TSM 08 Rain without water

Outline

This is a project by Susan Scott, created as part of the TSM 08 classes, to research a way to achieve a rain effect on the New Athenaeum stage without using water. This page will give details of the process as well as equipment used, it's operation and approximate costings.

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The 'Rain'

As my project is about making rain but without using water, the first aspect i needed to look at was what material could be used to simulate the rain drops. After looking at several references online i have settled on using uncooked rice to achieve this effect.

pros

The rice (when falling en mass) gives a convincing 'downpour' look and it also bounces off of set pieces and people similar to how rain splashes. Another positive aspect to using rice is the sound it creates as it hits the ground - it is basically a large scale rain stick - and is therefore saving the need to source a convincing sound effect. And as far as budgeting goes,obviously depending on the length of the run, the rice should only have to be bought once as it can be swept up and reused for every show.

Cons

There are few cons to using rice in comparison to the pros, the obvious one being the clean up of the stage after the effect. If using water, a trough would be used to collect the fallout leaving a wet but clear stage. When using rice, the benifit of having the realistic bounce means that the grains are scattered far and wide and posing a rather large slip hazard. This means that the effect has to be limited to a specific point in the play - like just before interval - or in an isolated part of the stage - like behind a window. Another way to speed up the clearing of the stage would be to use a floor cloth wich can then be folded up and carried off stage to be emptied. This however, affects the quality of the sound as the rice hits the stage.

The System

After thorough research it seems that the use of the basic 'snow drop' mechanism is the best way to achieve this kind of effect. Below is a detailed description of how a drop is made, rigged and controlled.

The material used to create the snow bag is very important. It needs to be durable and made of a non-static fabric to allow the rice to fall freely and without interruption, therefore canvas is often used. The length of material needed is dependant on the size and position of the effect, in this case I am using the full width of the stage, and so needs to be X meters long. The width is less important as it only needs to be wide enough to reach from one bar to the other with a decent cradle in the middle to house the rice. The two long sides of the canvas should have tabs sewn on at regular intervals for attachment to the flying bars.

To rig the bag, two adjacent flying bars must be brought in to working height. Each side of the canvas bag (with the tabs sewn on) should be attched to one of the bars, leaving the material hanging in a 'U' shape. The rice is then poured into the centre of the bag and spread out to make the level even. When this has been done, it is ready to fly out to it's dead.

To ensure that no rice starts to fall through the slits as the bag is flown out, the side with the slits should be raised slightly so that the bag is making a 'J' shape, and then the two bars MUST be flown together at exactly the same time before being levelled up once in the correct poistion.