Ideas for practical effects to try out

[TNasty]

Hey all,
It's not quite stage work, but it's still entertainment, I suppose.
I'm working with a friend of mine on his promotional media startup, and even though he's amazing with Blender, we're trying to venture into the realm of practical effects, so I figured I'd ask you guys here for some ideas on cool ideas.

We've already tried out what we call the "tsunami"- basically where we fill a bin with water, dye it a tropical ocean blue, add some soap for foam, make waves with leaf blowers, and drop some matchbox cars in the water. We record it with our ZCam E1 and GoPro Session 5 at 120FPS (the GoPro does it at 720p, not sure what the ZCam does), and then slow it down in After Effects.
We also have some dioramas Chris and I made that are roughly HO scale that we can use, along with lots of cheaper model railroad props from when I was big into the stuff.

I'll give you guys a list of items we have worth mentioning...
-3x Leaf blowers
-1x Weed whacker
-1x GoPro Session 5 (submersible)
-1x ZCam E1 (same size body as a GoPro Hero, but with interchangeable lenses, and without the water resistance)
-1x Gas spring monitor arm we're making into a camera arm (pretty much nonrobotic robotic arm)
-Chris has his two fluorescent photography lights, and I have my four LED PAR cans
-1x Foldable nylon blue/green screen

We kinda know that we want to build up some awesome VRoll to put into our assets library, but we just need more ideas for effects.

 

[JohnD]

Hollywood water tanks sometimes used wedge shaped boxes on hydraulic rams plunged then removed in a rhythmic manner for waves. You could easily and cheaply fab a smallish wedge with a cut down cardboard box covered in pvc film (saran wrap). Have you tried dry ice for smoke on the water (a la Deep Purple). A gardening water can with the large head with lots of holes for rain?

EDIT: Shameless plug for a late friends book, see if your library has it or can get it via interlibrary loan.
Killer Camera Rigs

 

[TNasty]

Hollywood water tanks sometimes used wedge shaped boxes on hydraulic rams plunged then removed in a rhythmic manner for waves. You could easily and cheaply fab a smallish wedge with a cut down cardboard box covered in pvc film (saran wrap). Have you tried dry ice for smoke on the water (a la Deep Purple). A gardening water can with the large head with lots of holes for rain?

EDIT: Shameless plug for a late friends book, see if your library has it or can get it via interlibrary loan.
Killer Camera Rigs

Very interesting. We used a garden hose with one of those multimode nozzles set to mist for rain, and it looked pretty good at 1/4 speed. The dry ice sounds like a good idea for the next time we get the opportunity to try out fog... sounds better than the fog machine we have; no left over residue on everything.
Between the two of us, one of our school libraries has to have that book; if not, $35 for a paperback isn't too bad considering the content it seems to have.

We do have a "boom" of sorts we put together, even if it needs a "little" work to really be functional. I remember how badly that thing would torque with a camera on the end while sticking out the back of my van. We really just need 2nd iteration of metal running to the end, and that'll also remove the need to manually adjust the pitch of the camera.

Nice Deep Purple reference... hopefully we won't burn anything with a flare gun by accident...

 

[RonHebbard]

Hey all,
It's not quite stage work, but it's still entertainment, I suppose.
I'm working with a friend of mine on his promotional media startup, and even though he's amazing with Blender, we're trying to venture into the realm of practical effects, so I figured I'd ask you guys here for some ideas on cool ideas.

We've already tried out what we call the "tsunami"- basically where we fill a bin with water, dye it a tropical ocean blue, add some soap for foam, make waves with leaf blowers, and drop some matchbox cars in the water. We record it with our ZCam E1 and GoPro Session 5 at 120FPS (the GoPro does it at 720p, not sure what the ZCam does), and then slow it down in After Effects.
We also have some dioramas Chris and I made that are roughly HO scale that we can use, along with lots of cheaper model railroad props from when I was big into the stuff.

I'll give you guys a list of items we have worth mentioning...
-3x Leaf blowers
-1x Weed whacker
-1x GoPro Session 5 (submersible)
-1x ZCam E1 (same size body as a GoPro Hero, but with interchangeable lenses, and without the water resistance)
-1x Gas spring monitor arm we're making into a camera arm (pretty much nonrobotic robotic arm)
-Chris has his two fluorescent photography lights, and I have my four LED PAR cans
-1x Foldable nylon blue/green screen

We kinda know that we want to build up some awesome VRoll to put into our assets library, but we just need more ideas for effects.

@TNasty The classic Ruben's Tube physics demonstration illustrating the varying frequencies of waves along with standing waves and reflected waves visually reacting to your accompanying sound track has still got my vote for an interesting and educational attention grabber.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[TNasty]

@TNasty The classic Ruben's Tube physics demonstration illustrating the varying frequencies of waves along with standing waves and reflected waves visually reacting to your accompanying sound track has still got my vote for an interesting and educational attention grabber.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

Fire in slow motion... not a bad idea. Should look awesome.