How to make a "pull-gag" bullet-hit!
This was one of the earliest styles
of bullet-hits ever developed. And, since it uses no explosives or flammables,
it's entirely safe (except for the super-glue, but more on that later).
For
purposes of brevity and explanation, I'll refer to the actor who is being "shot"
as the target (or I'll just call him the actor), and the effects technician(s)
who trigger the effect as the operators.
Materials you’ll need:
1.Blood-see below for different types.
2.Water balloons or condoms. For
this type of hit, water balloons seem to work better for me.
3.Assorted
small washers.
4.Fine but strong fishing line or black thread.
5.Fishing
pole or other long stick.
6.Dispenser to hold blood. Especially important if
you’re using water balloons, as you need something to fill those under pressure.
7.Masking tape. I don’t recommend duct tape as that’s much harder & more
painful to get out of hair.
8.Sharp X-Acto knife or scissors (be careful!)
9.Super Glue or other cyanoacrylate glue. Use the fastest setting available.
Remember to use caution with superglue as it will stick to anything, including
skin. Always seems to work especially good on skin!
First, the basics.
In preparation for the gag, or hit (I use both interchangeably), you need to
think about the wardrobe requirements. Wardrobe requirements you say? Yes.
Because of the method of use of this and squib style bullet hits, the shirt (or
pants) where the actor gets shot has to be cut to allow the "blood" to come out.
So, with that in mind, it's a good idea for the wardrobe department (or you) to
get at least a couple of articles of the exact-same clothing to use exclusively
for the effects work, with one set for the normal acting. Remember to account
for continuity, i.e. if there's a big dirt smudge across the left shoulder on
the acting set of clothes, there needs to be an indentical (or nearly-identical)
dirt smudge on the effects set of clothes.
On to the hit
1.Determine where on the actor you're going to have the hit, or hits.
Take your blood mixture and dispense it into either a water balloon or a condom.
You want to end up with something about three inches in diameter for maximum
effect. Tape this to the body location that the actor is being hit in. You'll
want to tape the edges and compress the whole affair. (ignore the washer &
string for now).
2.Take the article of clothing (I'll use a shirt as an
example as this is the most common place to get shot) and carefully put it on
the actor. Obviously, you want to use looser garments for this as you'll
otherwise have a pretty big bulge (Is that a baseball under your shirt or are
you just happy to see me?). Find out EXACTLY where the center of the bullet hit
lies under the garment and hold on to this spot. Remove the garment. Carefully
cut a small diagonal "X" in the cloth, about 1 1/2" to 2" in diameter. Feed one
end of your fishing line or thread through the center of this "X" and put to
very small pieces of masking tape over the inside corners of the "X". This is
meant to be just enough to keep the flaps closed, but not enough to restrict the
washer or blood later. Tie a small washer to the end of the line or thread.
3.Put the garment back on the actor. Put a drop or two of superglue on
the washer, and attach it to the center of the blood hit (see above
illustration). BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL NOT TO GET GLUE ON YOUR HANDS. If you get
glue on your fingers and then touch the hit, you'll trigger the effect when you
try to remove your finger. This is not the way to do it :)
4.Pull a
small amount of slack off of the spool, and have the actor hang onto that for
dear life. Then string the line out of range of the camera location and cut the
line. Attach this end to a fishing pole or other long stick. Have the actor
release their hold on the slack and slowly take up all of the slack so that your
fishing pole is pointing nearly directly at the actor. Roll tape, then on
action, yank the fishing pole back while the actor "get's shot". This takes the
washer with it, which takes a section of balloon or condom with IT, which
results in blood bursting out of the actor's chest.
5.When editing the
resulting footage, cut to the actor about to be shot just before the hit
happens. That way there's less time for the audience to notice any fishing line
or thread coming from there chest (or wherever). Since the washer gets yanking
aggressively, the audience shouldn't notice the washer exiting the screen. This
is why you want to be relatively tight on the actor while filming (or back a bit
but zoomed in, so you avoid any spurting blood).
6.If you use a smaller
washer, you'll get more of a spurting stream. If you use a bigger washer, or
several smaller washers, the blood will spread out some.
7.If you rig
several hits on the actor, then vary the length of the line leading from the hit
from shorter to longer and tie them off on the fishing pole at the same place,
you'll get a machine gun effect. This works pretty well providing you keep it
down to about 5 hits or so. Any more than that and you won't have enough room to
pull the fishing pole all the way to trigger each of the hits.
8.If you
use a condom and tape it vertically lengthwise, you can get an initial spurt
from the hit which will then bleed a little bit.