You see this quite often on TV: Glammed up babe wearing the latest designer dress. Either she's presenting an award, singing her heart out or interviewing the stars at an after-show party. Gaffer-taped to the small of her back is a battery pack/transmitter and snaking over her shoulder blades is the microphone cable which was tucked inside her dress at the beginning of the evening.
What she needs is a dress with microphone cables built into the seams and a soft, flexible battery inside the dress wherever it can be easily concealed. After all, who'd want to wear a dress like that without being wired for sound?-- st3f, Feb 25 2002 (?) Power Flex http://abcnews.go.c...tingedge011123.htmlFlexible battery. [st3f, Feb 28 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004] dry clean only.-- po, Feb 25 2002 Also ideal for stunningly attractive female secret agent on mission to entrap industrialist/megalomaniac at opening night of fabulous opera.-- calum, Feb 25 2002 Nor is the residue of gaffer-tape adhesive a pretty thing when it is removed. Surely we can do better. Good call, St3f: A problem much in need of a product, though it's probably not the direction I'd have approached the exercise from.-- jurist, Feb 25 2002 models do have their own kind of "gaffer" tape, for keeping those frontless and backless dresses on and yet preserving a modicum of decorum <if any of you boys are remotely interested>-- po, Feb 25 2002 Condenser mike patch: flesh coloured.
Condenser mike fake nipple: when there is no place to hide it.-- neelandan, Feb 25 2002 Cover it with miniature parabolic sequins.-- waugsqueke, Feb 25 2002 Minature microphone hidden in fake cold sore.-- hippo, Feb 25 2002 po: they use toupee tape, originally designed for bald men. Not that I know anything about that.-- pottedstu, Feb 25 2002 Gaffer tape is like The Force: it has a dark side and a light side, and it holds the universe together.-- angel, Feb 25 2002 I fear that this train of thought will lead inevitably to surgical modification of the models, i.e. carving out a battery-shaped dent somewhere. To avoid this, I'd prefer to leave the mike off the lady entirely, and just have a little guy running around with a boom.-- hob, Feb 25 2002 for one horrible moment........!-- po, Feb 25 2002 No need for a mike-shaped surgical dent...Women have a couple of places to stash small objects already.-- StarChaser, Feb 25 2002 pass my handbag StarChaser-- po, Feb 25 2002 Once again a completely innocent idea has decended into sexual innuendo.........I really do love this place-- kaz, Feb 25 2002 //Minature microphone hidden in fake cold sore//I hope they become Standard Issue-- thumbwax, Feb 25 2002 <looks innocent> What sexual innuendo? I meant a purse...<grin>-- StarChaser, Feb 25 2002 Seems like an idea that'll work well enough if the mike's supposed to pick up sound only from the wearer (eg. if she's singing), but what if she's interviewing someone else? most lavalier mikes are directional and pick up clear sound only from the wearer (mike in shoe a la james bond would only pick up click-clack shoe sounds)... the mike would have to pick up clear sound from interviewer/ interviewee, while omitting other unwanted, ambient noise.-- superspygirl, Feb 26 2002 That sound you're hearing is a hapless Linda Tripp, smacking herself upside the head for having missed yet another high-tech gossip sales opportunity ...-- 1percent, Feb 27 2002 Man, it better have an off switch! That's gonna sound pretty horrible when they catch said celebrity sitting on a ceramic chair in a small cubicle screaming out "OH MY GOD THIS HUR-AIIIEEEEEEEE!!!! <ker-SPLASH>" just before they have to present something on stage.-- cameron, Feb 27 2002 "Gaffer tape" is UK for duck tape right?... I think they have a mic that hooks onto a tooth like dental floss and transmits wirelessly to a reciver hidden somewhere on the persons body, but then agian i coulda been watching too many bond flicks again...-- i-Mer, Feb 27 2002 nope, Gaffers' tape is cloth tape which comes in black (moderately expensive), white (very expensive for tape) and maybe other colors--is used in theatre (setbuilding, etc--the walls don't match, just tape 'em) in cases where the tape must be painted over afterwards, etc. (unlike duct tape, which is plasticy-metallic and *can't* be painted over well)... at least, this from my somewhat limited experience.-- Urania, Feb 27 2002 Gaffers are the lighting technicians and electricians on stage productions and film shoots. I always thought that Gaffer Tape was specifically denoted by it's especially aggressive adhesive, which was needed to temporarily but securely hold lightweight fixtures and cables in place and safe from being snagged by crew and equipment. The most common color of Gaffer's Tape I've seen was medium gray (probably from the days of black and white productions), but unlike Duct Tape, it has no reflective properties.-- jurist, Feb 27 2002 i have been... enlightend-- i-Mer, Feb 28 2002 Sorry, UB, Monica Lewinsky did not get past studio gate security. I understand that Connie Chung is speaking to her at this moment.-- jurist, Feb 28 2002 from a sound techy's point of view, this culd be quite useful, no awkward actors/resses worrying about whether the battery will psoil the line of their dress etc, but does pose some interesting problems... the "flexible soft battery" being the most obvious.-- fearoffours, Feb 28 2002 jurist: I'm glad you intercepted UB's blue dress comment. That one went completely over my head until you jogged my memory.
Added link to the first site that a search for "Flexible Battery" came up with on Google. There's not a great deal of power in the example but it illustrates the principle.-- st3f, Feb 28 2002 Heh. That one's baked...-- StarChaser, Mar 02 2002 The funniest part of this entire conversation to date has been the assumption that any one of these"glitzy" dresses is ever going to be worn more than once by the original purchaser, and therefore merits the inclusion of "ups and extras", like built-in sound and/or video functions. In the real world...that is, the "Real World" according to any of my ex-wives...this sort of dress is good for one public wearing only (since apparently nobody in a social circle that is worth watching or listening in on would be caught dead wearing the same dress twice) and then is promptly re-cut, traded or disposed of through feminine enterprises. Don't ask me how; I was frequently assured that I was better off not knowing. I am told, though, that the local Salvation Army post wore black arm bands for a week following my last anti-nuptials.-- jurist, Mar 03 2002 random, halfbakery