Hi. I work from time to time with Flying by Foy, (as mentioned in the posts below), and I can shed some light on the original questions:
Quoting
- These days I know there are all sorts of sophisticated computer tricks and editing software that, presumably, deals with hiding the wires on the finished product, but how was this handled pre-1970? I know they had green/blue screens which probably worked for some situations, but probably not all. I suppose in some instances background scenery or costumes might minimize the look of wires, but I recall in the past where sometimes you’d see the wires supporting the actor. I’m curious how this was handled over time.
Answer:
You are very perceptive and right in your guesses. Besides Green and Blue screens, one of the great innovations was the Yellow, Sodium light screen system. This was used in the film “Mary Poppins”. An advantage of the Yellow screen system is that yellow, being in the middle of the visual spectrum, allowed for images with far less fringing than when other colors were used. While yellow is used in costumes and there is lots of yellow in skin, the Sodium process got around this as sodium light is not just yellow, but a single dominant wavelength of yellow, with a dimmer secondary wavelength, while most colors we perceive as yellow have a large range of yellow-like wavelengths.
As to hiding the wires, you are correct, until rather recently there was no easy way to fully hide wires until digital processes. However the lighting makes all the difference in the world. I designed a show with the Foys that went to Russia. The wires were absolutely invisible even while on the stage with the flying actor. Meanwhile the very same equipment and wires were used in a Broadway production and they were terribly visible. The variable is not the wires but the lighting.
Background too can be a mitigating factor and the best designers know how to use this fact. It’s not an accident that so many magicians use “glame” type shimmering curtains behind their act.
Indeed as you perceived, on film, some times these techniques could hide wires entirely, but usually not. Perception gets clouded though when these films were transferred to lower resolution VHS tape and much lower web video. I didn’t see wires in the Chitty Babg Bang Music box doll sequence as shown on Youtube but I likely COULD have seen wires fleetingly in the real film as shown in a theatre on a big screen.
By the way, though, editing and cropping is used creatively in the clip too. The wires would have only been used for the exact moment of the little suspension actions and the sequence would have been shot again without the wires, so the wires would only be in the shot at all for a few fractions of seconds.
The Foy’s did not do the film but did the magnificent flying car flights for the Broadway production. Same with Mary Poppins. The Foys did not do the film but do provide the flight sequences on Broadway.
As to Mary Poppins, if you look carefully at the actual film on the big screen you can see the wires but all sorts of tricks are deployed to throw you off guard. My favorite such sequence is the teaparty on the ceiling sequence. When they first raise up, it looks like the liftt is from below and there is also close cropping. When they spin around this is clearly a sodium composite…the give away is that the performers are not casting shadows on the walls…but the cool one is when they are bouncing on the ceiling. Where could the wires be? Simple, these shots are upside down. Once you know this you can see the wires but they are thus BELOW the performers! One last caveat. I know that Mary Poppins has been “restored” so it may be that they did some later work digitally but it was fun when I discovered the wires below the performers.
Quoting:
- How dangerous is this sort of stunt? Clearly, that depends somewhat on how high you go - in the scene in the movie that prompted this question the actor doesn’t travel very high off the ground, it’s used more to support him at times he overbalances and would have fallen without the wire. In other productions I’ve seen actors “flying” quite high, certainly high enough to be a serious injury or worse if they fell.
Answer:
In competent trained hands, and by “trained” I mean the very few companies that regularly SPECIALIZE in flying humans, flying is VERY safe though accidents have hapenned. The problem is that the physics is somewhat simple and many people with general rigging training try to fly performers themselves and this is where people have been hurt or killed. You may remember the story a few years back of a church “angel” falling onto cement and being killed. The flight then seemed to be by a local university theatre rigger and the gear seems to have been climbing gear. Flying on stage safely requires specific advanced understanding of that art form which is not the same as rigging used for climbing, or rescues. There are also differences between the rigging used in film from that used on stage.
Height has less to do with safety as even a rather low fall could kill, so safety comes from other aspects such as true knowledge of this specialized type of flying, proper rated and tested equipment and components, redundant systems, training of the flyers and the performers, specific flight sequence choreography, etc.
Quoting:
- I assume some version of these are still used - presumably today’s version is better than the originals.
Answer:
Indeed much is the very same…sometime the old effects actually LOOK better as they were often less safe than what would be tolerated today. There is more automation today but this process began with Foy flying for the Ice Papades back in the 1960s. Modern automation allows for all sorts of fun sequences, but as is the case with other computer systems it takes a LOT of work to keep the computer effects from looking like computer effects!
Question:
- Didn’t Liberace used to do this sort of flying about the stage in the later part of his career? (I guess after awhile extravagant costumes alone weren’t cutting it - actually, he was a damn fine piano player, too)
Answer:
Indeed that was a Foy job, and Liberace handled it so wonderfully. He would often wait till the curtain call to take the flight. So as extravagant as his costumes were this was the last surprise in the production as if to tell the audience “you ain’t seen nothing yet”. There was also some humor in his flight line. He would come out on stage to take his bow, but then take off, flying over the piano. I’ve heard two lines reported: “Peter Pan eat your heart out” and a similar line substituting “Mary Poppins”
I hope that this answers your questions
