Smoke movement

[skeleton_keys]

I know there have been plenty of posts and websites that give instructions on making smoke "bombs". I'm trying to construct something different, a sort of smoke shooter, if you will, for use in a film I'm helping to create. We're trying to give the appearance of really thick black smoke literally blasting out from around a person's body, enveloping him in a cloud (as if he had supernatural powers, you know the drill). Since we are on a low budget, I thought I'd try to glean some advice from the experts out here on a cheaper way to do this than spend $3000 on a smoke machine. I've searched your forums exhaustively, but the most I seemed to find was just for people wanting to make bombs. Any ideas on how to conceal hoses or something underneath a costume, and then expel black smoke (that won't eat the lungs of my actor, it's got to be safe) from them at high speed? Any thoughts at all are appreciated, or if there was a post about something similar to this that I missed, please feel free to point me to it. Thanks!

[kingspaz]

errrr, no smoke is safe! i believe somebody has invented a smoke mix containing napthalene which produces thick black smoke.
the mixture you choose, for ease of ejection from the hose, should contain slightly more oxidiser than the standard mixture to allow burning to be maintained inside a sealed container, smoke would then be ejected from the hose leading from the container as it is the only route of exit for the smoke. just an idea.

[Arkangel]

Whatever smoke you use, as Kingspaz says, if your actor breathes any of it in, they'll be unhappy about it, so should hold their breath if the scene permits.

Irrespective, you need some kind of harness, like the tubes they use for heating space suits. That would be fed from a central manifold, which you would feed from a tube leading out of shot. I'm not sure what you could use as a pigment for black smoke, (burn a few tyres I guess), but to make it billow powerfully, I'd get one of those cylinder vacuum cleaners that you can use to blow as well. Get an input pipe that you can stick into the smoke source - actually tyres on fire would be an idea if you are one a TIGHT budget, and your actor doesn't breath in.

(Don't forget to tell us how you do it, and the name of the film if it's something we might see around)

[Jack Ruby]

Parts By Weight;
6- Parts KClO3
2- Parts Sucrose
2- Parts Charcoal dust
2- Parts Naphthalene

This formula Has to be ground to dust and then sifted through the finest sieve
that you can find. Grind the KClO3 Seperate From The Fuel. Then Sift it on to a
sheet of paper(KClO3 and the rest). Gather up the Corners pour the mix in to a
Jar. Then Shake it(To mix it Throughly). Optional; you can then sift it a
gain. This will produce Black Smoke.

Load this into a mortar(press it lightly). Make sure you leave the end fairly un restricted(put a piece of Metal Screen over top of it). Use a cardboard tube for the mortar and make sure it is ignited at the top. It burn like Pyredex.

[vulture]

Look, all smoke bombs produce harmful smoke, especially the ones that contain nitrates or sulfur.
Nitrate mixes evolve NOx gases which are poisonous. Now the smoke mix that jack pointed out here doesn't contain neither of these, but it does contain partially oxidized polycyclic aromatics and CO.
Now this is a little harmful but not really toxic, so as long as you keep your actor from inhaling it :rolleyes: he should be fine.

[RTC]

NO smoke machine will cost you $3,000, I brought one and it cost £70, which according to xe.com is $100.5 dollers.

Not too expensive..

Smoke machine fuel is worked by heating it, you could try buying some and heating it up or something.

[mrloud]

Can't you hire a smoke machine? It costs about $40 Australian to hire one of these for the day.

<a href="http://www.highend.com/products/F-100/F100.html" target="_blank">http://www.highend.com/products/F-100/F100.html</a>

That includes enough fog fluid to do what you need a thousand or more times. It is an excellent machine that puts out an awesome amount of fog real quick. But if you can't afford it there are smaller machines that wont cost as much. The only compromise with a fog machine is that the fog wont be black.

<small>[ April 04, 2002, 05:37 AM: Message edited by: mrloud ]</small>

[RTC]

I don't know about that one, but the one I have you can get differant colours for it, as well as flavorings! Bannana blue smoke anyone?

[mrloud]

I know different fog fluids tend to have different smells to them. Some of them are fuity some smell like some sort of flower. I have never heard of a smoke machine that could produce different coloured smoke. As far as I know, pyrotechnics are the only way to do this. Are you sure this machine you are thinking of doesn't actually burn something? Can you find some info on it on the internet? I'd be interested to know how it worked.