On Friday, 27 July 2018 16:48:08 UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:
You probably ought to be asking a magician.

Now if only there was a magician participating in this newsgroup ...

Owain

On 27/07/2018 17:17, wrote:
On Friday, 27 July 2018 16:48:08 UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:
You probably ought to be asking a magician.

Now if only there was a magician participating in this newsgroup ...

Should I take it from that that there is or that there isn't?


--
--

Colin Bignell

There used to be two whom I knew of for certain. One has since departed.

Nightjar wrote:

wrote:

Now if only there was a magician participating in this newsgroup ...

Should I take it from that that there is or that there isn't?

TMH still pops in for a moan now and again ...

Andy Burns wrote:

TMH still pops in for a moan now and again ...

I didn't know that; thanks.

Bert Coules wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

TMH still pops in for a moan now and again ...

I didn't know that; thanks.

Don't get me wrong, he made a lot of good contributions to the group
over many years, but it's a bit cheeky of him to moan about brexit
threads when he wasn't above dragging cycle-helmet/smoking/thanet-ukip
threads here.

I'm sure he could get by with a kill-file ...

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:33:30 +0100
Clive Arthur wrote:

On 26/07/2018 11:38, Bert Coules wrote:
Tim,

Many thanks for your thoughts.Â* The collapse has to be pretty much
instant, so any release of pressure on an inflatable dummy would
need to take immediate effect or nearly so.

snip

Inflate the 'balloon' with ammonia gas. To deflate quickly, squirt
some water in - ammonia dissolves in water very well and rapidly.

(Ok, maybe not, a bit dangerous, but it might provoke some other
ideas.)

I was thinking more of constructing the dummy from balloons filled with
hydrogen and oxygen. :-)

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:03:22 +0100, "Bert Coules"
wrote:

John Rumm wrote:

There is a very effective technique that projects an image onto a concave
shaped plastic screen. It can create a very 3D looking image hanging in
free space, which can simply be "turned off".

John, thanks for that, but I'm after something rather lower-tech, I'm
afraid.

That reminds me of Pepper's Ghost, which requires a glass sheet at 45
degrees to the audience (either vertically or horizontally) and the
lit up dummy is at 90 degrees behind a curtain so that the audience
see only the reflection. Switch off the light and the image
disappears, perhaps being replaced by a pile of clothes at the image
position then being lit up.

Does the stage have a trapdoor? The skeleton inside the clothes could
be dropped through the trapdoor, but the clothes prevented from going
through by strings, in such a way that the pile of clothes would hide
the trapdoor.
--
Dave W

Dave W wrote:

That reminds me of Pepper's Ghost...

....which can be very effective but requires, as you say, an elaborate setup
and strict lighting control, neither of which are feasible for the brief
effect I'm after.

Thanks for the thought, though. I'd love to try a Pepper's Ghost-based
effect sometime, but sadly this particular time isn't the one.

On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 19:37:11 +0100, Nightjar wrote:

On 27/07/2018 17:17, wrote:
On Friday, 27 July 2018 16:48:08 UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:
You probably ought to be asking a magician.

Now if only there was a magician participating in this newsgroup ...

Should I take it from that that there is or that there isn't?

There was until the politics got silly.



--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On 29/07/2018 19:05, Bob Eager wrote:
On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 19:37:11 +0100, Nightjar wrote:

On 27/07/2018 17:17, wrote:
On Friday, 27 July 2018 16:48:08 UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:
You probably ought to be asking a magician.

Now if only there was a magician participating in this newsgroup ...

Should I take it from that that there is or that there isn't?

There was until the politics got silly.



I didnt read all the posts but.....
What if the dummy falls through a hole in the floor and the clothes are
suspended from above which can then be dropped after the trap door is
closed.

"ss" wrote:

What if the dummy falls through a hole in the floor...

An intriguing idea, thanks, but unless it happened at lightning speed I
can't see how to disguise the fact that it would be two separate events.

On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 23:12:21 +0100, "Bert Coules"
wrote:

"ss" wrote:

What if the dummy falls through a hole in the floor...

An intriguing idea, thanks, but unless it happened at lightning speed I
can't see how to disguise the fact that it would be two separate events.



This is like I suggested in my post of 28/07/18. If the strings were
the correct length to suspend the clothes in a heap over the trapdoor,
but they are normally held up by the dummy, then when the dummy drops,
the clothes would descend at the same instant.
--
Dave W

My apologies to "ss", whose post I misunderstood. I thought the suggestion
was that the fully-clothed dummy would plummet through the trap and a
separate set of empty clothes would be dropped from above.

I think - if I now have it right - the idea is that the man-shaped framework
drops down out of the costume which remains in place, suspended from above.
Then, as soon as the trap door is closed, the costume is released, to
collapse in a heap.

It's an interesting idea, if perhaps a bit over-elaborate, but I'd be
concerned about the visibility of the wires or whatever which support the
costume.

On Mon, 30 Jul 2018 13:56:03 +0100, "Bert Coules"
wrote:

My apologies to "ss", whose post I misunderstood. I thought the suggestion
was that the fully-clothed dummy would plummet through the trap and a
separate set of empty clothes would be dropped from above.

I think - if I now have it right - the idea is that the man-shaped framework
drops down out of the costume which remains in place, suspended from above.
Then, as soon as the trap door is closed, the costume is released, to
collapse in a heap.

It's an interesting idea, if perhaps a bit over-elaborate, but I'd be
concerned about the visibility of the wires or whatever which support the
costume.

All right, don't use strings. Limit the drop of the framework so that
its head drops no lower than stage level, then supporting the costume
in its 'heap' mode.
--
Dave W

Dave W wrote:

All right, don't use strings...

Sorry to have been so long responding to this. If hanging from above is out
(which I think it is) then the three main options seem to be an inflated
figure, a dummy built around a collapsible internal structure of some kind,
and a hanging puppet-like construction supported from behind by a rod or
similar protruding through a curtain.

Clearly a bit of experimentation is called for.

Thanks to you and everyone for the thoughts.