Alright, I am a director and I am doing a show where we need an effect where it looks like spikes go through a persons body. I remember seeing a stage play many years ago where a woman spent the entire second act totally normal then right before the show ended, she sat down in a chair and a spike went through her chest. I am guessing the effect was achieved by some sort of collapsible spike that was placed under her chest then when a button was hit, the spike shot out and through her shirt. This is the exact effect I need. Unfortunately, I have spent a few months online trying to find how this effect works. I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction or help me figure out how this special effect works.

Does it have to be a spike?

Depending on the wardrobe and the furniture being used, a body rig may not be necessary to create the effect you're looking for.

Dan Wolfe / "EARL"

So, if you're a director, don't you have technical people to solve problems like this? Being a special effects tech, I am the one who gets these kinda things from a director... Also you cant find any info in a few months?

You need the spike gimmick from "Impaled". Don't know where to get one.

Jim

Really, from a TD's perspective your question is too simplistic. It begs more questions, really.

What is the costuming to be for the "victim"?
What is the lighting on stage going to be like?
How much, if any, prep time is available before the effect?
Will the person be sitting/ standing/ reclining?
Will they be facing downstage, upstage, in 3/4 etc.?
Does the effect need to happen quickly or slowly?
Can the effect be effectively implied, rather than graphically shown?
Are there other characters onstage involved?
Can the "moment of truth" be masked by anything/anyone and the the "results" subsequently revealed?

These are just a few questions I would want answered before I began to offer any ideas for a method.

I agree with mvmagic. This is a task for your technical director.

Go to http://www.usedmagicillusions.com
they have one for a great price built by all the pros in the business.

Thank you,
Taylor Reed

Oh, I wish I had technical directors. Honestly, this is not a professional show we are doing. We are doing a shadow cast (A group of people that performs a movie in front of a screen while that movie is playing; they essentially pantomime the movie. Most often seen during showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show) of the movie, REPO! The Genetic Opera. We don't have a big budget and the show can go on without the effect but since we didn't get to do the effect last year, I want to see if we can pull it off this year. I'm pretty much on my own with this. The scene in the movie is an opera singer is lowered onto the stage by wires. She then performs her song on the stage before he is lifted back into the air. When she hits her last note, she looks at the antagonist then takes the metal fingernails she is wearing and rips out her eyes. The antagonist is not pleased by this so he cuts her cord and she falls onto a spiked fence and is impaled. The beauty of shadow casting is that everything can be implied but you still add as much effect as you like. Basically, our woman wouldn't be suspended but would rather just walk around the stage. When, in the movie, her cord is cut and she hits the fence, on stage the woman would just stand there and spikes would come out of her chest. She would then fall down dead.

The costuming is this: http://api.ning.com:80/files/EX3lIGlNDrS......0905.JPG We have a different actress his year so it would be something still similar.

The lighting: A few red and blue spots on the front of the stage and on some tree lights on the sides of the stage.

I say for prep time, she has four minutes from when she is last seen to when she returns to sing the song she dies in.

The person will be standing.

Will they be facing straight forward downstage to the audience.

This effect need to happen quickly. The spike(s) needs to come out as quick as possible.

She is by herself for the most part on the stage, there are a couple characters that are "in the wings" of the stage watching her perform. So the effect would work best if it was graphically shown.

I have seen it done of stage before but if no one can help me, I completely understand.

Rather than go into great detail on a secret...can you block it so that she faces downstage until the moment and then turns so that your audience can see her back and there is the gory spike sticking out...it has secretly been in place the entire time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFwtUboWXjM

Here is a video from the scene in the movie. She stays forward for the most of the scene but then turns around near the end and the point of shadow casting is to copy the movements of the movie as closely as possible.

I want, at the moment when she falls on the fence in the movie, to have a spike(s) erupt our actor's chest or stomach.