It's Raining Coffee Beans!

[crazycatz]

hey!
alright everyone, i must call on you for your infinite knowledge. I have a scene in a film that i am doing shortly, and it needs to rain coffee beans. what would your brilliant minds suggest to do that? maybe some pvc pipe with holes drilled randomly in it big enough for the beans to fall through...? or some sort of sifter deal?
maybe someone here can think of something creaitve. let me know,
thanks!

[GenJerDan]

I'd just pour them onto a deflector of some kind, rather than try to get them to cooperate with a holey PVC. Just bour them onto it and let them bounce down...have to be fairly high up for it though, to get an even-ish distribution.

And it would be noisy...but that might be a good thing..."rain" sounds.

I suppose a sifter would work, if you could find some chicken wire with the proper size mesh...

[crazycatz]

hmm that might work, ill have yo do some tests i guess. anyone have any other ideas?

[MattinSTL]

Put on a StarBucks uniform and an indian head-dress, then pretend to froth a latte' in one hand and thrust a spear with the other... works every time.

[J Michael]

How wide must the rain fall?

[crazycatz]

most of the shots are fairly close, but there is one wider shot. about the length of a normal sized table.

[J Michael]

You could form a sheet of plastic like genjerdan's deflector - if they shoot out of a pvc pipe perpendicular to the slope of the deflector they should have a pretty random motion. Adusting the tilt angles of the deflector should allow control of the distribution over the edge. Speed of the beans can be controlled by choice of plastic surface roughness and tilt angle.

[hatsoff2halford]

I don't really have an idea how to do it, but any movie with raining cofee beans, sounds really awesome. So, I hope to see it when it's done.

[donkathon]

I know. Go to your home improvement store, and look for some pegboards. The stuff they use to hang up the metal bars to hang up small items. The beans should fall through each hole, and each at an inch apart. Then you would have to get some grips to shake the board vigorously.

http://www.lehighgroup.com/images/pegboard.gif

Just make sure the holes are big enough.

[crazycatz]

I don't really have an idea how to do it, but any movie with raining cofee beans, sounds really awesome. So, I hope to see it when it's done.

haha thanks! I'll be sure to put it up here when its done!

and the pegboard idea is a great idea, i'll have to try it out this weekend!

[donkathon]

Score 1 for me!
Im so exstatic, even rubbing a balloon in my hair wont work..

If its light rain, you could use an industrial fan, suspend it horizontally, and but the beans in it. Probably not too great, though.