Top Document: Stagecraft Frequently Asked Questions Previous Document: 11. Spliffs? Joints? Reefers? Marijuana cigarettes? Next Document: 13. How do I clean my smoke machine? See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge There are at least five different sorts of smoke/fog/mist used in theatre Pyrotechnics These are the only way of producing a truly coloured smoke. The dyes used will mark scenery or drapes nearby. Pyroflash cartridges produce a jet of deeply coloured dense smoke for seven or thirty seconds when fired, and I think Stage FX pods produce smoke for about twenty seconds. Flashpots, gerbs and any other pyro effect will produce a lot of white smoke in addition to the main effect. All pyro safety precautions must be observed, See the FAQ entry for pyrotechnics for more information. Smoke guns Smoke guns feed a liquid ('smoke juice') into a heated chamber. It vaporizes and produces a jet of dense white smoke. Cheap smoke machines tend to use a pressurised canister of juice, whilst the more expensive ones use an electric pump to feed juice from an external tank into the chamber. The electrically pumped machines tend to give a lot more control, and the juice is a lot cheaper than the pressurised canisters. Pressurised canister machines can be plugged in for a while to get the block hot, then can be unplugged and moved around the stage and still work. (There is one rechargable pumped gun that can be used cordless, the Scottie) The smoke will hang in the air for a time, depending on the ventilation of the building and the formula of smoke juice used (clubs generally use economical long lifetime smoke juice, whilst theatres tend to use short lifetime juice for more control). The dense jet of smoke is a bit obvious in some contexts. One answer is to deliver the smoke through flexible ducting. Most (all?) machines have an adapter available that makes it easy to connect ducting to the machine. You can buy expensive black flexible ducting from the smoke gun supplier or use cheaper tumble-dryer exhaust ducting. Another approach is to control the output of the gun. Most pumped guns have a control that lets you dribble smoke out of the gun at varying rates. One or two (aimed at the club market, presumably) have optical sensors available to maintain a constant density of smoke in a space. Smoke from a smoke gun can't be coloured, but the dense white smoke takes colour from lighting well. Haze fluid is available for some smoke guns. This produces a very pale smoke, quite unlike the normal dense smoke. It's not as obvious as normal smoke, until you shine light through it. It's nowhere near as good as cracked-oil haze, but you can use it for some of the same effects for a fraction of the price. Don't try and make your own smoke juice or your own smoke machine. Don't try and use a garden fogger as a smoke gun. Don't use smoke juice in a machine it isn't recommended for. Using the wrong block temperature/fog juice combination can produce irritant, carcinogenic or toxic gasses. Flavoured smoke juice is available, often at a discount over normal juice. Don't use it. If the cast don't lynch you your crew will. Pina Colada smoke juice is particularly nasty. Allergic reactions. Some actors will believe that smoke will cause them to cough (as will the audience). In my experience this is pretty much psychological. Newbie actors will choke for a while, but people who've worked with smoke before won't notice it. Ensure your cast get a chance to rehearse with smoke before the dress. Smoke will dry the throats of singers or woodwind/brass players and should be avoided or minimised if you can. Smoke chillers. If you chill smoke using solid CO2 you can produce a low-lying smoke. It's not as low to the floor as CO2 smoke, and will drift up as people move. It's a very nice effect, particularly for nighttime marsh or docks scenes. Not bad for 'victorian london' too. I've never used a commercial chiller but have had very good results with homemade chillers, made from a large box with an inlet at one end, an outlet at the other and baffles inbetween. Shelves made of wire mesh hold the dry-ice that chills the smoke. I've seen people pack smoke ducting with dry-ice for this effect, but it doesn't work as well. Dry-ice or CO2 A dry-ice smoke kettle is a sealed plastic box with electric heating elements in the bottom, and a metal basket that can be raised or lowered (think deep-fat dryer). The lower half is filled with water; brought to near boiling by the electric elements. The basket is filled with dry-ice. When the smoke is needed the basket is lowered into the hot water. The dry-ice sublimes and produces a very dense white water-vapour smoke. This is forced out of a nozzle on the front of the kettle. These consume a lot of power, 7 or 8 kW for a medium sized kettle. Dry-ice smoke is very dense and low-lying. 'Jekyll and Hyde' effects can be produced by dropping dry-ice pellets into a beaker of hot water. Dry-ice can be bought cheaply from frozen food distributors, or 'borrowed' from university physics departments. It can be stored in a polystyrene box or coolbox for 2-4 days. Make sure that the coolbox isn't airtight - the CO2 buildup can blow the lid off. Liquid nitrogen foggers Liquid nitrogen smoke machines work by spraying a fine mist of liquid nitrogen. This drops the temperature of the air and causes atmospheric moisture to condense into a low lying, natural looking fog LN2 fog is common at fixed installations, such as theme parks, but can be useful on stage. Interesting Products answer some LN2 fogger questions at http://www.interesting-products.com/linkpg.htm Cracked-oil foggers These produce a nearly transparent haze that scatters light well. Beams of light are clearly visible in the haze, but the haze itself isn't visible. A beautiful effect, but I've never been able to afford to rent one. User Contributions:Top Document: Stagecraft Frequently Asked Questions Previous Document: 11. Spliffs? Joints? Reefers? Marijuana cigarettes? Next Document: 13. How do I clean my smoke machine? Single Page [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ] Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer: ratsfaq@blighty.com (Stagecraft FAQ admin (Steve Atkins))
Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:12 PM
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