Smoke and steam

[Gabor D.]

Hey All!

I'm shooting a film where I'd like to create really moody scenes (in somewhat an 80s style) and I want to use smoke machine. It's not a problem indoor, but I'd like to shoot outside too. I have some scenes which play out in dark alleys and I'd like to add "steam" to it, as it would come out of pipes, channels... So I can't do this with my smoke machine. Is there any cheap way to do this? To have some spots on the street where I would put down these "things" and it would look like steam? Some kind of chemical, pills, etc?

Thanks

 

[Björn Benckert]

Buy a few of those SFX smoke candles. Just fire up and then it does not take long before you probably have even more smoke than you asked for

 

[Eric M Hurt]

Smoke and steam look and react very differently from one another.

To create steam you use a boiler, these are generally very large.
If I was going to try and create a smaller effect I would look into using some sort of propane burner and a huge pot of water, I'd cap the top of the pot and bring a pipe off of it and send it into the shot.
The outside temp will have a lot to do with how it looks (the cooler outside the better, but too cold and it will dissipate quickly).

 

[Andy Jarosz]

There is a special type of very fast dissipating fog specifically made for steam effects. You can use it in any fog machines. Try and find it!

 

[Rob Gardner]

We recently did a 1940's rail-yard night scene and used smoke machines for steam from the Steam engines. Back lit against the black engines it looked great.

 

[Gabor D.]

Hey,
Thanks all!

My smoke machine is really powerful so I cannot really create subtle effects with it for an entire scene length. But I figured a way I could make spots of smoke/steam on an exterior street scene.... I will shoot these scenes in abandoned factory areas, so not public places, which have tight alley like streets. I will get a long hose like thing and screw holes in it. It will be long... 10-20meters.... I will put the smoke machine on one end and run the hose in a way it won't be noticable on camera. Start the smoke machine and through the holes I can have small, thin layers of smoke at different parts of the street.... It's a cheap and simple idea. What do you think?

 

[Christopher Mills]

how good are you at plumbing?
Use tubing and garden hose with multiple clothing steamers..

this is the bread and butter of FX companies.. and they use flexible and hard tubing, hoses,. plumbing fittings, and fans to push smoke and fx fog and steam around sets

it is generally the safest fx work for an amateur to do. But clothing steamers and multiple "party" or music venue fog machines hidden all over the set are easy to place..

now, if you have a budget of any kind.. you can chill the smoke by blowing it through dry ice and it will sit close to the ground..

you can look up how to build your own from ice chests online..

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I think by changing the formulation of the fog juice (I think maybe by increasing the amount of water) you can get a faster dissipating cloud of smoke, more like steam, at least with some types of smoke machines.

 

[Abo Jassin]

+1
Gabor, just been testing different fluids and noticed big differences. Use the right, long-lasting fluid and control the subtlety by mixing it with destilled water up to 1:1 ratio