Smoke / Flares

lxjordanxl

lxjordanxl

Active member
I'm shooting a spec commercial pretty soon and I'm going to be shooting it in an open field somewhere. It's a quick 30 second voice over piece with a beautiful model in a long black dress walking around in a long black dress. An idea I had was to put a fog machine in the middle of the field, pump a ton of smoke, and for the opening shot to have her walk through it in epic slow motion fashion. My biggest concern is that the smoke wont be thick enough and I already purchased a fog machine (cheap $70 as well as a generator so I can power it). Because it will most likely be windy, I will need the thickest smoke possible and I don't know if a fog machine can create that. Do you guys have any suggestions...maybe flares?

Thank you!
 
Flares are sort of toxic, but you're just looking for one large plume of smoke, right? You could just find a very large container...maybe a large contractor garbage bag, or heck maybe a big trash can. Pump a large amount of fog into that with your fogger, then right before you shoot you let the smoke out and have her walk through it. If it's a relatively calm day, this could work just fine.

A large amount of wind could easily make it blow away in seconds, but hey, worth a shot.
 
Fake fog on a windy day? Forget it - unless you can think of a cunning way to relocate the shoot indoors.
 
I was on a music video shoot last year and was asked to bring a courtesy to set for the steadicam operator. It was a sunny day, naturally I figured he wanted a 4x floppy to give him some shade. Got there and the steadicam op told me he just needed a single or double net to block the wind. I can't say how effective bobinette is at blocking wind but if you have access to something like a 12x double, it might be worth testing out. Anyone else know if this works?
 
Nets should work if there are large and dont effect the shooting area.
If you see tennis clubs the nets they put up on fences help a lot with the wind. not sure if that is the main purpose of them, but having nets up do reduse a lot of wind.
Downside is you need a very very large net for it.
 
Are you looking for a ground fog, smoke or haze. If ground fog your little cheap fog machine won't cut it out in the open, and would probably generate more of a smoke or haze effect than than a low lying fog, and if there is any kind of wind it would quickly dissipate. I'm not sure how large a generator you have, but you might try renting some dry ice fog machines. They are pretty much a 55 gallon drum with a 15 or 20 amp water heater, pump and fan. Fill the barrel with water, heat the water up and fill an internal basket with dry ice. When you pump the hot water over the ice it generates a low lying CO2 fog, which can be directed where you need it via dryer hose. You can contain the fog somewhat with a low barricade arounf the area you want the fog in.
 
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