Moving wall room

[Mayhem]

I have 1 room to go, and looking for ideas for moving walls. Suggestions?

[rshorts]

We made one a couple of years ago and to my surprise it worked really well. The guests entered in one corner of the room and the exit was across form them in the dark. We had an actor in a doorway in the diagonal corner from the entrance that we pretty well lit. There was a huge monster prop hanging on the wall with glowing blue eyes that got their attention as they entered the room. As soon as they were in the wall began rushing toward them and the exit was revealed at the same time. The wall only went a short distance (about 8 feet) and we had a chaperone directly behind the group the be sure no one would get smashed. One thing to be aware of it took as much room behind the moving wall as the wall was going to move so it was a lot of our backstage space that year. We mounted the wall to an L-shaped platform with weights. We used fixed caters and created small guides for the casters to follow. One operator was able to easily move the wall. We also made the wall a little smaller than the surrounding walls and used foam weatherstrip to seal the sides. As I said before I didn't think it would work but it was pretty cool.

Randy Shorts
LOHS Theatre Haunt

[SilentScream]

This effect can be startling if done correctly. One problem that you face is giving the wall a sense of "weight". People will not be scared by a moving piece of plywood, unfortunately.

Reinforce the idea of a heavy, dangerous wall with pictures, lamps, wall hangings... anything that hangs, this gives the illusion of it bearing a load. Also, sound effects can be key! Scraping, sliding sounds can really sell the effect. Finally, don't allow any light to escape from around the edges! Rshorts was spot on with the weather stripping. Good luck!