it as the wall flies out and getting caught in the air.


----------



## DuckJordan (Jan 15, 2014)

Thats all about making sure you're blocking is not having anyone near the piece when it goes out.


----------



## MarshallPope (Jan 15, 2014)

True, but I've seen things fly when they shouldn't have. Mistakes can happen. Avoiding people-catchers when possible is just one of my personal little things I pay particular attention to.


----------



## bobgaggle (Jan 15, 2014)

Since its been explained how to avoid transfer or energy when the door opens, I've got another tip on that front. I did a wall similar to this for a production of Legally Blonde. The problem was that it wouldn't rest solidly on the deck. There was a really small hump (maybe 1/2" over and 8' span) in the deck that we couldn't fix, and it created a pivot point that the wall would wobble on, especially when the door was opened or closed. we solved this by putting a large strap hinge on the bottom of the flat on the upstage side. An elastic band connected the two leaves. when it came time to work the door, a stagehand would simply step on the free leaf and anchor the wall to the deck with their weight. It kept the wall stable enough that you couldn't see the movement from the house, and when their body weight was released the hinge would fold back up and would be ready to fly.


----------



## FatherMurphy (Jan 15, 2014)

The other pitfall is the fact that when a door opens, the movement of it's center of gravity will cause the entire wall to want to lean the direction the door opened. This can be neutralized by a fold-out jack of some sort (another item to prevent from deploying midair), or more simply by assigning a couple hands to hold the wall steady from behind.

Spring-loaded hinges can help hold doors shut, and if you're into gadgetry, solenoids instead of barrel bolts could be used to lock the doors in place, with the solenoids needing to be energized to allow them to open.


----------



## VCTMike (Jan 16, 2014)

urban79 said:


> Sending a call out to @VCTMike - I saw his set for this show and it was very, very similar...



Hey Chris,

Thanks for the shoutout. Here's a photo of our Twelfth Floor. We used 5/4 lumber with lauan covering and hollow core doors. The thresholds were 2" x 3/16" steel. Six pick points lifting from the bottom of the wall. As suggested, barrels locks for the doors.


----------

