"Corrado" - A production blog

Status
Not open for further replies.
I think you guys are a little off on what a blank firing guns really are.

I've never mentioned it up to this point but in the late 1990s I designed a magazine fed shotgun that never really took off. In order to do that, I had to obtain a class 7 Federal Firearms License. This is a very high level license that required countless interviews with the FBI and ATF and is a license to manufacture firearms. When the idea never took off I let the license expire, and it lapsed in 2001. I own many guns myself and needless to say, am very experienced with all kinds of guns.

Blank guns are real guns. Inside the barrel a choke is fitted that has a small aperture so that smoke and flame can escape. A few other small mods are made to the weapon, but it would be an easy task to reconvert the gun back to live fire. This is why they are always treated as real weapons. As a matter of fact, the choke is a safety precaution to prevent any wadding from leaving the gun. You can put a blank round in a real gun and fire it off just fine.

The smoke comes from the barrel!!!!!

Now blank loads come in full, half, and quarter loads. A full load produces a majestic flash and noise. The flash is so that it shows up on camera better, and the noise is a byproduct of all that powder.

Anyone that shoots real guns knows that they don't flash or bang as heavy as blank guns.

There is another entire class of guns that take blank rounds but are not real guns. These replicas have actions that cycle but use some sort of different round that barely makes any noise, flame, or smoke. Don't know what the point of these things are.

As for the apartment, we have permission from the owner and have paid the tenants. I don't expect trouble.

Real guns are the epitome of reality. They look, shoot, and feel real. That's why they're in such predominant use in Hollywood.
 
Thanks for the clarifications. Do you know why it is that if you go to any blank guns site on the net (iar-arms.com, maxsell.com) that they will say the blank guns have a blaze orange plug in them to comply with federal regulations?

Here is a link to the text of the regulation: http://www.airsoftforum.com/board/index.php?showtopic=10874

Or is it that because the guns you are using are not imitations but actual guns, that they don't need to have the blaze orange thing. This regulation only deals with imitation guns.
 
Davide, those guns are really not my area of expertise, but If I had to wager a guess, it'd go along these lines:

Blank firing guns, airsofts, and rubber guns are simply toys. They do not fire live ammunition and are thus subject to the "blaze orange" law. Sale and use of these guns is not regulated by the ATF and you do not need a Federal firearms license to purchase one.

The blank firing guns are probably the most useless things I've ever seen. I don't know what purpose they would serve. The actions cycle, they take clips, but the flame comes out the wrong end of the gun. What's the point? As far as I am concerned, they have no application in film making save for one consideration:

You don't need a firearms licensed prop master to handle or acquire them.

That may be a plus for an ultra low budget gig. But seriously, it would look better done digitally than have the flame come out the wrong end.

Real guns, on the other hand, have no orange marking requirement. We are only using real guns. Real guns that fire blanks. The only reason they put a choke in the barrel is for safety, but they do not need this modification to fire blanks.

My gun guy tells the story of how Brandon Lee died - according to him, these chokes are an offshoot of that whole deal.

There was a scene where someone was supposed to point a .44 magnum revolver at Lee. They wanted to get a close up of the gun, and of course, a revolver has exposed chambers where you can clearly see the ammo. Blanks wouldn't look cool so close up - you'd see their flat (and sometimes colored) heads.

Production demanded real bullets. Behind the 8 ball for time, someone got live ammo, drilled out the primer and drained the gunpowder. They did the shot and managed to get a great closeup of the revolver's barrel and cylinders full of real ammo.

Somehow, one of the bullets became separated from the cartridge and lodged itself in the barrel of the gun.

Most people don't realize how lightly crimped a bullet is to it's cartridge. It's one of the reasons why you never store your ammo vacuum packed. Even the vacuum generated by a home vacuum sealer that you'd use for packing meat or whatever generates enough suction to pull the bullet heads off the cartridges.

And of course it does - you want all the force of the gunpowder to propel the bullet not expend energy forcing it out of the cartridge. Ammo manufacturers only use as much force as they need to to keep the bullet in the casing until you need to fire it.

But I digress.

So next day, they load blanks into the .44 magnum and someone shoots at Brandon Lee. The rest is history - the gun fires, the blank has enough force to send the .44 magnum slug into Brandon's head and he bites it. At such close range it was enough to kill him.

That's a good reason to have a choke to prevent wadding or foreign objects coming out the barrel. In the Lee situation, the blank may have had enough force to destroy the gun and probably most of the shooter's hand, but Lee would've lived.
 
siked to see the next post. I myself am in the process of securing funding for my film, and I am very excited to hear about what you said about having a great script, because like you i don't have a million features or festival entries however i am pretty conifdent people well think my script is the shiznit, I kind of don't even want to start production until I can see how your experience goes.
 
taormina said:
...The blank firing guns are probably the most useless things I've ever seen. I don't know what purpose they would serve. The actions cycle, they take clips, but the flame comes out the wrong end of the gun. What's the point? As far as I am concerned, they have no application in film making save for one consideration:

You don't need a firearms licensed prop master to handle or acquire them.

...
Click to expand...
Flame doesn't actually come out the back end or side, it produces some smoke from the side and ejects a casing. It may produce a small flash from the side but I never noticed it, and that could make sense anyway with the muzzle flash you add in post. As with all visual FX, a mix of practical and post can be best.

Here's the type of blank firing gun you are talking about where the flash and smoke don't come out the front end, but it ejects a shell and does produce some smoke.
Notice the light up of the actor's face (done in post), notice the muzzle flash with SDOF (done in post)
http://frenchquarterfeatures.com/gunshot1.mov
(feel free to frame by frame)
http://frenchquarterfeatures.com/gunshot2.mov

Here's an entire web series done with similar prop guns.
http://portcitypd.podshow.com/

I also worked on a 150K feature cop mocumentary here in NY with the FBI agent from the sopranos which used a variety of airsoft guns and blank firing guns.

I also worked on a horror feature of about the same budget with "real" blank firing guns and all of the muzzle flashes still had to be done in post because only about 60 percent of them photograph anyway and the ones that do are usually a bit anemic.

Given the safety issues and additional costs the blank firing guns that have a plugged muzzle and eject a shell and smoke to the side when combined with well done muzzle flashes in post and power windows type relighting actually make a lot of sense for budgets $500K and lower.
 
I think the point I am trying to make is that the blank firing replicas don't seem to be in large circulation in decent sized features. The producers I've spoken with on about $3M features and conversations with my gun guy (Bill Davis) lead me to the conclusion that most people use real guns; to whit, Gibbons and ISS, two of the biggest movie gun rental houses have huge businesses supplying real guns. The guns in my movie aren't just incidental, they're part of the story.

I'm sure the replicas have their place and glad people like them but they aren't for me.
 
taormina said:
I think the point I am trying to make is that the blank firing replicas don't seem to be in large circulation in decent sized features. The producers I've spoken with on about $3M features...
Click to expand...

Neither are the HVX and Letus Extreme in wide use in $3M features.:)

So I don't see why you should feel obligated to do anything that a movie with 10 times your budget would do simply because that's the way they do it, when the opening shootout in the church in Once Upon a Time in Mexico ($30M) was done entirely with rubber guns.

I think the thing to do is take the wisdom of what they say for the $3 mill movie and the wisdom of what the guerillas say about the 1.5k movie and try to keep testosterone and wanting to impress the big guys out of it when making a decission. Not that you aren't doing that but I'd hate for no budget filmmakers to think they'll get crap results if they can't afford a weapons guy and real guns when you've inspired us so much with this thread. Now granted, most muzzle flash stuff done in post does look like crap, but not because it can't be done well, but because it's poorly executed by someone that doesn't take the time to think about and try to emulate how it would actually look.

As for your situation, why pay more money, have to hire more people, and acquire additional permits, and fees & licenses when you don't have to? I guess the answer is you can afford it and obviously, with the right safety precautions, real would be better, even though you'll probably have to augment the flash in post anyway to get movie flash, but better for the acting and feel of the scene sure.

Anyway looking forward to more on the wheeling and dealing and pre pro end of things and of course once you get into production.
 
It's a good point, Jack, but it isn't that expensive at all:

1. Gun guy - $350 per day
2. Squib / pyro guy - $600 per day
3. Squib hit - $35 ea. - We'll use them sparingly.
4. Gun rental - $250 per week for a full on machine gun. $50 for a pistol.
5. Insurance - $10K for the shoot - $3K upcharge because of guns and fight scenes. Let's say guns is 2k of that.

Permits are the same price. There is a small fee for notifying people that blanks will be fired.

All this and we have, what, maybe 2 total days of gun shooting in the whole movie?

It's not that much at all. So why would I f&ck around with fake this and fake that for what I'm thinking is a less than $4000 total charge on a $300K movie or around 1% of the budget?

People have to stop thinking real guns and real squibs are so hard to shoot with. If more people knew how cheap as dirt they are, less people would use rubber guns.
 
Also, just to show you guys I actually do get it, here is a little vid I made this morning:

http://www.taorminafilms.com/gun.wmv

It is 6MB.

Now considering it took me, oh, about 15 minutes to do this, it's not bad. Does it have flaws? Sure. Here they are:

1. Side doesn't rack
2. no ejected casing
3. No flash on her face

This was done with a real gun that was obviously empty. Again, pros could achieve FAAAAAAAAR better results. So could I with more time.

But if you are doing something on the cheap and have no budget or time for real guns, you can still do it digitally.

To be honest, most people don't know jack squat about guns and the above video probably looks very realistic to them. And this is good - it will fool most. There's no point watching it frame by frame. Watch it all at once. That's where the illusion is.
 
Yeah not bad.
You bring up a crucial point too.

If you want the gun to rack you have to get a blowback airsoft gun, I'd say that's the minimum.

The rest of the stuff can be done much more easily in post, but for closeups you definitely want the back of the gun to rack when fired which should be done practical with a quality airsoft gun that's ostensibly indistinguishable from the real thing.
 
Yeah, totally. Closeups is where those guns rule.

I've shot lots of video of me at the range, though, and that blowback sure does happen quick.

What do you think - if the barrel is pointed right at the camera, you won't really need blowback - you could use a rubber gun since you'd never see the slide move back at that angle...no???
 
Could be tough. I'd still opt for blowback, since when the gun fires and the actor is faking the kickback of the gunshot they will move their hand, you might likely still see part of it. Also that's a rare shot that's 100% right into camera with no angle at all, I mean even a slight angle either on accident or intentionally so the shot looks more 3D and less flat.
 
It seems like we are in a waiting game now. This is why you have two months of pre-pro on a feature. If this had a larger budget, we'd have 3 months of pre-pro.

The waiting is a killer. I can't stand needless waiting on people and I hate the "hurry up and wait" syndrome.

People love the phrase "ball is in their court". The ball is firmly in their court on a number of outstanding issues:

1. Our star's "people" are continuing to review his deal memo after nearly a week. This means I can't announce his name officially or put out our movie poster, which has been complete for a week. We're supposed to meet this week to review the script and make a few changes. The last time I spoke with him we had a verbal deal,...I suppose I just want the paper to back it up. We are shooting in 26 days!!!

2. Waiting on our LAX paperwork to return. We are shooting at LAX for one day inside live Terminals 3 and 2. Terminal two is governed by a company called LAX2 that controls it. Everything looks good, I'm told, but yet we wait.

3. No deal memo back from two other members of the cast who will remain nameless (no, it's not Sizemore) We talk, have meetings, and make big plans, but their "people" are asleep at the wheel. It's not their fault, it's their agents fault, but still, it's as if there's an elephant in the room.

In my spare time between the endless tasks and minutiae of pre pro, I make distribution cold calls. I figure, why not. Ultimately people will see it at fests, and it's probably easier to sell a finished movie than a movie in pre-pro, but I call nevertheless. Why not?

That whole distribution business is weird.

I phone up Nu-Image / Millennium today. They're responsible for putting out most medium budget action movies out there. I met one of the owners on the set of Death and Life of Bobby Z. His name is Avi Lerner, and he produces like 20 movies per year. Big ones, with stars.

I didn't know him well enough to call him up and shoot the ****, but I remember the company.

I get routed to a woman who asks me what I've got. Here's where names start talking for you.

Me: Hi. My name is Adam and I wanted to tell you about my movie.

Her: Is this a completed work?

Me: No, we go into production on the 26th.

I feel like the phone is going to be hung up at this point....

Her: Uh huh....well we only look at...wait a minute, do you have any attachments?

Me: Yeah, we got Sizemore...and I rattle 'em all off

silence.

Her: Wow. What did you say the budget was?

Me: 750K

Her: How did you get all those people for $750K???

Me: You have no idea. :grin:


So she asks me to send her a package, which I do via e-mail. She is supposed to send it up to some guy called "Christian" who buys these flicks.

Just so you guys know, a package consists of an e-mail that has a title, logline, and synopsis. Wherever I mention a character in the synopsis I put the actor's name and credits in parenthesis so they can instantly see who is in it and what they've done. Plus I include a movie poster. I figure I have a verbal deal with my star, what the hell.

So that call went well. But she e-mails back two hours later and says Christian says the movie is not for us.

Bummer.

Then she says her and her partner want to have a conference call to help me find a home for it on Wednesday. Weird.

Dunno who her partner is. I thought she just said her company wasn't interested in the movie. Now we are having a conference call??? Does she work independent of her own company???

Between her and my phantom caller who has linked me up with a sales agent (who still hasn't had a chance to look at my script per today's call, and thus make me an offer)...

I've had more random people who want to "help" me obtain distribution with no apparent self gain. They all "just want to help"

What, is distribution something that people in the industry like to see people obtain, like finding a home for a foster child or returning a lost dog to the pound???

I appreciate people's help, but I don't buy for a minute that they're doing this from the bottom of their hearts.

As soon as I find out their angle, I'll let you know.
 
Thanks for the great blog Adam. I'm looking forward to your next post.

For my first low budget feature I used the blank firing guns.
http://www.powerpunchproductions.com/The%20Apprentice.html

And for a teaser trailer I shot I decided to go the post digital route for the gun shots.
http://www.larunmovie.com/Trailer.htmhttp://www.powerpunchproductions.com/The Apprentice.html

I have to say using the blank firing guns is the way to go. You just can't beat the realism and the reaction from the actors can't be more natural. Plus, not having to mess with digitizing all the gun shots in post saves a bunch of time and hassle.

Thanks again for the awesome post and good luck on your project.
 
Last edited:
Hey Josh, when you say blank firing guns do you mean replicas that fire blanks or real guns with blanks?

You raise a great point about the actor's reactions. No one has mentioned that yet.
 
Hi,

After coming back to this thread again and again awaiting updates I finally registered. It sounds like you are living the dream Adam! Your words and wisdom are highly appreciated. My biggest challenge in getting a production going has always been the "paper work"... legalities, union stuff, contracts, etc. I really know very little in this area and am always afraid I will get way over my head. Do you have any advice, or know of any great books on this topic?

I am really glad you have decided to use "real" guns for this shoot. For those who know what it is like to fire a real gun, CG muzzle flashes and the like don't often hold up. A real weapon has recoil which is nearly impossible to get right in post, in a timely fashion. As PowerPunch stated the actor's reaction to the gun discharging will be more realistic. I would like to add that you MAY get a better performance even with the actor just holding/carrying it, as nothing makes you feel more badass than wielding a real firearm. To convince someone like myself that the weapon is real would take more time and money in post work than just using the real thing in the first place. The major disadvantage is safety and noise levels, but with a good weapons expert on site (which you have) and the permission from the neighbors, there should be no problem.

I am really looking forward to more updates from you, and applaud you for taking the time!

Thanks!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top