Celebrating 30 years of excitement!
When Bob Doepel opened the doors to Chicago Scenic in 1978, he envisioned a relatively simple scene shop that would service the emerging Chicago theater scene. In the 30 years that followed, Doepel engineered the company’s growth into a large, horizontally-based firm that serves multiple industries, including corporate presentations, themed entertainment and retail, museums and exhibits, broadcast and film, special events and theater.

Today, CSSI’s 165,000-sq.-ft. Goose Island shops, facilities and warehouses are the home to designers, artists and craftspeople who can create nearly anything one can imagine. “All in a day’s work” means that staffers wear a variety of hats when working on projects that include building super-sized Santa’s villages (in triplicate even), producing the technically superior studio and set for “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” engineering dramatic auto reveals and contributing to many other spectacular projects on an international stage.

CSSI’s capabilities and strengths have grown and changed along with its customers’ needs. When a project arises, Chicago Scenic’s can-do attitude and the staff’s skills have brought the company into its highly respected position in the industry.

The next several issues of “Studio News” will take a closer look at the many hats that Chicago Scenic wears each and every day. We will also look at some highlights from the past 30 years and discuss how we–and our clients–expect the entertainment industry to change in the future, and discuss what we’re doing here at Chicago Scenic to keep abreast of those changes.

Foam and hardcoating system opens new world of creative opportunities
From human-form sculptures to realistic rocks, the possibilities are endless with Chicago Scenic’s new foam and hardcoating systems, explains CSSI’s Project Specialist Kevin Taylor.

Artists using this new system can create foam masses and shapes of any size, carve them into highly detailed sculptures and shapes, and then spray them with the hardcoating system. The hardcoating creates a smooth glass-like finish or an orange-peel surface, depending on the preferred outcome. After just 15 minutes, the hardcoat is cured and ready to be primed and custom painted.

The new system has already been put to good use in creating five larger-than-life “bronze” sculptures promoting the 2007 World Boxing Championships. To form these sculptures, Taylor sculpted the first boxer out of foam, hardcoated it, and then made a rubber and fiberglass mold to more quickly produce four more identical pieces.

Chicago Scenic also used the foam and hardcoating system to create the detailed “rocks” in the famous Nativity Scene for the “75th Annual Radio City Christmas Spectacular” that debuted at New York’s Radio City Music Hall this year.

At the same time the system was used to create the houses featured in “Santastic,” a holiday experience created by Chicago Scenic Studios for General Growth Properties. Since three sets of many different elements were necessary, CSSI staff created molds to speed up the process. The hardcoating also ensured longer durability of the Santastic elements.

To learn more about “Santastic” and the “Radio City Christmas Spectacular,” see the special double-sided insert in this newsletter.

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