# The Wizard of Oz, projecting the wizard.



## CSCTech (Apr 29, 2011)

Hey everyone, we are currently working on The Wizard of Oz.

Im just wondering what others have done to imitate the Wizard? 
Our real wizard is actually a young female, so we will be having fun with the FX processor 

Anyway, I am thinking an Apollo ColorScenic, but I don't think I can get a picture that is clear enough. I've attached a picture of what we want (Thats taken from the actual movie) but im not sure if the quality of it is good enough to be made into a gobo, or one that would look decent? Or would it? Never had to get a custom ColorScenic.

Also, someone has used something other then a glass gobo and could shed some light on this for me that'd be awesome


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## DuckJordan (Apr 29, 2011)

CSCTech said:


> Hey everyone, we are currently working on The Wizard of Oz.
> 
> Im just wondering what others have done to imitate the Wizard?
> Our real wizard is actually a young female, so we will be having fun with the FX processor
> ...


 

We actually recorded our own video and rear projected it onto a screen that was framed by Emerald pillars. The video was all pre-recorded and we used a guitar amp being fed by our board with an overdrive effects pedal between the board and the amp. Worked great and brought the scariness to the wizard.


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## shiben (Apr 29, 2011)

CSCTech said:


> Hey everyone, we are currently working on The Wizard of Oz.
> 
> Im just wondering what others have done to imitate the Wizard?
> Our real wizard is actually a young female, so we will be having fun with the FX processor
> ...


 
This sounds like a situation for a vide projector. Then you can make your own images or even video, or even if you want some real fun, do the video live and process it live as well...


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## JD (Apr 29, 2011)

If the projection method does not cut it, and it looks like a "weak wizard", you may just want to kick that part of the project over to the props crew to actually make a wizard head.


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## shiben (Apr 29, 2011)

JD said:


> If the projection method does not cut it, and it looks like a "weak wizard", you may just want to kick that part of the project over to the props crew to actually make a wizard head.


 
Or make an artistic choice to make the wizzard less intimidating, depends on what kind of production you are running.


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## ValleyTheaterKid (May 6, 2011)

Possible hook up and LCD projector in the booth to a computer and play it from there? just throwing out ideas. we are going to try that soon.


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## gafftaper (May 7, 2011)

When I did Oz many years ago we did the whole thing live on stage. I had a chemical fogger blasting a tower of fog straight up out of the floor. Then a video projector projecting into the fog. The projector was wired direct to a video camera on stage in a small booth. The big reveal comes and we see the wizard talking into the camera while on screen we see him looking over his shoulder at the crowd... pay no attention to that man... it was great. The look of projecting onto smoke was highly irregular and really cool looking. 

Of course back then the projector was one of those massive RGB units. It would be a lot easier today with the new projectors.


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## rwhealey (May 7, 2011)

The time I worked on show the wizard was front projected onto the Cyc which was being shaken by one person on each side of the stage - they got some cool wave patterns going and it looked pretty neat.


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## zmb (May 7, 2011)

I have a load-in tomorrow for _The Wiz, _similar to _The Wizard of Oz_. I'll have to ask around tomorrow and see what we do during the upcoming tech week.


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## aemeeich (May 8, 2011)

The school I work at did Wizzard of Oz (RSC version) last year.

We came up with using a video camera and projector for the wizard and it came out awesome.

Here are a few pictures.



My dad and I made the dowser. One of my crew members just flipped open the shutter at the right time, and closed it when the scene was over. The projector was able to stay powered up for all of act 2. Yes, it would have been nice to buy the Apollo DMX dowser, but it was too expensive. This was made out of things my dad had stashed away at home - bless the pack-rat in him. (I can't believe I just said that!)

The video camera was in the Wizard's booth which is right behind the lion in the above picture and was also powered up the entire time. The only issue was during the grade school matinee when a stage crew member was out on stage too long and was caught stage center when the lights started fading up. She dashed off right, but caught the video cable and disconnected the RCA connector. Funny watching Dorthy and friends reacting to a blue wall. Luckily my backstage crew member knew what had happened, closed the dowser, and fixed it right away. I changed over to BNC connectors that afternoon for the rest of the run.

As gafftaper said, it was really cool to see the Wizard looking over his shoulder and Dorthy peering around him looking into the video camera and seeing her on the screen.





Michael


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## cpf (May 8, 2011)

A long time ago I saw this done at a school production with a pre-recorded DVD and an operator with a remote. It went surprisingly well, but I'd definitely go the live camera route if I did it.


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## VCTMike (May 11, 2011)

We built a head assembly with moveable mouth, fogger and lights. 



I built the arch also - all 890 lights of it.


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## NevilleLighting (May 15, 2011)

The last few times that I have had to do OZ the Wizard has been a digital projection. If you go that way I think a lot of the question becomes your video capabilities. Ideally, you have all of the actors on place doing the scene while you record a closeup on the Wiz. Also, set design-wise it is great if you can shape the screen into the set somewhat. 

Smoke, light and sound effects help this a lot.


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## Phantom of the aud (Feb 27, 2015)

We are going the vid projector route 4 of them 2 for the Tornado, 1 for the Wizard Head and a back projection on an octoganal double pane window for the "crystal ball"
we are anticipating mounting 3 on the #1 lighting bar still in development I will keep you up date on our progress


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## trudjonick (Mar 2, 2015)

We went the projection route with the Wizard in the wings with a green light on his face projected real - time with voice effects on his mic. We projected his image into thick fog in front of the cyc. It was pretty easy and pretty slick. However, I now use a mac and QLab for projections - thus allowing you could just do a live feed from the computer's camera in that situation. Either way, easy and great final product.


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## StradivariusBone (Mar 2, 2015)

My wife did this with her elementary school kids a few years back. They have quite possibly the most annoying audio system on the planet, but the mixer surprisingly has a built-in FX loop, so like you said we ran some signal processing to make the 11-year-old Wiz sound a bit more the part. This was an elementary school, so no budget for any cool tech, _BUT_ they did have a projector mounted a bit into the "cafetorium" and a motorized projector screen in front of the main rag. Attached to this deal was a crappy doc cam backstage. So we parked it behind the main, it had a invert color mode and we put Oz in front of it with the FX mic and he went to town. Toto peeks behind the actual main curtain and, with some well-timed curtain pulling, we had a pretty darn neat elementary school effect. I think the parents even dressed up the doc cam cart to make it look more "Ozzy". We had a lot of fun with that gag.


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