No budget wind machine and rain in stolen location with no power

[Matt W.]

I need to hit the talent with wind and water for stolen shots of a storm approaching over the ocean... The bg/fg will be enhanced with cg.

I can get a genny if need be but I am planning to use a gas powered leaf blower for the wind (to stay low profile). Use it from a distance for the wides...the CUs have the storm intensifying and I'm going to hit the talent with the leaf blower from closer.

For water...what is my best bet? I don't have access to running water but I want realistic rain drops over the talent (the foreground and bg are cg). I am considering an insecticide/garden sprayer but will that have enough output to even register? Or I could simple use a watering can; I am sure the talent would appreciate it but it wouldn't look organic, imp. But there must be some kind of creative rig out there.

Thanks! Only looking for cheap/guerrilla methods, btw. If I had the money to do this right I would be making another movie instead.

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

Carpet dryers work well for wind also. $20/day at Home Depot, and small.

 

[Victor Lazaro]

Check the weather for a bad day. (seriously, don't)

 

[Joshua Raven]

Water from a garden sprayer isn't going to register, even if you really light it up. While you are at Home Depot, pick one of their gas powered sump pumps and hook up the discharge hose to a manifold. Instant fire hose. Set the manifold to a relatively coarse mist, stand far enough back so it comes down, pelting the actors like rain. This is assuming you are close to the ocean to run the length of hose they give you with the rental. If you are not close to a water source, fill some cheap (new, clean 30 gallon garbage cans with water in the back of a pickup truck. Some of the rental places don't have 2 inch manifolds for the hoses, so you can make your own with a small length of pvc pipe, pvc cap and some hose clamps. Glue the cap to a foot of pipe, drill a nice pattern of holes in the cap, clamp it on to the discharge hose. Drop the suction end into the water source, fire up the pump and test for effect. The gas powered sump pump rents for about $35 bucks a day, the homebrew manifold would cost less than $5, and if you have to truck in your water, four garbage cans would probably be another $45 bucks. Not free, but cheap enough. I've done it. It looks like a torrential downpour, and you'd be amazed at how realistic a performance an actor will give you while being doused with a firehose :wink5:

 

[Robert Aldrich]

I need to hit the talent with wind and water for stolen shots of a storm approaching over the ocean... The bg/fg will be enhanced with cg.

I can get a genny if need be but I am planning to use a gas powered leaf blower for the wind (to stay low profile). Use it from a distance for the wides...the CUs have the storm intensifying and I'm going to hit the talent with the leaf blower from closer.

For water...what is my best bet?

Use a simple water-based fire extinguisher. You fill it partly with water, then air pressure from your local filling station does the rest. It can throw quite a high stream of water that comes down in nice, large droplets, and you can aim it easily to wet your talent for something less than a minute or two.

I've seen these things laying around in the rear of businesses, discarded, and have one of them for any future no-budget projects just in case.

Probably any fire extinguisher company can get you one cheap.

Bob

 

[David W. Jones]

I would suggest testing in advance and exercising caution toward your talent when pointing a leaf blower at someone's face. By the way a leaf blower's outlet only covers a small area as opposed to something like a large portable shop fan.

 

[Jon Jones]

Call the fire dept. they can light it up pretty hot!

 

[Justin Dabney]

At a hardware store In the Garden Section they should have a Drip Garden Hose. That works really well and large drops come out of it randomly and looks good on camera. Test it to give you the right amount of a rain look that you want.

 

[Matt W.]

Thanks, everyone. Joshua's idea is kind of brilliant (though I don't completely understand every detail, not being very mechanically savvy), but a water-based fire extinguisher sounds easiest since this is just one shot of someone being hit with rain in CU for like ten seconds.


For how long could I douse someone with a water fire extinguisher? Also, where are these available? There are a couple in CL but no one replies to CL ads and at amazon they're $150 and need to be refilled professionally, whereas older ones seem to work off any compressed air source?


Thanks again!

 

[Christopher Mills]

If you are using a garden hose, or a fire hydrant as a source, don't point the water at the talent.
aim the water stream up and let the drops fall towards the talent, then blow them towards the talent.

in a closeup, even a water hose with a misting/jet/stream pistol grip nozzle will yield useable results.

even a high budget show will frequently do this...
OR>>>
Home Depot and Lowes now have mini irrigation towers that throw water drops up in the air to then fall onto the ground.. these are pretty cheap, and are scaled down versions of what feature films use for rain towers.

 

[Matt W.]

We'd use a garden house but there's no running water close to the location.

 

[Matt W.]

Both my fire extinguisher and air compressor were broken, but...this is a pretty good method! We only got 10 seconds of weak rain, but if done right this could work really well--the rain is tightly focused but not excessively so and the drops of rain are big and read really nicely on camera. Combined with a bit of post work this is a pretty effective no-budget trick. (Posting in case anyone happens to have the same question and searches; I realize there's not that much interest in this.)