# cardboard scenery, for charlie and the chocolate factory



## DomLauria (Feb 26, 2013)

The director's big idea for our production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is to have the set be very childish and whimsical. He wants me to take the idea of "young kids always love playing with cardboard boxes" and to turn it into a set built out of cardboard.

I read this thread and it seems like I have my work cut out for myself to make it look good, even for a crayon/marker childish/whimsical theme. 

Probably will end up using a lot of 2d cutouts on stage, and have plans to ramp up the interest with some madmapped images projected above the set on a variety of style/shaped whiteboard.

Anyone use cardboard recently for anything cool? ANY suggestions would be awesome! The budget will be rather low. I have two projectors available and a small conventional lighting inventory that is just enough to cover the stage with two colors.


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## TheaterEd (Feb 26, 2013)

I recently had a middle school production come in with some cardboard 2d cutouts of buildings. They were awful. They were a real pain to get to stand on their own, and it really made the production look 'cheap.' Also, many of their other cardboard props broke during their one week of rehearsals and shows. I imagine that you would make yours to a higher quality than they did, but at the same time, cardboard definitely limited as a medium. 

On the other hand, I did just get done with a production where we used cardboard concrete forming tubes to make some awesome pillars. Here is a picture of them after strike. to paint them we just put down a base coat of latex and then spray painted the design. 




You might want to check with your fire marshal before even beginning this project.
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## DomLauria (Feb 26, 2013)

Thanks for the suggestions, forgot all about sonotube!

Will definitely be going through the fire marshall on any of this.


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## csilvia9 (Feb 27, 2013)

I gave up on cardboard years ago. As soon as you try to paint it your going to end up with warped useless stuff. I Even invested in extra thick large sheets of cardboard from a packing company and it still failed. You can buy sheets of luan for about the same cost of buying large sheets of cardboard. It takes paint, easy to cut with a jig saw and can stand with minimal support. Also you can re use it depending on how you cut it.
csilvia


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## derekleffew (Feb 27, 2013)

Or foamcore if lightweight is desirable. But it can be expensive.
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## josh88 (Feb 27, 2013)

Expensive indeed but we just did Alice in wonderland with flat foamcore props all over and with a little care they'll hold up fine, can be painted, colored on, whatever you want, and it's a much cleaner look if you can afford it.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## DomLauria (Feb 28, 2013)

Looking into the feasibility of foamcore. The director is now leaning away from cardboard thank god, but he still wants a cardboard look to the set.

Perhaps lightly adhering paperboard to luan flats?


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## DomLauria (Apr 5, 2013)

Got him to go with a good number of hollywood flats; however cardboard was his main concept so it was hard escaping terribly cheap looks at time.

I'm definitely protesting any future plans that include cheap build materials as a "key concept" to any production, i ABSOLUTELY hate cardboard even more now!

Some of the pieces did turn out decent..... Some questionable.

Flat:


Cardboard used as platform siding instead of luaun:


Cardboard camera:


Random box1:


Random box2:


Random box3:


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