# Flying Paper



## krice (Sep 5, 2011)

I have an interesting challenge that I would love some advice on: I have to make paper fall from the sky. 

I work in a proscenium theatre with a fly system. However, we're doing Dead Man's Cellphone by Sarah Ruhl and the director wanted it in the round- so we've put all the seats onstage and brought in our orchestra shell and flown in a cyc to close off the wing space and create a smaller, in-the-round space on stage. So my only access to the stage floor is via our fly system and two open spaces between orch. wall and cyc. I can't get over the walls and my cats are 100 yards away.

I'm having trouble coming up with ideas for how to make multitudes of card stock and various sized paper fall from the sky.

So far, all I've come up with is making a snow cradle with larger slits for the paper- but my concern is that the paper may just slide over the holes instead of through them depending on how well they shake out, or I make the holes too big and the "paper cradle" never holds the paper long enough for me to fly it in and out every night. Any ideas?


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## sk8rsdad (Sep 5, 2011)

Do you need a continual rain of paper or are you looking for one big flurry? If the latter then something like a confetti cannon, or a big fan and a bag full of chad might do the trick. If you like the snow cradle idea, you could rig a secondary cradle of solid fabric under your snow bag securely fastened on one side and kabuki-rigged on the other. Drop it out of the way just before the rain of paper begins.


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## krice (Sep 5, 2011)

Thanks for the reply!

It is just one scene, the characters are in a paper store reveling over lush paper. I'd say it should last about twenty to thirty seconds if it can. 

My major concern is that it has to be sheets of paper (ranging from 3"x5" to 8 1/2"x11")not snow-like bits. I really liked your kabuki idea though, that sounds like a smart safe guard.


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## josh88 (Sep 5, 2011)

you wont really have much control of where it goes and if you have a shell down it may not work anyway but could you put people up on the grid and just have them start dropping paper?


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## IntimeTD (Sep 5, 2011)

Oh boy, my proscenium theatre is also doing Dead Man's Cell Phone this year. I sincerely hope the director has no aspirations to theatre-in-the-round.

However as to your problem, I'm doubtful that a traditional snow cradle will let the paper pass through at all. Even if you have the requisite type of fly system (this is best done with one of the older counterweight systems. we have winches for instance, which wouldn't work), a long thin cradle with slits, even relatively wide ones, will get bunched up. My thought would be to make a modified version, where you have a tube attached to the two battens with open ends. When not in use, leave the working batten raised so that no paper flies out. When you want the effect, rock it downwards slowly so that a little paper sifts out each time. I don't know how wide an effect you want, since this will probably concentrate the paper in one area a little more. But it seems like a clean fix to me. Hope it helps.


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## mstaylor (Sep 5, 2011)

You could do a modified balloon bag. load a bag that has an open bottom. Use fishing line or tie line to close the bottom, pull the string and the contents drop.


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## kicknargel (Sep 5, 2011)

Maybe a multi-stage balloon bag, so that you could release one every five seconds or so to keep the effect going.


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## seanandkate (Sep 5, 2011)

IntimeTD said:


> My thought would be to make a modified version, where you have a tube attached to the two battens with open ends. When not in use, leave the working batten raised so that no paper flies out. When you want the effect, rock it downwards slowly so that a little paper sifts out each time. I don't know how wide an effect you want, since this will probably concentrate the paper in one area a little more. But it seems like a clean fix to me. Hope it helps.


 
Or (in a variation on IntimeTD's idea, might this work:
Use an 8' x 12" Sonotube with large openings cut along its length on the top third of its surface, so when the holes are facing up, 2/3 of the tube is keeping the paper secure, rotate the tube 180 degrees, paper can slip through the holes. Secure it with the batten running through the centre of it, or to a batten so that it can rotate. Attach a line that when pulled will rotate it 180 and it's raining paper across a wide swath of stage (if that's what you need).


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## sk8rsdad (Sep 7, 2011)

A word of caution, there's a big difference between a falling piece of chad and a full sheet of paper. The paper is going to catch air and drift uncontrollably. If I were on stage, or in the audience, wouldn't want to get hit in the eye with the corner of a piece of paper.

I had another thought about how to make it work. Put a stack of paper in a hopper. Put a rubber wheel (wheelbarrow, lawnmower) on a swing arm and drive it with an electric motor (variable speed stepper). The wheel rests on top of the stack of paper and flings it. Gravity keeps it in contact with the top sheet of the stack. Rate and distance are governed by the speed of the wheel. Make sense?


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## FatherMurphy (Sep 10, 2011)

Another approach would be to essentially build your own large-size scroller, and preload the paper onto one side of the scroller, trapping the paper between turns of the scroll. During the show, as the scroll winds to the other drum, the paper falls out. Rate of dump can be controlled by either changing scroll speed, or preloading different amounts of paper.

Several small kabukis, triggered sequentially a few seconds apart, would merge into a 20-30 second effect.


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## scenerymaker (Sep 12, 2011)

If the paper needs to stay flat, rather than curled from the suggested scroller, get the paper feed mechanism from an old copier. Office supply stores probably have them sitting around for free.


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## NickVon (Sep 12, 2011)

Rig your office photocopy and "print" alot of white paper.  seriously though.

If you have the tool i think the thought of a hopper and a little rubber wheel like that of a printer feeder might be the most controllable solution.


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