Create Rain!

[David Gascon]

Hello everyone.

 

I have a question for you. In fact, I need more an opinion or sharing some of your experience with me. I'm about to shoot a short film where its raining all day. We are dealing with a FX company to do most of the rain in post, but I still need a small amount of water on actors and on glass by example. Since we are a...small budget film, I want to know if some of you already create their own rig for splashing water. Im thinking to do a ''X'' structure, with hoses and metal wire that I can hang up over actor and structures. Don't know if someone have something else to propose, let me know!

 

David G. :huh:

[Guest fstop]

Funny you mention it- on my last shoot we had EXACTLY the same thing going on- we had poor man's process of a guy driving along in heavy rain with day for night long shots of the car, rain added in post.

 

We didn't have a rig actually, but instead did what Michael Powell did on Black Narcissus (albeit on the cheaper) we had one person on the ground firing a hose with one of those multi-hole things for the big globules and we also had someone on top of the building firing down, which we needed more for space than anything else and to fake the poor man's process- however, firing it into the sky and letting it fall worked just as effectively, and as I said, only two hoses were needed. Powell had pretty much the same and just fired in the air, so if it was good enough for Technicolor you can't fail! :D

 

Keep it SIMPLE!

[warzabidul]

Get a fireman's hose and stand a short distance from the action, point it skywards and you've got nice rainfall.

[John Sprung]

The most important thing, of course, is to always backlight the rain. That's what makes it show up. Get the ground wet, and you can get by with rain falling on your actors plus a bunch more right in front of the camera. Small drops and mist near the camera can look like a lot more water farther away, because there's no visual cue to their distance.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

You can actually get spray on water. (NOT for actors though, don't go spraying them down with the stuff)

 

I've only seen a rain shot once. They had a long pole with an opening at the top. At the top where the opening was there was a small piece of metal slanted at an angle. When the water came bursting through the top it would hit the slate of metal and spray everywhere.