Most impressive special effect- Page 3

[cturtle]

Posted: 12/27/04 at 4:30pm

i didn't see LES MIS on broadway, but i loved the JAVERT suicide scene in the road show ... when he stopped off the bridge, which rose upward, making it look like he was falling, and then being swept away by the currents of water projected on the revolving turntable ... most effective!

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/27/04 at 4:47pm

That's exactly how it was on Broadway too. I love how it was done.

[cturtle]

Posted: 12/27/04 at 5:17pm

wasn't it great?!

[BreakingTheCircle07]

Posted: 12/27/04 at 5:55pm

Mufasa's face
The key drop in Rent...hehehe
Phantom's overture with the reassembly
Dracula had some neat two person effects...and if you blinked, where DID Mina's dress go?
The weeping back wall in Nine

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/27/04 at 8:38pm

Distinctive....I think that was after they lost the rights to use the mirror special effect. From what I remember, they fought to keep it and were trying to duplicate it but couldn't. Maybe that's when Cuccioli fought to do the flip thing. The sets were a bit different here, a bit less, so when this happened it took everyone by suprise. There were actually things about the set we had here that I liked much more than when it opened on Broadway.

[Skempp]

Posted: 12/27/04 at 8:40pm

Cturtle...that really was a great effect. I know it was about 100 years ago, but one of my favorite effects was Sandy Duncan in Peter Pan, taking her bow and flying out over the audience. Pretty lame by today's standards (though not as cheesy at the fork lift in Defying Gravity)...but, it was a fabulous moment if you weren't expecting it.

[NYnativeinLA]

Posted: 12/30/04 at 6:45pm

The most impressive special effect is that which is exclusive only to live performance...the magic that occurs (all too infrequently unfortunately) when the energy from the stage is received by the audience and then returned from the audience back to the stage creating an "energy loop" that increases throughout the performance leading to an explosion from the audience in the form of a sincere, spontaneous standing ovation. While I can probably count the number of times this has happened in 40 years of theatre-going on one hand, it is the hope of experiencing this that keeps me coming back.

As for the most impressive scenic special effect...hands down, the moment the shell of the former Weisman Theatre turns into the "Loveland" sequence in the original "Follies."

[defy_gravity]

Posted: 12/30/04 at 6:50pm

the chandelier, Elphie flying, and I know this isn't a real special effect, but I love Glinda's bubble.

[Jwaa]

Posted: 12/30/04 at 6:57pm

I loved in The Woman In White where the train comes at the end on the screen and everyone ducks in audience but they use the screen really well and it looks like ua nd the characters have all moved out the way lol its great!!!

Also in Mary Poppins, the chimney sweepers tap dance on the ceiling and the walls it sounds amazing!

Posted: 12/30/04 at 7:02pm

An Inspector Calls WAS pretty cool.

And I have to say that I still enjoyed Sunset Boulevard's staircase and how it cracked open to reveal the actor's apartment.

I also thought in Aspects of Love when the studio cracks open to reveal the mountains of France.

[VeuveClicquot]

Posted: 12/30/04 at 10:00pm

Carol Channing coming down the staircase in that last revival of HELLO, DOLLY!

(I'm kidding. Honest. I love the woman to pieces.)

I have to agree with everyone who said AN INSPECTOR CALLS. I love it when the set falls down! I loved it in the Diana Rigg MEDEA, I loved it in CABARET, and I hear it's pretty effective in DEMOCRACY too. It's a stage trick that never gets old for me.