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Welcome to the Shadowood Theater.
The theater was under constuction at that time for expansion and two of the screens were shut down on one end.
For the top of the twister we removed one of the ceiling tiles and replaced it with a 3/4" piece of plywood and attached a projector motor.
We added secondary support wires from the plywood to the ceiling's support beams just in case.
We then attached one of the special film makeup reels to the motor shaft. These reels are about 4' across.
We then hung twine down and attached it to the bottom of the twister which is a 12" metal ring.
Custom made low voltage flashing lights on the barn.
The barn was built using some leftover 4" soundproof foam board.
When you walked in, there was a simple rotating fan that blew down on you which is visable later in the video.
The inside just had a few odds and ends that you may see in a garage/barn.
When you looked up the funnel you could see the makeup reel at the top and the flood lights shining down through the holes in the reel.
The glove was added to give you a sense of the rotation of the twister if you were not paying attention.
Yes it was actually necessary :(
On the opposite side was a running spigot with a recirculating pump in the bucket.
You can see the spigot return hose on the inside of the barn.
We used two of the theater speakers covered in black cloth in the corners of the barn for the sound.
The roof had a few tar paper roof shingles from Home Depot.
The twister funnel was made of old trailer film wrapped around the string framework using glue and tape to fix it to the strings.
It was strung in place while standing on a 30' A-frame ladder.
Some cotton was attached to the outside using spray glue and then it was lightly spray painted.
There was soap in the water to hide the pump in the bucket.
The soundtrack for this prop was a loop that I created from a snippet of "The Wizard of Oz" and then tweaked.
At the end of the 19 minute loop you hear Toto yelp just before it starts over.
The clouds were created by laying out large pieces of plastic sheeting, spraying 3M adhesive and then sticking cotton batting to it.
It was then spray painted and hung up on the ceiling with double sided tape.
I believe that the lightning was just your basic strobe light.
The weather vane on top had a motor making it spin.
As the project progressed we decided to add the people being 'sucked' into the twister.
The seats were taken from one of the theaters that was not being used due to the construction.
They were hung by stringing up nylon rope up through the drop ceiling to the support beams.
Foam board used as the 'floor' and attached with zip ties then roughed up a bit.
The people were built out of pantyhose and newspaper.
They were added after the chair was hung due to the difficulty of trying to hang it all at once.
If I remember correctly the man in the chair is supposed to be Randal.
Many people worked on this project and spent their free time to make this happen and my thanks go out to them all.