lightning splitting a tree

[Brckee1]

Hey everyone,

I took on an off season project building and detailing sets and designing special effects for a school theatrical production. Since they are all haunt style in design I thought I would post the results.

I made an old attic, gates and pillars, tombstones, a burned up walls of a manor, some other things. The coolest thing was they needed a 300 year old chestnut tree. not only that, it needed to be struck by lightning and split in two. It came out great! I used 3 separate channels of lightning, one flashing the stage, one on the audience and one on the tree. I placed an air cannon behind the tree pointing up right at the bottom of the split. I poured water down the barrel and lit the spray with a red pinspot.

Here is a page with pictures of the sets and a video of the tree as it worked during the showJaneEyre pictures by Brckee1 - Photobucket@@AMEPARAM@@http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid43.photobucket.com/albums/e375/Brckee1/JaneEyre/MOV03629.flv@@AMEPARAM@@static@@AMEPARAM@@43@@AMEP ARAM@@e375/Brckee1/JaneEyre/MOV03629

Here is a direct link to the video for those only interested in that
JaneEyre :: Lightning Strikes video by Brckee1 - Photobucket@@AMEPARAM@@http://vid43.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid43.photobucket.com/albums/e375/Brckee1/JaneEyre/splittingtree.flv@@AMEPARAM@@vid43@@AMEPARAM@@43@@ AMEPARAM@@e375/Brckee1/JaneEyre/splittingtree

[slightlymad]

Looks like good stuff

[Sickie Ickie]

That is one large tree! How much budget did they give you?

[Wraith]

Impressive

[Black Cat]

Oh the attic pics give me a few ideas for our castle rooms this year. Thanks for posting the pics. That tree looks great.

[Ghostess]

Wow Wow WOW!

[BudMan]

Very nice work Brckee. Did you do all of the scenery in the pictures?

[GraveDiggerGreg]

Love the columns and gate. good job

[Brckee1]

Thanks everyone! Glad you enjoyed the pictures and video. The budget was only a few thousand dollars. They paid for all the material, had volunteers helping with construction. I did all the detailing, painting and decorating.
The tree was actually found by someone. It was sitting unused in a warehouse. All I did was repaint it, add the canopy and animate it so it split. I am able to use it for my haunt also as long as I am willing to store it.

I made the columns, they had the gate, I just repainted it.

[Brckee1]

Oh yeah. The scrim was painted by a local airbrush artist. I am not talented enough to pull that off.

[Sickie Ickie]

"only a few thousand dollars." LOL My community theatre would KILL for that! :D

[Brckee1]

"only a few thousand dollars." LOL My community theatre would KILL for that! :D

Are you involved with a community theater? You could try swapping sevices with your local pro haunts. It would be a good way to get good quality sets and the haunt could get a few good actors. I tried to involve various small theater groups with my haunt, even offering 5 figure donations. Figured someone would jump on it. They wouldn't touch it, totally blew me off.

[Sickie Ickie]

Are you kidding? We asked the Park District if we could help run a haunted house for them. The gave us a 10 x 20 hallway. We zig zagged it with sheets to increase pathway and haunted it up for three years. We had a line of kids continually from 10AM - 3PM, by the third year we had to give free tickets so people wouldn't just jump in line again, but give other people a chance to go through. Kids started coming just to go through the small haunted hallway. The following fourth year they said they didn't need our services. (!?!)