SMOKE MACHINE LOCATIONS

The Big Smoke
Madame Tussaud's wax museum in London has a recreation of a London street from the time of Jack the Ripper, which was subtly fogged by a smoke machine through some ducting which terminated inside a mud scraper built into a wall. It did a great job (in the late 1980s) as it was silent, very regular, and the smoke turned into a dispersed fog very quickly. It presumably used gently force-fed air from a fan to ensure the smoke left the ducting fully after each period of operation, and also diffused. For the time, I deduce the machine used could very well have been a Rosco 1500 with Super Remote using Stage and Studio fog fluid. My visit was in 1987.

In the mid 1990s, this had been replaced with what seemed to be a bare heating element nozzle in the mud scraper, which was very noisily activated for a period of about 20 seconds every 2 minutes or so. The smoke was then instantly extracted from the scene through an authentic Victorian extractor fan(!) on the other side of the street, making the whole effect rather pointless and drawing far too much attention to itself. When the smoke has to exit near the public, it's advisable that ducting be used as the loud hissing from any nozzle is too obtrusive to the situation, and if anyone were to touch the smoke near the nozzle they may be burned.

If any reader knows what's happening with the street scene fogging effect these days, please let us know by emailing us! (surely it has improved!?).

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