[SML] Use of weapons in production

[Kim Hartshorn]

We always use shop built wooden prop guns.  Slapping a hardwood slat to the
stage floor makes a very effective gun sound, with all the overtones not
possible with a recorded effect.  If you want more realism you can download
and print a photograph/illustration/technical drawing and apply it to a
plywood cutout, amazingly effective.

This is why I think these solutions are effective.

1.  real guns, even realistic replicas, upstage everything else you are
doing onstage, which is usually actually some sort of an abstraction

2.  the upstaging can border on high anxiety for many members of the
audience

3.  real guns don't really sound like what people imagine guns sound like
(I thought it was firecrackers going off)

4.  real weapons do not usually match the concept for the rest of the design

5.  oh....and they can hurt people bad
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Kim Hartshorn
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