# Rain Deck



## cmac (May 22, 2011)

Our school is going to do "Singin' in the Rain" next year, and for the rest of the semester, it is my project to engineer and design the entire rain sequence and equipment needed for this effect. 

I have been able to find many posts about how to make the actual rain half of the equation, but I am not able to find many ideas on the surface that the rain actually falls on. I have no idea how to build the rain deck, make it waterproof, make it a closed system, or drain it...


Here are my design constraints:


My director would like the rain to be part of a closed, recycling system.
Any way to collect water from under the stage is out of the question, and raising the entire stage is possible, but preferably avoided.
If we were to build something on the entire stage to raise it, we can not screw in to the apron AT ALL, and would need to find a safe way to anchor platforms constructed over that section.
My director would like the entire rain deck to be on wagons, which would require multiple wagons being connected together and able to be broken apart. She would also like the set to be a large piece, and not something built on a single 4X8 wagon.
Our stage is not flat.
Our stage is not level.
The actor must be able to splash on parts of the set.
Any ideas anyone has are greatly appreciated.
Thanks!


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## MPowers (May 23, 2011)

I have done SITR several times but the one that might give you some usable ideas was a Dinner Theatre production a few years ago. 
Rain!
Hope this helps.


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## robartsd (May 23, 2011)

cmac said:


> My director would like the entire rain deck to be on wagons, which would require multiple wagons being connected together and able to be broken apart. She would also like the set to be a large piece, and not something built on a single 4X8 wagon.
> Our stage is not flat.
> Our stage is not level.
> The actor must be able to splash on parts of the set.
> ...


 
Sealing the seams between wagons after bringing them on stage is very like likely to cause problems, so you'll either need to waterproof the whole stage, or create a single wagon rain deck.

I'm not sure why you say your stage is not flat AND not level. I'm assuming that you mean the stage is raked towards the audience and has some other shape characteristic.

For spashing, I'd try to make puddles near the center of the rain deck by providing areas that have difficulty draining the water as fast as it comes on, but still drain to the catch basin completely so that you don't have the problem of a pool of water remaining on the rain deck. You also don't want the actor to have to worry about splashing over the edge of the rain deck.


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## cmac (May 23, 2011)

robartsd said:


> I'm not sure why you say your stage is not flat AND not level. I'm assuming that you mean the stage is raked towards the audience and has some other shape characteristic.


 
It is actually not raked... Our stage is actually not flat. Set pieces that sit flat on some part of the stage, rocks on other areas of the stage, because the stage has areas that sit higher than others.

Our stage is just poorly constructed. To give you an idea, the apron has a curved design that is not even symmetrical...


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## cmac (May 24, 2011)

I have an update! I have figured out how to do the rain deck... for the most part, but my next concern is the size of the system. 

I need it to rain on a *12'X40' AREA OF THE STAGE!!!* 

I have a feeling that I will need two rain bars for this, so does anyone know of a good way to get at least a 6' even spread of rain? I was thinking about using the system described in the article posted by mpowers, but I don't think I will get the required 6' depth.

Thanks!


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## drummerboi316 (May 24, 2011)

the one time I did SITR we ran a length of PVC the distance we needed it to go, drilled holes on 3" centers on the bottom of the pvc, then ran aluminum tape the entire length of the holes just to the rear of the pipe, then molded it into a sort of half round shape with the edge curled over. it distributed the rain very effectively and didn't fall off the entire run.

hope this helps in the rain spread issue.


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## cmac (May 24, 2011)

My problem is that my director wants an even spread of rain that is 40' left to right, and 12' from upstage to downstage.

I have the use of 2 battens on which to do this, but I can not have just 2 sheets of rain. I was asked to find a way to have the mechanism hanging on the batten be less than 1' wide, so that other things can fly past our rain bars, but the rain needs to somehow spread out to make a 6' wide patch of rain running the entire length of the batten.

I need to find a way to have the rain spread out as it falls the 32' from the rain bar to the stage floor.


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## derekleffew (May 24, 2011)

cmac said:


> ...I have the use of 2 battens on which to do this, but I can not have just 2 sheets of rain. ... I need to find a way to have the rain spread out as it falls the 32' from the rain bar to the stage floor.


Sprinkler heads or shower heads?


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## ScottT (May 24, 2011)

drummerboi316 said:


> the one time I did SITR we ran a length of PVC the distance we needed it to go, drilled holes on 3" centers on the bottom of the pvc, then ran aluminum tape the entire length of the holes just to the rear of the pipe, then molded it into a sort of half round shape with the edge curled over. it distributed the rain very effectively and didn't fall off the entire run.


 
The other thing you can do to even out the water falling is to drill the holes on the side of the PVC. This lets the pipe fill halfway up before the water starts to fall. Another informative article is here


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## kiwitechgirl (May 24, 2011)

derekleffew said:


> Sprinkler heads or shower heads?


 
I agree with Derek - we made it rain on the audience (very briefly!) in a panto, and it was done with domestic garden sprinklers - the little stick-shaped ones which have a spike on the end which you then stab into the hose where you want it, spacing them however you need. Reasonably cheap, easy, and pretty effective.


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## cmac (May 24, 2011)

Derekleffew, I'm worried about that appearing too regular, and not enough rain like... if i was going to do it like that though, i would be leaning toward sprinkler heads.

Great advice scottT, but I am still trying very hard to get away from the thin sheet of rain parallel to the batten. I need the rain to spread to at least a 6 foot wide strip across the entire stage, but this solution is just a thin strip.


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## cmac (May 24, 2011)

kiwitechgirl, how did it look, and how far did it spread? Also, did it look real?


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## emac (May 25, 2011)

kiwitechgirl said:


> I agree with Derek - we made it rain on the audience (very briefly!) in a panto, and it was done with domestic garden sprinklers - the little stick-shaped ones which have a spike on the end which you then stab into the hose where you want it, spacing them however you need. Reasonably cheap, easy, and pretty effective.


 

Cmac Will there be set on stay during the rain scene? Because if so you could just put the mini sprinklers or irrigation sprinkler heads like this (if this is what you mean kikitechgirl, else wise this could possibly still work) to the top of you set pieces in various places to get your "rain fill" and then do one downstage rain line to create a curtain.... I could look ok or it could not look good, going with higher GPH sprinkler heads will help it look more like rain versus mist (which is what they are often designed to do).

If you that doesn't work you could also try to make a collapsing spreader system. see attached pics. It may take a while to work out the kinks in the system but it should in theory work. One of the downsides to this is that you would have to most likely have to run the lineset in during a black-out. But that depends on the length of you spreaders.

In the sketches please excuse all spelling mistakes as I Indesgin was crashing every time I tried to spell check. This is also a SUPER rough sketch (o boy do I wish I had trained myself on vecotorworks by now....), so if you have any questions dont hesitate to ask/PM me.


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## MarshallPope (May 25, 2011)

emac said:


> Cmac Will there be set on stay during the rain scene? Because if so you could just put the mini sprinklers or irrigation sprinkler heads like this (if this is what you mean kikitechgirl, else wise this could possibly still work) to the top of you set pieces in various places to get your "rain fill" and then do one downstage rain line to create a curtain.... I could look ok or it could not look good, going with higher GPH sprinkler heads will help it look more like rain versus mist (which is what they are often designed to do).
> 
> If you that doesn't work you could also try to make a collapsing spreader system. see attached pics. It may take a while to work out the kinks in the system but it should in theory work. One of the downsides to this is that you would have to most likely have to run the lineset in during a black-out. But that depends on the length of you spreaders.
> 
> In the sketches please excuse all spelling mistakes as I Indesgin was crashing every time I tried to spell check. This is also a SUPER rough sketch (o boy do I wish I had trained myself on vecotorworks by now....), so if you have any questions dont hesitate to ask/PM me.


 
Expanding on this idea, you could possibly also be able to rig some of the spreaders emac came up with to swivel if you aren't comfortable with the extra rigging. The spreaders could normally live parallel to the batten, but you could run a pulley-ed hand line (think traveler curtain) that could open the spreaders to a position perpendicular to the batten, or the rain might look more full if the spreaders are open to 45° or so.


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## chausman (May 26, 2011)

Could you use more than one batten to fly the rain rig from? Maybe have reducers on the main pipe facing up that when you had enough preasure, water came spurting out above.

And, Derek, we all know how you feel about people spelling batten wrong, so you don't need to mention it about the sketch above.


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