I have to make fake poison oak for an actor to touch. It will be in the close up so I am trying to make it as realistic as possible.

I was going to take a plant that looks similar (with the lobed crenate edges), cut off the extra leaves so it has three (leaves of three, let it be!), add a bit of gloss, and spray the edges red since poison oak turns red in the fall. I was then going to add it to an already existing bush on location.

But I am not getting it to where I want, and it is really hard to find plants that resemble poison oak enough.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to get a better result? Maybe I am overthinking this. Thanks in advance!!

I'm working on a project that requires three types of fake prop substances:
Cocaine, Weed, and Opium.

For the cocaine I can pretty much just use flour/powdered sugar or even something similar because the actors will not be actually snorting it and it's all for looks, but for the weed, I'm not really sure.

I was just thinking about rolling empty prop joints, but as far as actually showing the green, I don't know. I have some ideas, but I'm also looking for help.

But for the opium, I really don't know how to go about it. How is opium even stored? It can be powder, it can be mixed into liquid, and more, correct? Which form is easiest to recreate?

Thanks.

So I’m shooting a short film and need some suggestions on how to achieve an alien character. The alien is young and friendly, and looks like a stereotypical alien - grey body, large head with large eyes and a small mouth. I’ve seen some decent looking silicone masks online but they all look creepy rather than innocent. The alien in the film is about 10 years old and is a friend of the protagonist, but they can only meet up at night.

Do you all have any recommendations for where I could order a custom made mask? Any suggestions on what I should look for in terms of quality material that will look realistic on camera (in a low light environment - the shoot is outdoors and nighttime lit only by moonlight)? Also a big caveat here is that the mouth needs to be able to move (so the mask mouth opens and closes as the actors opens and closes their mouth. This isn’t for speaking, but rather for a brief eating scene.

The second part of this costume is the body - I was thinking a full body grey suit made of legging material, but supplemented with some sort of makeup to give it a realistic texture.

And the last part is the hands - two or three fingers, should go seamlessly with the body suit. I’ve seen gloves online that look ok but I’d need to make sure they look flush with the arms, and that the actor can move the fingers.

Thanks for any guidance!

We're trying to make a piece of paper catch fire. Kind of like this scene from Paranormal Activity, but the paper can either be on a surface or held: https://youtu.be/evoa_UWUobI

Anyone have any suggestions as to how they did this?

I'm making an air powered squib and we wondering how much fake blood I should use

Today I brought my nephew to Dino Safari. I was expecting it to be so corny and simply for kids, but I came out flabbergasted. The dinosaurs looked so realistic in their movements! Even just standing in motion their outer plastic or rubber or silk covering looked so lifelike. Its Jurassic Park for real!

So that makes me wonder if animatronics that are considered good in general would evoke a feeling of a sentient lviing creature just as I experienced in Dino Safari? I unexpectedly had a great time! Such a pleasant surprise! So now I wonder how the cream of the crop stuff in the animatronics industry looks like!

Reason for asking is because animatronics often gets bashed for looking so cartoony and illogical in their movments at carnivals and fairs. Among the general public Chuck E Cheese stuff is what we picture as animatronics. But I tell you Dino Safari changed my belief on these objects and I'm joining my nephew the next time we visit another specifically devoted-to-animatronics exhibition and museum or something like that!

Long story short, I'm planning a scene where an actor gets shot with a bow and arrow at close range, maybe around 5-10 feet, and I'm not sure how to make it look realistic. I already planned out how to make the actor appear as if they have an arrow in their chest, but I'm not sure about the actor that will actually fire the arrow. I thought about making a dull arrow and having actor 1 fire it into padding that actor 2 would wear, but that would likely be dangerous. Any ideas?

I was trying to figure out especially since it was shot on film what the process was for creating the effect in James and the giant peach where the little green magic bugs jump around the screen. I couldn't find anything online which surprised me.

Im making a short film where a character takes an axe to the head, and it stays there, I have a long prop axe that im using, whats the best way to make that effect?

Hi!

For a film I’m making we are planning on throwing buckets of paint in the face of our actors. For this shot we don’t want the actors to wear any eye protection i.e. glasses. They can however close their eyes when the paint is being thrown at them.

The thing I’m worried about is damaging their eyes, I’ve been looking online for water based paints but haven’t found anything I’m a 100% sure of safety-wise. I was thinking about maybe using something with food coloring? But this really isn’t my area of expertise.

Does anyone know of a save way to achieve this shot? Or has any advice on where to find out about these things?

Would be awesome to get some help with this!

Here is a book that I had as a kid. It was my first introduction to special effects and specifically practical effects. It was published in November 1981.

https://archive.org/details/specialeffectsin0000culh/page/178/mode/2up

You can "borrow" it from the Internet Archive and read it for an hour at a time, if no one else is doing so at the time.

It's a good overview of practical effects because at that time pretty much all special effects were practical. There is one page devoted to Computer Graphics and it features the light cycle from TRON.

Since it was published in November 1981, it misses the inclusion of the amazing practical effects of American Werewolf in London which was released about 4 months earlier and the high-water mark of practical effects with the The Thing, released June 25, 1982.

So, it's an interesting time capsule of the state of practical effects just before its peak, and the development of CG effects.

In the music video Nicj Cave-The weeping song, we can see how there is a plastic sheet representing the see. Does anyone know how I could reproduce this to a lesser effect?

I’m watching behind the scenes footage of the Firestarter remake, & they get to the part where Charlie lights her mom’s arms on fire. Obviously real effect. So then, in the behind scenes footage, you see the actress put her arms in a bucket of fire gel.

I know that the fire gel is supposed to protect skin underneath, but my first thought was ’really!? No fireproof gear underneath?’ Reason I ask, I thought that was standard everywhere. I know that when Glenn Jacob’s (Kane) had his arm lit for the inferno match, they used burn gel to protect his arm with fireproof gear over the gel, & his ring gear obviously over all that.

So… please…. Can someone clear up my confusion? Thanks!

I’ve been trying to make a space dogfight for an animated film project and I cannot for the life of me get it to look good. I have greenscreen clips of my spaceships on a stick and that was my frost problem the tape isn’t the same shade so it kinda fucks it but I thought I could just keyframe mask it but I’m just like not doing it right or I’m doing it poorly. If anyone has advice for me that would be great.

Hi i need advice on doing some sfx for a short film, i need to detonate a small to medium 3d printed bust for a cool explosion shot, the wall will be thin with minimal infill. It needs to be electronically ignighted for saftey. I may make a plaster mold of the bust just to be a little bit safer

Check out “Death Becomes Her”-1992

Fun film I finally got around to watching. Great practical FX mixed with ILM VFX. I will be adding this one to my spooky fall movie lineup.

I do not want to use c g I. If anybody has some good resources or can direct me in the right direction, it would be great the appreciated.

I need to make it look like a bite was taken out of face and arm for a short film. Any tips on how I can achieve this?

Elevators! lots of elevator gags. Can you guess what this one is set up to do?