How to steam up car windows?

QuickHitRecord

QuickHitRecord

Veteran
I'm shooting a tense scene with an actor in a car interior and I want to show condensation building up on the insides of the window glass. I could always just a spray bottle set on mist spray and perhaps a small fan, but I'm wondering if anyone else has a better way to do it (without ruining the upholstery). Any advice would be appreciated!
 
Rent it out to a porno production. You get the steam and some extra cash ;)

more seriously, sly, the steam machine sounds like a good idea, if not possible, water boilers might work? Or use field kitchen to boil water if no electricity is available...
 
Steam machine could work. Or dulling spray for easy, lasting but very subtle effect. Also just a normal water spray pump bottle (like one used to care houseplants) that is capable of very fine mist could work. I have expensive HozeLock spray bottle which doesn't give fine enough mist, but a cheapo dollar store happens to do the trick.

Some things to keep in mind:

- Glass doesn't like rapid temperature changes or large temperature differences and could break.
- Be well prepared to dry the window throroughly and multiple times. Once glass gets wet enough that water droplets start to run down, it can be almost impossible to get it steamy looking again. Drying the glass well (!) will allow you to redo the steamy look.

One thing I have no idea if it could work, but would be fun to test... Hospitals have a device that produces cold steam from a hose. It's like an electric water pipe that just produces a lot of cold steam or misty air to treat some flu patients or such. Haven't tested that, though.
 
FYI the hospital device is a nebulizer. They can be bought cheaply, no idea if it woud work for this
mörkö said:
Steam machine could work. Or dulling spray for easy, lasting but very subtle effect. Also just a normal water spray pump bottle (like one used to care houseplants) that is capable of very fine mist could work. I have expensive HozeLock spray bottle which doesn't give fine enough mist, but a cheapo dollar store happens to do the trick.

Some things to keep in mind:

- Glass doesn't like rapid temperature changes or large temperature differences and could break.
- Be well prepared to dry the window throroughly and multiple times. Once glass gets wet enough that water droplets start to run down, it can be almost impossible to get it steamy looking again. Drying the glass well (!) will allow you to redo the steamy look.

One thing I have no idea if it could work, but would be fun to test... Hospitals have a device that produces cold steam from a hose. It's like an electric water pipe that just produces a lot of cold steam or misty air to treat some flu patients or such. Haven't tested that, though.
Click to expand...
 
All good tips. I am going to see if I can get a steam machine. My green screen could probably do with a few less wrinkles as well. Thanks for the help!
 
I haul a garment steamer to every green screen shoot - a decent homeowner model's about $140, but there are also handheld with less oomph. Just shot a 20-ft. screen yesterday. Almost didn't bring the steamer, but I'm learning that "future me" will really hate "past me" when he's dealing with wrinkles in keylight. Be nice to "future you" and steam your screen!

By the way, it's a great thing to keep in the laundry room... you can steam a shirt much faster than ironing. It won't look as perfectly pressed, but for casual shirts it's great.

And on set, 9 out of 10 shoots with talent, the stylist will be "THANK GOD YOU BROUGHT A STEAMER!!!!"
 
Michael Carter said:
I haul a garment steamer to every green screen shoot - a decent homeowner model's about $140, but there are also handheld with less oomph. Just shot a 20-ft. screen yesterday. Almost didn't bring the steamer, but I'm learning that "future me" will really hate "past me" when he's dealing with wrinkles in keylight. Be nice to "future you" and steam your screen!

By the way, it's a great thing to keep in the laundry room... you can steam a shirt much faster than ironing. It won't look as perfectly pressed, but for casual shirts it's great.

And on set, 9 out of 10 shoots with talent, the stylist will be "THANK GOD YOU BROUGHT A STEAMER!!!!"
Click to expand...

A good friend of mine, former roommate and costumer designer with whom I have worked with many times always brings a floor model garment steamer to shoots with her. They are very handy. It was great having the steamer at the house when we lived together to keep the wrinkles down. That would be the direction I would look when thinking about steaming up car windows.

Keep in mind that the effectiveness of the condensation build up on the windows, especially how long the effect lasts, is going to be dependent on the temperature of the windows and the relative humidity of the location where you are shooting. In warm weather in an arid climate it might be real tough to keep the effect up long. In a cooler environment with a pretty good relative humidity you may want to keep an electric heater in the car to keep the interior warmed up a bit. Also consistency between shoots is going to be a PITA. Thinking about doing the effect you may want to put a consistent layer of dulling spray, or the like (Arid Extra Dry spray on deodorant in a pinch), on the outside of the windows and use the steamer, or what ever, on the inside. You definitely want to thoroughly test this effect under as close to the conditions you are going to shoot under as you can.
 
I agree, a garment steamer might be handy to keep around afterwards for my clothes. Think that I could get away with a handheld model, like this?

http://www.target.com/p/conair-extreme-steam-handheld-garment-steamer-blue/-/A-13773985

You bring up a good point about controlling the temperature, which is going to be tricky. To give you a little more detail on the actual shoot, it is going to be shot against a green screen in my garage. The green screen will be lit with 4-bank 4' Kino Flos, but all of the lighting for the car will be from tungsten lights (all I've got at the moment). I expect that it is going to get pretty hot in there, even if we keep the garage door open when we're not rolling. Maybe the trick will be shooting an additional "condensation plate", and layer it between the driver and the background plate, bringing up the opacity as the car heats up. What do you think?
 
Yeah, I too worry about the difficulty of keeping a window covered in a consistent amount of steam, which would seem to require perfect control over temperature and humidity - potentially a nightmare under movie lighting.

Definitely worth some tests to see if you can fake it with some kind of hair spray or spray varnish, possibly applied via airbrush to give control over droplet size - spraying would require some masking before applying, but the sprayed surface would quickly dry and then stay stable throughout shooting. (Although someone would have to scrape it off again afterwards...)
 
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