Dancing on Ice - Lighting

I suspect they don't, and it's all "virtual" graphics.

You only see the beams when thenreis smoke or fog in the air,. It the theatre it said that the use of smoke shows the lack of imagination of the director.

By having diffused "smoke" in the air. There are various machines to do this, for the effect you are describing you'd use a "hazer" this just emits a gentle but steady stream of "smoke". Hidden round the back of the set somewhere it'll build up a haze in a fairly large enclosed space in about 1/2 an hour.

"smoke" this used to be vaporised mineral oil, ie squirt oil onto something hot and blow the result out of the box. I think they now use compressed air to atomise the oil. And there are water based options.

In the old days for those laser effects devices to see the beams they just used good old dry Ice machines.

I wonder if anyone has made a replacement for ice yet?

Brian

Dry ice only gives low smoke - it hugs the ground.

yes, they rely on ordinary ice to chill the smoke.

I'm surprised they're allowed to use the oil based systems in places where the public have access. You don't want to be breathing vapourised oil for any length of time. Or indeed, at all.

And the "smoke" is condensed steam, ie water and quickly makes the floor wet and slippy.

A Dry Ice Machine is a basically a big tank of water and big heater, you heat the water to quite hot (FSVO "quite hot"). There is a metal basket above the water that you fill with dry ice and when you want the floor hugging smoke you lower the basket into the hot water.

I think the systems use atomised oil now rather than vaporised. Even the water based systems have some oil but they tend not to produce quite the same effect, larger particle sizes?

You don't want to be breathing that, either!

(I once went on a course on the care and feeding of breathing air compressors (for scuba diving) and some of it appears to have stuck!)

A point that seems to go past some of the airy fairy types who will protest at, traffic fumes from vehicles delivering their food, incinerators burning their rubbish and power stations making electric to keep them warm. But are quite happy to stink the house out with scented candles containing oils to create the scent for an ambience to listen to their whale sound CD while meditating on the Yoga mat.

G.Harman

That reminds me of a hilarious event when I worked for ATV in vision control (aka 'racks') at Wood Green Empire, our TV theatre/studio. This was pre-video tape days so everything was live. We did a play on Wednesdays in the H M Tennant Globe Productions series - quite heavy stuff for ITV, like Checkov (?) and Ibsen. I forget which play this was but in one scene there was a couple seated at a table with a cup of tea between them. The tea was supposed to be hot so the props guy put a little knob of dry ice in it to make it steam. It was fine on rehearsal but on transmission he put too big a knob and the 'tea' could be seen on shot 'boiling'. It was a serious play and the actors were busting a gut trying not to laugh.

Hmm.. most production machinery with pneumatic cylinders used drip feed lubrication in my day. Not just getting up your nose but dripping down your neck off the rafters. Of course things may have moved on in 35 years:-)

Which is why they?re glycol based now, same as e-cigarettes. Despite appearances, supposedly innocuous.

Tim

Yes. Paraffins (which are about the most unreactive carbon based oils you can get) are remarkably bad for the lungs.

Ah, but they're "natural"; like tobacco.

Yes, but you aren't the public!

(I still remember the posters in the WD & HO Wills fitting shop from when I worked there in vacations some 43 years ago, telling you not to put oily rags in your pockets because of the danger of cancer of the testicles!)

I was just wondering if there is an *asbestos/cigarette smoke* disease hovering above all those production workers who faced it 8 hours a day.

Doubt it. Scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps has been known for two centuries at least. You probably have to get seriously oily all over every day and not wash much for a few years.

My father died from gastric ulcers when I was three and a half.

About 10 years later I learn't, in a Geography lesson, that gastric ulcers where a major cause of deaths in an area where asbestos was mined.

My father's death certificate listed his occupation as: Labourer (Asbestos Factory).