Rain machine with warm water

Your problem will be that running your rig from a hot water heater will only allow you a limited amount of effect (area covered and length of usage). I've always gotten a permit to rig to a hydrant. Pressure may also be a problem, depending on the area you want to cover.
 
you would need a special rig that can warm the water up with heating elements under the water passage. I would know how to make it, but it really depends on how large of an area you are trying to fill with rain. I have built all kinds of weird things for film use.
 
why do you want hot water ?
Did you take in account that if you use hot water in cold place the only thing you will get is a big cloud of vapor ? (even few degree differecne is enough).
 
Aside from the vapor issue and the practicality of heating a vast amount of water you also have the problem that it is going to cool very rapidly in the air so it would likely have to be scaldingly hot to have any chance of still being warm by the time it gets to the actors. In a shower you going a couple of feet in a relatively warm and small space. For rain effects your spraying maybe 100 feet from nozzle up and back down to your set. That water is going to be cold even if it was hot when you started.
 
Yeah, if you were wanting warm water to counterbalance cold weather, then i suspect that won't work as intended, the vapour and rapidly cooling water will just cancel any advantages you'd otherwise get.
 
clang said:
Yeah, if you were wanting warm water to counterbalance cold weather, then i suspect that won't work as intended, the vapour and rapidly cooling water will just cancel any advantages you'd otherwise get.
Click to expand...

Besides the fact that being wet and cold makes you feel colder and lowers your core body temperature.

If you need to film rain sequences, its best to do it indoors (especially if you need to simulate cold). An airplane hanger or something similar would do best.
 
what about pushing a lot of hot air ? you can find gaz burner that makes a huge amount of hot air in seconds.
 
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You would need to be able to warm hundreds of gallons of water on the fly. It could be done, but would be cheaper to shoot your rain in a warmer location so that people don't mind the cool water.

If you were to attach one of these to the base of each rain tower, and waterproof the A/C power needed to run them, it would work, but would be pretty expensive and require a generator just to run the tankless water heaters.

http://www.amazon.com/Bosch-AE115-PowerStar-Electric-Tankless/dp/B0006GVO0I
 
Simulating rain properly (aka using a rain tower) isn't cheap. If you have the budget, that's the way to go.
But warming the water will just add to the cost. Big time.
Not sure what your script calls for, but perhaps you can shoot indoors with the 'rain' cascading down on windows in the BG? Has a very nice effect and it's cheap, warm, dry....not to mention that drying off actors in between takes sucks ass.
 
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Actually, there are ways to simulate rain enough to work in a scene. I see this approach used all the time in big budget films - where they basically have rain fall between camera and the actors but not ON the actors. If the rainfall is heavy enough, it's almost impossible to tell that rain isn't falling in the background and depending on the shots, it can be hard to tell that rain isn't actually falling on the actors especially when they're wet.

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HINT:

Be sure you are prepared to backlight the "rain" or you may not see it. In fact, the reason I never take out weather insurance here in L.A. is because I know that even if it does rain a little bit, I can light it so you won't see it.
 
From the wiki article on "Gabriel"(2007):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_(film)

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Physical effects were also created cheaply. Instead of using expensive rain towers, the rain featured in the film’s climactic scenes was created simply using hoses and unheated water.[2] This meant that one night of production had to be wrapped three hours early because lead actor Andy Whitfield became hypothermic: his temperature dropped to 32.5 degrees Celsius (90.5 degrees Fahrenheit).[2]

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Thanks a lot for all the responses! You guys gave me some great ideas to work with. The scene I'm planning on shooting will probably be in a backyard with one actor. Now, I have to figure with which solution is doable. I wish it wasn't so cold in SoCal right now, haha.
 
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