Special FX for VBS

[Gail Rizzo]

Hi all,
Our Children's Minister is doing "Lava, Lava Island for VBS" and she would like to have our volcano "erupt" if the kids make their missions offering goal. If any group of people can give me advice on how to safely and with the least amount of projectile mess make a volcano explode, I knew y'all would be able to! The volcano will be sitting on many layers of plastic and other floor/carpet protecting items so there can be some profusion of whatever, I would just like to stay away from long throw projectile lava!!!

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks tons!
Gail Rizzo

Confetti and compressed air???

Streamers and compressed air??

Or just compressed air??

[jongriffin]

If you have the funds and availabilty, try contacting one of your local lighting rental shops and get a High End F100 Fogger with some additional hose (or go to Home Depot for the hose). Put it on Maximum output and press the button. They put out an incredible amount of smoke fast.

NOTE: Check your fire alarm system first! Do a test before the kids are there and notify the Fire Dept./Alarm company in advance! It's always better to be safe than sorry.

Another option that doesn't require a fire system test...get a couple of volunteers and 2 or 3 CO2 Fire Extinguishers. Put the nozzles in the top of the volcano and at the appropriate time, have them pull the triggers. No mess, dissipates very fast and looks pretty cool.

Those are my suggestions....

J

[JeffM]

We just finished with that VBS and I used 3 of those fake flame lights with some 2" pvc pipe running to the top with a fogger at the base. Fired up the lights, started the fogger and added some sounds to it. Quite impressive. The last night we did the ususal eruption but had some leaders standing on the side lines, while it was dark, and threw some small candies as it blew. They thought it came out of the volcano. Pretty decent.

[Brent Bauman]

If you are just looking for some gas emission = visible with some sound... how about just using a couple of CO2 fire extinguishers... these are very inexpensive and can likely be rented or borrowed from a local safety supply company.

Visually this would look pretty cool and it's safe. You could enhance the effect through use of some lighting to back-light the CO2 as these are fired.

I'll see if I can find the advertisment for the thing, but there is a piece of equipment that is DMX controlled which allows you to control the flow of CO2. It also has tilt/pan adjustments. I'll look for that today and hopefully I can find it. It seemed like a neat little thing.

[Scott]

Originally Posted by Gail Rizzo

I would just like to stay away from long throw projectile lava!!!

I'd think that'd be half the fun...children running for their lives...people screaming...pews burning...

Be sure to get it on video if you DO go that route.

Scott

[Scott]

We rent confetti cannons for our July 4th sevice. At the peak of the "big song" -- BOOM and the worship center is filled with it for a few seconds. Everyone young and old gets a kick out it. (The janitors...well...not so much.)

Now, if you could get a CO2 thing to do the "smoke" followed by a big confetti explosion, that'd be a double multi-sensory extravaganza!

[Gail Rizzo]

Hadn't thought of it that way.... That would add some fun.

There's a reason God called me out of Children's Ministry......

[sempei13]

There was an episode of Diff'rent Strokes where Arnold had a volcano (science fair project) erupt using Ragu for the lava. You could do something like that (a slow ooze down the side for effect). Make sure the plastic catches it, though (maybe a kiddie pool?).

Paul

[Gail Rizzo]

Yup, kiddie pool is the plan. We are lazy so with the pool, all you have to do is roll it up, take it out and hose it off and if it's too bad, you can just throw it away!

[Richie]

We just wrapped up the Lava Lava Island here too. We actually built a 'volcano' out of balloons. It stood about 25' tall in the choir loft. The origioinal plan was to have a large fan near the rim of it and a large bag of balloons to release into the fan. But, the final construction didn't allow for that. So, we just tucked a couple of hazers in it and a small fan to direct the haze out and it looked fine for the kiddo's. Best of luck, we had a good time on the isle!