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veegates Loyal user 208 Posts |
I am sure this is an impossible task, but I got a lot of great ideas from the forum for making a piece that I built into something very dark. It was the Dancing Harlequin. (Thank you Prof BC!!!). I will post video of that piece shortly.
I built the bigger brother of the Harlequin a while back. He is an acrobat on a trapeze http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44UBXBlGmik He is fun to watch but not exactly what I would like him to be. I would like to make him much scarier ( I wanted to say darker, but..I know I would have be advised to use a darker shade of paint)anyway, I have thought about it and the only thing I can come up with is changing him into something, again demonic and maybe putting special effects fire (red lights, cellophane and fans) under him with a facade surround that looks like the gates of Hell. The acrobats name is Dante and I think there is a story about Dante and Hell or maybe it's just Dantes' Inferno. But then I stop and think that seems more silly than scary after all. Why would anything be performing on a trapeze at the gates of Hell? I am just trying to find a use for him. He has been laying in my basement for a couple of years now. I checked on him the other day and I somehow had broken both of his feet off. If I made him appear like a performer from a haunted circus, maybe a spooky clown, again I believe that would be more silly than dark. I just cannot picture anything evil taking time out to have swing on a trapeze! Is there a chance? Or maybe he should stay retired. Again.. thanks for any ideas (then and now) |
PROF BC Inner circle 1445 Posts |
It may sound too much like the Harlequin setup, which is why I was curious whether you would be performing both in the same show, but here is what I would suggest:
Among man's visceral phobias is the fear of dolls. This fear may have its roots in the story of a Florentine who lived during the High Renaissance. Dante Ghirlandaio was a respected cabinetmaker whose work caught the attention of the powerful de' Medici family, and he was commissioned to create the impossible. They required of him a doll that could move and speak as if alive. The promised money would be enough to raise the craftsman out of poverty and provide for his wife and children in a manner he had only dreamt of. The weeks wore on. Dante devoted all of his time and what little money he had on the Great Project. He called the doll Antonio Diavolo, but when any of his friends asked about it he would only reply, "It is difficult." As the date of promised completion grew near, everyone saw the desperation crushing Dante, and they knew he would not succeed. Failure, of course, spelled catastrophe for his reputation and starvation for him and his family. On the evening before he was to unveil his Antonio Diavolo, he summoned a friend of his, a physician, to his workshop. When he arrived, the doctor found Dante in conference with "a dark and shadowed figure almost too tall to be thought a man." Dante had one request of the doctor. He had poured his own blood into an ink well, but the blood congealed before he could use it. The doctor was aghast by the request but was nevertheless persuaded to help Dante warm the blood over a brazier. He stayed long enough to witness his old friend use the blood to sign over a document to the stranger. In the morning, with the town trailing behind, Cosimo de' Medici burst into Dante's little workshop demanding to see the miracle of a living puppet. What he found was the withered shell of Dante Ghirlandaio lying beneath a creature turning circus tricks on a trapeze; so lifelike was the figure that many people thought it must be a monkey in disguise, but they opened the doll to find it was made of wheels and gears. Cosimo had requested a doll like life. He had ordered that it should speak, and speak it did, only once. As the automaton spun its tricks, it turned glassy eyes upon the great man and said, "Pay your money to my wife." For four hundred years Antonio Diavolo has performed and will perform for you again tonight, but let us call him by his proper name. I give you, for your pleasure, the unfortunate Dante.
Phasmologist
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veegates Loyal user 208 Posts |
Prof BC,
I am speechless... the story is so much better the my acrobat. I am going to visit my broken little acrobat tomorrow and tell him he will perform again. With a story such as this built around him, how could he not. My only fear is that others will read your story and run out and build their own acrobat so they might tell the tale. This is the motivation that I needed and for that I truly Thank You!! I am in of your writing prowess. I thought my acrobat was always going to remain(as someone recently decribed him "an extravagant doll") and quite possibly he might remain so, but now... he will be a scary extravagant doll!! |
Balaram Special user 904 Posts |
I am speechless too--Well-Done, both of you. Gonna be an unforgettable show!
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lin Special user California 876 Posts |
wow. double wow. |
Michael Baker Eternal Order Near a river in the Midwest 11172 Posts |
Quote:
On 2010-08-31 21:25, veegates wrote: This is soooo unlikely.
~michael baker
The Magic Company |
Balaram Special user 904 Posts |
Quote:
On 2010-08-31 23:23, Michael Baker wrote: Yes, chuck that fear. This one is yours. |
lin Special user California 876 Posts |
Totally.
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seadog93 Inner circle 3200 Posts |
That was a great story.
I don't have anything near as good as that, but I had several ideas. First of all, I think that it's pretty scary. If you think of the concept of the clown at midnight you could see how in the right setting this would be very creepy. Also, of course the doll could be haunted. The doll could be something of a spirit bell, a treasured item of a tragic figure who was murdered. S/he loved the doll among all else and spoke of it in hir last words. The doll, as well as several other keepsakes are in the room while you attempt to invoke the spirit. Appropriate build up. Glasses break, blocks of wood fall on the floor the doll begins to do it's thing and at the final climax a spirit message (touching or scary, your choice) would manifest in your favorite way. Or you could have a similar tragic death and turn on the doll first, talk about the murder and love for the doll and how you would like it perform one more timefor him/her during it's act and at the very end a message manifests. ...it says onlt "Thank You" I guess the last one wasn't scary, but there were ghosts.
"Love is the magician who pulls man out of his own hat" - Ben Hecht
"Love says 'I am everything.' Wisdom says 'I am nothing'. Between the two, my life flows." -Nisargadatta Maharaj Seadog=C-Dawg=C.ou.rtn.ey Kol.b |
KOTAH Inner circle 2289 Posts |
PROF BC's background story sounds perfect to me.
THe perfect story for an exquisitely engineered piece of apparatus |
Boudje New user France 89 Posts |
Wonderful video and nice dark story
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veegates Loyal user 208 Posts |
Hi,
I wanted to say Thanks to all for the positive words and great ideas that will allow me to use my acrobat in a Dark Show. I cannot repair him quickly enough. |
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » The spooky, the mysterious...the bizarre! » » How can I make Antonio Diavolo scary? (1 Likes) |
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