The DIY Movie Prop Shop Episode Two: Creating Prop Weapons

[@ZiddersRooFurry]

The guns and effects looked fantastic. Really stellar production quality for a non-Hollywood indie film series. Back in the 90s I helped a friend make an indie film where at one point a troop of rogue Army G.I.'s takes someone hostage. For the film, we used a bunch of 80s-era Larami water guns. Back then Larami made some rather realistic-looking versions of weapons like the Uzi, M-16, and a gun that sort of looked like an early SAW. They also used a gun that looked like the gun Kurt Russell uses in Big Trouble In Little China. We did pretty much the same thing you did here. Dremeled off the logos, and tossed them around to scratch them up, only when we got to painting them we sprayed them with a gun-metal grey and then black. That way we could scrape off bits and make them look like the base metal was being exposed. I think we had some little powered minigun water guns we also used. They looked a little ridiculous to me as they were way too small but when the invasion bit of the film was done and edited most of the weapons looked pretty real. We didn't have the ability to fire blanks and there was no CGI available to us so it was mostly them holding the things up and waving them around in a few quick scenes. We did have one real gun. A snub-nosed .357 we'd managed to get blanks for. The director was a bit of an idiot and shot it off right next to the producer's ear causing him to go deaf in that ear for a week. It was a pretty wild production and I'm kind of glad the original film has been lost to history as looking back it was a pretty terrible script.

[@EuanLee]

Very interesting! Looking forward to more

[@pixel325]

I'm on episode 5 right now and so far so good, its a really good series and well done in many aspects. And i've got to admit that sometimes i forget i look at a low budget production and just enjoy the story, well done! And thanks for sharing the behind the scenes stuff and hope to see a bit more in-depth as well.

[@MapleFilms]

Thank you, hope you enjoy the last few chapters! And yes, there will be more behind the scenes stuff to come 😀

[@pixel325]

@@MapleFilms I'm sure i'll appreciate the coming chapters as much as the ones i've seen so far and great to hear there's more BTS coming its really fun to see + as a fellow moviemaker i love watching how others have done things and learn something new :)

[@ZiddersRooFurry]

@@MapleFilms It's very story and character-based yet when it needs that special effects oomph it's tastefully done. You can tell it's not big budget yet it doesn't look fake in a way that pulls you out of it. I'd compare it to Blade Runner and I sincerely mean that. They had to deal with not having a huge budget and with reusing a lot of old sets and trash, basically. Sometimes you get really lucky and the lack of a budget forces you to be really creative and it works. You guys all seriously deserve a Saturn award for this at least.

[@demetriushenderson412]

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