Thread by @Neptunesalad

I’m devastated by the death of a DP by a prop gun. A few thoughts (thread):

Armorers are amazing professionals to work with, but maybe it’s time that we stop shooting blanks entirely & make it the policy to only use Airsoft guns (or similar) & muzzle flash in post.

From a filmmaking perspective, blanks SUCK. They’re extremely dangerous and under the best of circumstances they eat time.

Every time you have to shoot a scene with blanks, you’re going to lose 30 minutes to safety meetings, passing out ear plugs to the entire crew, setting up plexiglass and plywood, on and on. It has to be done to avert tragedies like this. And it doesn’t always work.

So what are the upsides? Two as far as I can tell. Greater acting realism and visible muzzle flash. I’ll address each of these:

1) The loud bang of the blank WILL make the actors wince very realistically. A few other things do that. You could make a non-dangerous loud noise on set like hitting something metal with a gobo arm.

Also, acting can solve this.

2) Visible muzzle flash - The muzzle flash is onscreen for a fraction of a second. So brief in fact that more often than I would have imagined the camera shutter is closed and misses it entirely and it has to be added in post anyway.

So what are the alternatives? The most common are Airsoft guns which are perfect replicas of virtually any gun. They’re pellet guns that take a CO2 charge which gives them some recoil. A prop master can handle them because there’s a 0% chance of someone getting shot with them.

(Naturally, assuming nobody puts pellets into them, which they won’t but it’s easy to check)

Adding muzzle flash in post requires a little work by one person (VFX or even the editor). There are numerous libraries of real muzzle flashes that have been filmed with a wide array of real guns under the safest possible conditions. Other things need to be added like:

Simulated reflected light, smoke from the flash, a bullet casing ejecting, etc. Even things like recoil can be enhanced in VFX. Each one of these gunshots needs an artist to handle it. It will take some amount of time.

So that’s the cost - one artist to add muzzle flash in post vs. hiring an armorer, slowing the shoot, safety meetings, passing out earplugs, surrounding the crew with plexi & plywood, and risking possible injury or death. It makes more sense creatively, financially & safety-wise.

I’ve directed projects where it was done both ways, and I would always argue for the greater safety of no blanks.

After safety I would prefer more time to get more setups without all the rigmarole that comes with using blanks. 3 scenes with gunfire=1.5 hours of safety meetings.

Yes, we would lose that absolute realism in exchange for a single frame of composited flash. It’s not impossible to spot the fake stuff. But the muzzle flash from a blank also doesn’t look exactly like a real bullet either. So pick your lack of realism. I side with safety.

My heart goes out to the friends and family of the crew killed and injured on the set. Everyone in that cast and crew must be devastated. This suggestion doesn’t help any of them, but it’s time to stop being macho about blanks and end the practice.

If you want to see the power of adding muzzle flash in post, watch this video by the amazing artists at @CorridorDigital as they gussy up a sequence from #JOHNWICK:

Here’s one of a few companies that make high-quality stock elements including muzzle flash, fire, and blood elements that can make your sets safer, cleaner, and more efficient:

actionvfx.com/collections/mu…