[SML] Almost Maine

[James Alderson]

On Tue, May 1, 2018 at 5:05 PM, Glenn Hoit via Stagecraft
<stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
> Looking for suggestions to create the Aura Borealis that I will need for a
> fall production of Almost Maine.
> 
> Glenn Hoit

I went fairly low tech. I have 50 degree Source Fours in inventory, so I got eight gobo-sized pieces of single weight pyrex heat resistant glass from a local glass company. Sprayed them with BBQ black hi-temp paint, then scratched the paint away in aurora patterns like a clear scratch board. The eight Source 4s covered the cyc in overlapping fields. Auroras are mostly green with some red and blue (depending on which gasses are glowing and how high in the atmosphere the aurora are), so half the instruments were colored with greens, the others split between red and blue.

I ran them in a slow erratically timed 12-14 step effects chase loaded into a submaster. It was quite convincing considering how simple it was. I was concerned about the black paint absorbing too much heat for the pyrex, but the lights were never on long enough for the glass gobos to get too hot.

As a tie-in for an earlier discussion, we used a Bliss light for the star field.

Mick Alderson
TD, Fredric March Theatre
Univ. of Wis. Oshkosh