Shooting Beer Cans

N

Noon

New member
Hey.

I have a scene where a character shoots a couple of beer cans. I want to do this in a wide shot, getting both the actor and the can in frame. I guess we're gonna be using a non gun and, I was imagining, we'd just yank the can with fishing line. I've never shot beer cans in real life so I have no idea in what manner, how far nor even if they would fly off after being hit. For those who do have experience with this, will yanking with fishing line be realistic? How far would they go? Would the bullet just go straight through them? We were originally going to use blanks, but have run into some problems with insurance where that is concerned. Is using a non gun the next best option? Since we're going to be wide, I guess not seeing the shell fall won't be a problem, but does anyone know where I can get the sound effect of a shell being spent and hitting the dirt and, for that matter, the sound of a bullet hitting/going through a beer can?

Thanks.
 
I will start by being a pain in the A, which is what I do. By "non gun", do you mean a non-firing replica, a toy (airsoft or the like), or a Non Gun? I ask because I am interested in what you are actually using, and a "Non Gun" is a patented system available only through ISS Props. I assume you mean some sort of replica or toy.

That said, a live round would both blow a decent sized hole in the can and knock it back a bit. If you had the can fly back a couple feet it would be acurate enough. Of course in real life all sorts of results can and will happen such as the can staying put while a hole is blown in it, but I think much more often than not it would fly back.

As for the method, pulling a fishing line would work as well as shooting it with a solid paintball load or even frozen paint ball. Without the mass of a live wound or paintball round, a BB would simply blow right through it (or into it) and leave it unmoved.

-GageFX
 
GageFX,

I meant a Non Gun from ISS. I'm waiting to hear back from them on what the actual rates are. If it turns out to be cost prohibitive, we'll have to go a different route.

Would the can spark to some degree as the bullet goes through it & it flies back?

I have a friend who is a paintball dealer so that option sounds very compelling, but I'm mostly trying to avoid a much post FX as I possibly can. That **** drives me crazy & it's a character piece which just happens to have a "gun" in it. Why a frozen paintball?

Thanks for your help!
 
possiblities...

possiblities...

empty them before hand..

And I don't mean consume immediatly prior
If you have ever seen what happens to the back of a soda can or any compressed beverage when a bullet hits it.
not pretty

In real life, the cans don't bounce as much as you would expect. But overstated would be better than not.

I don't think a bb-gun would do the trick, usually they go through, I suppose it depends on the muzzle velocity of the air rifle.

Fishing line, will look like fishing line
you may want to try compressed air?

Use some tubing, some co2 underneath or aimed through nozzles and a release valve?

[] (co2 tank),
0 (valve)
| (tubing)
{ (splitters) --- (additional tubes) > (nozzle)


Use bottles instead, and make them with sugar glass that may work.

Frozen paintball, or jawbreaker like candy, should work you're biggest worry would be its visability.

I'm not familiar with the non gun so ?

Post pics of whatever you end up using would be interesting to see the result. Good luck
 
If you do go the BB gun route, pick up some wadcutters at Wal-Mart. It'll cost you 2 bucks for a couple hundred. They are flat-tipped pellets, and if you fire them from a slow enough gun (Red Rider with about 3 pumps) it'll knock the cans back pretty good.

If it were me, I'd put some Black Cats inside the cans and detonate remotely. Use model rocket igniters. I'd even score the back side of the cans and gum the firecrackers right up against the scored lines. That way the back of the can will blow out right as the can pops into the air.

And Mom thought I wasted my childhood...

edit:
But I agree, bottles are so much cooler. It's also probably a much harder effect to replicate, and I'm sure the insurance would be even less pleased. But if you could pull it off, nothing beats watching the bottom of the bottle shatter and the broken neck fall straight down into the busted bottom of the bottle.
 
Having shot many cans with a BB gun I can safely say that the can moves more often than not over a wide range of velocities. A slow moving high mass projectile like a pellet works best. I'll guess your insurance might not care for a BB gun on set though. Also, you have less control since you need someone who is an accurate marksman at the intended range. Movement of the can is dependent somewhat on where the can is hit, and you have to be a pretty good aim to hit a can, much less hit it at a particular spot. The firecrackers were a neat idea, but the timing might be difficult when a fuse is involved. Is there an electronically controlled explosive device that can be used for this sold by prop shops? I would place one under the front of each can causing it to flip up and back when fired. These can be manufactured out of black powder and nichrome wire, but again I think your insurance might not cover it and is probably best left to a fireworks technician. Great way to lose some fingers and an eye though.

The compressed air trick is probably the lowest risk, most controllable approach.
 
The firecracker idea is a bit of a pipe dream... but as long as I'm dreaming:

Theoretically, you should be able to pull the fuses out of the Black Cats and use a model rocket igniter to light them off. The model rocket igniter uses a battery and capacitor to send a charge through a flamable filament. If you rip out the firecracker's fuse and shove the model rocket igniter in the hole, it should give you remote detonation possibilities. Although I don't know how accurate the timing is on firing those things off.

Yeah, I'd stick with the pellet gun or the frozen paintballs. If it's a steady shot, you could even garbage-matte out the flying paintballs if they showed up in a frame or two.

The comressed air would require a lot more preparation, but it could have great results. Back in my making-zombie-movies-with-my-friends-over-the-weekend days (man, I'd love to go back to those times) we'd use a pesticide pump from Home Depot as a compressed air chamber. It's only, like, 10 bucks and can provied small bursts of air. I realize I'm making myself sound cheap, here, but those were some fun days, and I think we learned a lot of valuable lessons about what translates well on a screen--sometimes it isn't the super expensive stuff.

I really think you could get the proper effect with fishing line or non-reflective thread. Never underestimate the power of foley sounds.

P.S. Please, nobody blow off any digits using my hypothetical firecracker trick. I would feel terrible. And please obey the laws of your respective states and nations, blah blah blah.
 
Re the compressed air, how about this approach: For each can drill a hole to permit a tube for air. Insert the tube and make sure it's a tight fit so no air can pass through. Place can over the opening after putting a small amount of vaseline around the bottom edge of the can. Attach a compressed air source (canned air?) to tube. The vaseline should provide enough of a seal and adhesion to allow the air pressure to pop the can off as if it's been hit by a projectile.
 
Noon. My adivice is to "can" then Non Gun route. Did you watch the video on the website? No real guns look like that when fired. You want to stay away form post effects, but really, unless shooting heavy load blank guns, airsoft and post muzzle flashes is the way to go.

Also, a friend of mine is a bigwig over at ISS and I've spent plenty of time in there playing around with stuff. While I haven't fired the Non Guns, I have held them and I am less than impressed. Check out the video and reallly, guns dont spark like that when fired. http://issprops.com/Weapons/testfire.htm

I was watching The Killer again the other night and aparantly Woo is a fan of the Non Gun. All of the guns in Killer spark instead of flame.

Sparking: not the way to go. And I'm absolutely sure it will cost you a hell of a lot more. Consider the fact alone that you will be spending $55 for every 10 shots, and that doesnt even include gun rental. Just flash charges.

(And I think fishing line would work just fine. I cant even imagine why people would think it wouldn't. And as for the frozen paintballs - it's so they wont explode and splatter when hitting the can.)

-GageFX
 
Thanks so much everybody for your suggestions! I'm too technically incompetant to execute most of them, but I really appreciate all your suggestions. I just discovered this site the other day and have learned so much from obsessively reading through the threads. This is a great community.

The character shooting the cans pounds the beers down one at time before placing them out to be shot so no worries about a full carbonated can explosion.

What if we framed it so we had someone out of frame but parallel to the shooter using the paintball gun? Would the angle differences be too obvious? My only qualm with this, should it look accurate enough to reality, is that I have no idea who we'd have shoot the paintball gun as the only sharp shooter I know and trust to have 100% accuracy is playing the guy shooting the cans...

Wow, yeah, I don't know anything about compressed air except that some kids I went to high school with would snort empty Reddi Whip cans...and uhm I think I'm gonna shy away from the explosives and stick to the fishing line. The shooting of the cans is sort of incidental to the scene, the focus is supposed to be on another character who is also there but telling a story and that story is the important part so if people are paying more attention to how we got the can to move than to the story the other character is telling then we've totally screwed up.

I realize that bottles (breakaways) would be more "cinematic" and probably easier to rig, but I feel like the character would be a can man. He's just the kind of guy who would have a tallboy for breakfast.

I did watch the non-gun vs. blank footage on the site. I agree that they don't compare, but because our focus in the scene is primarily elsewhere and because we're wide I think it'd be "good enough". However, those guys failed to return my voicemail and the two emails I sent to different individuals. Perhaps, it has to do with the holidays, but I've heard back from a lot of other businesses during the same timeframe. Because of ISS' lack of communication (all I asked for was a price quote) we were rendered unable to move forward with insurance stuff. Anyway, somewhat spurred by their silence, we've decided to go in a different direction.

Again, if anyone has suggestions about where to get audio files for both bullets being discharged and hitting the ground and/or something that might approximate the sound of a can getting shot, I'm all ears.

My only other question comes from abject laziness as I've not attempted this yet, but anybody know how much work it is to sandpaper off the paint on beer cans? What kind of sandpaper I should get? We have no can close-ups, but I don't want to risk running into legal garbage down the road and I have big doubts about the beer can fake labels that I've seen for sale. I figure if we sand off at least half of the brand name or otherwise render it illegible we're in the clear. Thoughts?

Thanks again.
 
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Beer can labels.... go Tarantino style, make your own brand and print an inkjet label and slap that on. (Just a side note - ISS did the labels and printing for Kill Bill.)

Interesting about ISS. I'll give my friend a call - I've been meaning to talk to him and see how busy they are over there. Keep in mind that this shop is handling every BIG movie being filmed right now - so I am absolutely sure it's not a holiday thing. Maybe ON Christmas day there is no one there, but they're there the rest of the time. While I have been in the armory and chatted with the weapons guys, I have no insight as to why they wouldn't return the call. When I first found out my friend worked there, I was calling about getting a gun made (suppressed Walther seen in other threads) and it turned out the guy I was calling - in charge of prop design and contruction - was a friend. lol. Had no idea. Anyway, while they're working on Pirates 3, Transformers, 24, and so many I cant even remember them all, they treated me and my sh*tty little gun like I was just like everyone else. I recomend a different route than the Non-Gun, but if you want it I'll get a name and number for you to call.

Despite the focus of the scene, I think the gunfire should look as real as possible. (No sparking.) And I think they can flying should be an closeup insert of the can flying back, character not in the shot. So yank that fishing line or even have yor crack-shot actor shoot it with something, but I think in editing you might decide to insert.

Just thoughts. BTW, how does your storyboard look for the scene?

-GageFX
 
Yeah just do an inket print, make your own labels in ps or something. Or you can change letters using a marker..
If you're worried about paint giving away the brand, you could always put it near a camp fire for a bit, (not directly in) usually it will burn the paint right off and leave you with a perfectly fine can.

If you want to go the fishing line route maybe drill a hole in the bottom tie the line to a toothpick and insert and then straighten. You could then have people offscreen yank it in various directions.
 
Hi

I was a SPFX best boy for many years and I would highly recomend the bb gun option as your best. Also add some mono filament (fishing line and yank it as it gets hit) Its and effect so make it look impressive with a good yank. Someone said you will see the fishing line, he is wrong. If your camera man has even a little skill you will not see it. Worst case the sun may glint off the mono so have a flat black spray paint can to give it a quick spray if that is the case.
 
Couple thoughts:

Inkjet print heroes often look fake; see if there's a printer in your town using the "Indigo" digital press; they can do one-offs on glossy crack & peel sticker stock.

I'd say look for a generic/regional beer can and just have the sides or back showing though...

If you'd rather just shoot the cans with an off-camera BB gun, why not fasten the BB gun to an off-camera tripod/head, and dial it in? If it's not too windy or too distant, you should be able to get repeatable shots.
 
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