Wild Times: When Scenery Flies

Usually, no matter how well a plan is thought out, shit happens.

I worked on a set once that was a house with a rather large central fireplace feature.The idea was to wild the fireplace to camera.

The set got built as planned, nothing unusual happened until they tried to wild the fireplace.

What was overlooked by the entire team, including yours truly, was the immense weight the fireplace aquired after all the scenic brick, spfx metal boxes were added to the construction. Adding to the dilemma was the carpet that was chosen to dress the set. It turned into an impossible wild; meanwhile the entire set had been built around it.

The solution was to fly the scenery, and uckily we were in a studio that had a roof system that could support the weight of the rigging.

When issues like this arise, it usually falls upon the Production Company to have the necessary Engineering inspections done to confirm the building can support the weight being supported from the roof trusses in the Studio. Sound Stages are designed for a rigging load, however, often the warehouses that lower budget films are shot in have either no existing load information on file, or are inadequate for the purpose.