Stab & Blood Effect
Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Props, Scenery, Costumes and Makeup
Forum Discription: For how-to's and where-can-I-find
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4252
Printed Date: 5/06/24 at 6:34am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 8.05 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Stab & Blood Effect
Posted By: colugino
Subject: Stab & Blood Effect
Date Posted: 9/18/09 at 2:14am
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My theatre company is doing Aida in 2010. In one of the scenes a soldier gets stabbed and we wanted to do a realistic blood effect that when he is stabbed it he will start bleeding. Does anyone have any ideas? We're most likely using a knife with a retractable blade if we can find one that looks right for the time period (or some kind of staff). |
Replies:
Posted By: TonyDi
Date Posted: 9/21/09 at 7:00am
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Without going into the reasons why, you can rig a blood gag using - of all things (and standard in use in the SPFX craft) - non-lubricated condoms. That's the standard blood bag used filled as full as needed, and then when ruptured with a fake retractable blade knife (either real metal or plastic - there are some good ones) then the bag ruptures and you get bleed through onto the costume showing the blood. You realloy should experiment with how much blood to use to create the amount of bleed through you want. And if you're smart you'll back the blood gag at the point of wound entry, with a piece of thick leather or even thin metal so any metal or plastic bladed retractable knife won't pierce your actor as well as the blood gag. With the plastic knives you can glue a small PIN (straight pin) to the point of the blade to pierce the condom just enough perhaps 1/4" or less to start the flow.
Anyway that's the norm for blood gags in the industry still. Varies though as you CAN use similar thin plastic from Baggies or such but condoms are relatively easy to puncture. You can even have the actor hold a small straight pin and even if the fake knife won't pierce the actor can grab the wound and puncture the blood gag himself and the blood will seep out. Many ways to accomplish, just depends the staging, the circumstances, the layout, etc. NO ONE way to do it. Just have to be creative and test as much as possible to find solid solutions.
TonyDi
------------- "Almost famous" |
Posted By: colugino
Date Posted: 9/21/09 at 7:48am
| Thanks TonyDi! We were thinking something like that on the old tech end but wasn't sure if there were more high tech ways to do it. No problems using old school methods that work though :-) We're going to have to look into using baggies or something as we're working mostly with teenagers & doing the show at a church so condoms may not go over well if that gets out. Thanks for the advice!! We'll let ya know how it works! |
Posted By: TonyDi
Date Posted: 9/21/09 at 12:11pm
Uh, YIKES!!! Yeah condoms are still being used widely today in the industry. That's an old school idea that hasn't been improved upon necessarily. Perhaps you CAN get some and cut them into squares or something and glue them together with more latex - like liquid latex so they wouldn't leak and wouldn't look like condoms. Prep them ahead of time. You would have to prep them by removing any powder that might be there and even wash the edges with acetone to remove anything that would prevent them from sticking together. THAT STILL might be a problem though. Hard to stick latex to latex that's been powdered. That material stretches very well and doesn't require a large piece to deal with. You can fill with an empty syringe of some kind - even a kitchen baster with the rubber bulb on the end would work. But yes I see the issue there. Of course everyone that does blood letting gags has their own way of doing things but even the highest budget films still use the blood filled condoms for their hits. Not much new to use unless it's pumped in from off camera - though with live performances it's impossible to do it that way.
Good luck.
TonyDi
------------- "Almost famous" |
Posted By: colugino
Date Posted: 9/21/09 at 12:20pm
The next fun question... know any good sites that sell daggers or short swords with retractable blades?  I have been tearing the Internet apart and have not been able to find anything except for the really cheap plastic switchblades. If anyone knows a good place to look I would appreciate!!
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Posted By: TonyDi
Date Posted: 9/22/09 at 6:47am
You MAY be able to RENT some but I'll tell you they'll be pretty expensive. REAL metal bladed retractable swords and knives - extremely real looking because they are - don't come cheap. I used to have a couple of links but I'll have to dig to see if I can find them again. You can search for something like realy Hollywood retractable swords and knives and there are several places I think that should come up. Those are the links I've got someplace. Let me look and if I can find them I'll edit this post. But they're great pieces. Some might even be for sale but as I said - EXPENSIVE most likely because they're highly machined pieces that have been created. I'll look for the links.
TonyDi
------------- "Almost famous" |