How do you do special effects for Willy Wonka And the Chocolate Factory?
Ok, my school is doing "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" [the original] the musical.
And I need to know: How do you do the Chocolate river, and how do you make Violet blow up like a blueberry when she chews the gum, and how do you do the part that Grandpa Joe and Charlie start floating up when the drink the fizzy soda?
Fabric is about the best way to do the chocolate river – stretched from one side of the stage to the other with two crew members moving it to make it ripple. I don’t have any suggestions for the blueberry part, I’m afraid! When it comes to making Grandpa Joe and Charlie float, the one thing I want to stress is that you must not try and fly them yourselves. There are specialist companies which will come in and rig up a system so that people can be flown, but they don’t come cheap because they know exactly what they’re doing and take safety as their highest priority – and they’re the ONLY people that should ever fly a person. With clever lighting, hidden ladders and a bubble machine, you can make the audience believe that they are flying – think about how to make them look where you want them to look.
September 9th, 2010 at 5:12 am
Wear a hat.
References :
September 9th, 2010 at 5:24 am
When I was in middle school, we did Willy Wonka. It was a very low budget production (as in I don’t think we even had a budget), but this is what happened.
The chocolate river was a brown piece of fabric.
Violet ran offstage and appeared a few seconds later wearing a semi-inflated sumo wrestler costume with a big pink sheet over it. It was ridiculous; I would not recommend trying that.
The fizzy lifting drinks were my favorite part of the show. Grandpa Joe and Charlie stood up on boxes and flapped their arms like they were flying. No joke.
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September 9th, 2010 at 5:51 am
Lets see… the chocolate river… some one said a piece of fabric… that could work! I can’t think of anything else for that. for the blueberry thing. you may want to try an ensemble thing where someone in the ensemble actually pumps up violets body. Get one of those sumo wrestler things that pump up and have them do it… Inflatable things a must i think either way. For the floating thing you may want to try like a moving background. like the pieces can actually be moved by crew members. You just have to think out of the box.
References :
September 9th, 2010 at 6:40 am
Fabric is about the best way to do the chocolate river – stretched from one side of the stage to the other with two crew members moving it to make it ripple. I don’t have any suggestions for the blueberry part, I’m afraid! When it comes to making Grandpa Joe and Charlie float, the one thing I want to stress is that you must not try and fly them yourselves. There are specialist companies which will come in and rig up a system so that people can be flown, but they don’t come cheap because they know exactly what they’re doing and take safety as their highest priority – and they’re the ONLY people that should ever fly a person. With clever lighting, hidden ladders and a bubble machine, you can make the audience believe that they are flying – think about how to make them look where you want them to look.
References :
Professional stage manager