Hello Fellow Theater Go-eys need some help for film

[Edrick]

Alright well as some of you know I'm originally from the Theater however I am now in Film School. Well I've recently become the Special Effects Coordinator for our 16mm project and need some help coming up with some ideas. I figure some of you guys could help me out with some ideas even though this isn't specifically theater the effects part can cross over. Anywho,

We have a old book that we need to "magically" open where the front cover will open up first then the pages start to flip.

INT. SHIP CAPTAIN CABAIN – GOLDEN HOUR

An old looking book lay on a desk. It opens and flips through the pages.

NARRATOR
A long time ago, when nothing made sense. Some things from the future, they lived in past tense. Two brothers, two lovers, a Princess and Queen; she split them apart, that ***** was plain mean. Our hero distraught and his brother complex; we’ll flesh out the plot, but you won’t comprehence.

The last page flipped is a picture of a Capitan standing in his cabin looking out to sea.

INT. SHIP CAPTAIN CABAIN – GOLDEN HOUR
R

Next we have a fish that is to fly in from off frame (off stage for you theater guys) and needs to hit the guy and then flop on the desk. The issue with this is creating a flopping fish.

DAN HUNTER
Curse the ocean and its barnacle covered clod.

A fish flies through a porthole and hits Dan in the side of the head. It flops around on the table and Dan stabs the fish with a sword and throws it back out the porthole.

DAN HUNTER
Confounded vermin. Hope you like Davey Jones locker.

Dan Hunter pulls a grenade from his satchel and tosses it into the water. The grenade explodes.

DAN HUNTER
Blasted fish.

Next we have a squirrel thats going to be eating at the dinner table with the pirates and we're thinking about using a live squirrel or if anyone has other ideas let me know.

INT. SHIP DINING ROOM – EVENING

A long stretching table surrounded by scalawags sits in a cramped space with a single chandelier hanging overhead.

Scalawags devour, slobber, and munch on everything within grasp. One bites the hand of another. Another feeds his pet squirrel.

Lastly the woman is being decapitated by a suit case not so much of a bloody decapitation as it is she gets hit on the head with it and her head pops off.



Anywho any help would be greatly appreciated!

[FatherMurphy]

Sounds like you need to befriend a good puppeteer - the fish bit might work as a rubber fish on the end of a thin rod, and the squirrel is definitely a puppet sort of approach (I doubt you have time to train a squirrel, or money to hire an animal handler, or to animate a CGI squirrel).

The book might be doable with fish line - run one line under the cover and each page, with a person holding either end of the line just off camera. Use the line to lift the page and pull it over, and continue on with the line until you're off camera. Might have to be several people working together to flip the pages in a timely fashion. An air gun or blower might also work for the pages, but the action might be wrong, since you're looking for a 'magical' opening. Thin metal L-rods might work instead of the fishline, but might be harder to disguise on camera (assuming no digital painting in post).

An alternate take on the book would be to hang it sideways on a wall, and have a mechanism to slowly release the pages and let gravity flip them 'open'.

The decapitation sounds like a mannequin approach, with the dummy made up and costumed like the actor. Do the shot once with the actor nearly getting hit, and then quick cut to the mannequin, posed the same as the actor. Cut it fast and close, and it might work. Or, watch the 1960's 'Lord of the Flies' for a cheap and dirty in-camera trick - when it came time to kill Piggy, they showed the actor's face, the rock that killed him/knocked him off the cliff entered the frame and blocked the camera's view, the actor dropped out of frame behind the rock, and the props guys chucked a Piggy dummy into the surf as the rock passed out of frame. Simple, cheap, and effective.