Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Anatomy of a flat


A Flat oh Great! Get the Jack!

A flat in theatrical terms is a flat section of a false wall. These stage craft mainstays have been around for a century or more and are used by everyone from theatrical types to Hollywood film makers.

Flats come in two basic varieties, hard surface and canvas. While most film and television productions use almost exclusively hard surface, or “Hollywood” style flats, canvas flats are still common in educational and community theatre scene shops.

Flats come in all shapes and sizes and can be painted or decorated to resemble almost anything. While many are standard wall sections most sets will consist of a variety of flats including “practical” window and door flats.

I prefer to build my flats to a standard size or at least to build a complete set of flats that will work together. A common size for flats is 4’x8’ as this is the standard size of most sheet goods (plywood, masonite, etc) that can be purchased at your local home improvement center.

Because of their temporary and movable nature most flats are constructed with very lightweight frames made of 1x4 or 1x3 lumber. A traditional framing schematic is seen at left. The faces can be covered in Luanne (1/4 mahogany plywood) or masonite, or in the case of a soft side flat, canvas or muslin.

When joined together with hinges or other hardware a group of flats can be used to create a very authentic wall and in fact the majority of the television set designs you see every day incorporate flats.

For more information check out our document on how to build flats.

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