Fake snow - what do you use?

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David W. Richardson

Chapelgrove Films
I want to create the effect of a gently-falling snow in a lighted night shot. No snow on the ground -- it's a snow that's just beginning.

Has anyone here done it? What's your secret?
 
The mashed potato flakes work best in my experience, and it's important to note that they are of course also biodegradable so you won't be making some horrible mess of your shooting location. Hose the place down afterward.

I've seen people try to use spun cotton but this always looks poor to me and can be a nightmare to clean up.
 
Mitch Gross said:
The mashed potato flakes work best in my experience, and it's important to note that they are of course also biodegradable so you won't be making some horrible mess of your shooting location. Hose the place down afterward.

I've seen people try to use spun cotton but this always looks poor to me and can be a nightmare to clean up.
Click to expand...

Yeah, being biodegradable is a definite plus. Going to try the mashed potato flakes. Thanks guys!
 
CG or stock footage snow fall, composited over your live footage? Compositing has problems of its own, sure, but would avoid a lot of the problems with doing it 'live'
 
I don't have After Effects. Compositing in snow might be tricky since the shot I want to use it in involves camera movement.

I would like to get the shot with practical effect snow, but I will also get the shot without snow so an attempt can be made to composite snow in. It's always good to have options.

A snow machine of the type in those links is pricey. I do see on Amazon that they sell inexpensive 'snow machines', but I'm not sure how real their 'snow' would look on camera.

I'm going to practice with a fan gently blowing mashed potato flakes off of a baking pan, and see how that works. Luckily, sound isn't a problem for this particular shot.

Thanks for all the help. Any other ideas?
 
Here's what will make it tricky to use CGI or After Effects...

The final shot of the film. It's night. An empty park bench in a circle of light. The camera position starts at the bench, then cranes upward, while still remaining pointing at the bench. The effect is that of a spirit leaving and ascending into the sky, but we keep the bench in view as the camera pulls up and away.

At some point during that movement, I want it to begin to snow. Light, gently-floating flakes, not thick, heavy ones.

I've looked at a lot of stock footage clips that could be composited in, but all of them have the snow falling perpendicular to the camera. Most is from top to bottom. Some moves diagonally across the field of view. But I don't see any that would work with a camera position above the bench, pointed downward -- the snow needs to move from behind the camera to a vanishing point somewhere around the center of the shot. It can come from a bit to the side of the camera, but the flakes need to be falling AWAY from the camera. I'm not seeing that anywhere.

It seems doing the effect as a practical is probably my best chance of getting what I'm looking for.
 
I'd guess that if you're not an AE whiz, at least give the practical a shot.

AE has a lot of control in their snow generator, and with motion tracking and lighting the snow effect, someone with the chops could likely pull it off - so shoot a clean plate just in case, and make sure there are good track point on multiple planes and that they're in focus - for this type of shot, it's usually easy to find a spot (sidewalk, etc) to lay an 8x10 card with markers where it will be easy to clone out after the track. And you really want camera tracking markers, multiple planes at different depths, not just the usual "2 points to stabilize".

Keep in mind that the best final may be practical snow and enhancing the snow in AE, since the practical snow will give you a visual guideline. But if you're this kind of thing, find someone good at AE - there's almost no reason not to have it with the cloud thing, though getting good at it is another matter (though it's a lot easier than, say, learning Maya).

I was one of the first Photoshop photo-illustrators in my market (back when it shipped on like nine floppies!) and in every ad agency meeting I'd invariably say "nothing looks as real as reality"… so give the practical solution a shot and try to do a test at the location.
 
All this after effects talk, cam anyone show a good example of it? I'd love to also get some AE snow that looks "real" into some of my projects.
 
I would suggest shooting the clean version first, else you will have the leftover "stuff" in the clean shot. Just roll while you are practicing the move.
 
I don't know how wide you plan to get or how tall your crane/jib is. As a practical effect, I would build a large pan, bag or series of bags to hold the snow. These would be suspended above the set somehow. The pan/bags would be perforated, and when one shakes them the flakes can move enough that some work their way out and fall into the shot. Practice then determines the size of holes, number of holes, amount of shaking, etc. needed to complete the shot as you desire. Lots of factors but that's what it takes to make it look good.
 
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