Blanks in Use
 

I saw this a few weeks ago at the beginning of the pilot episode of ABC's "Betrayal."

Here you can see the crimped blank:
http://imageshack.us/a/img594/6124/kpyc.jpg

Here you can see the "Gabilondo y Cia." rollmarks and external extractor indicate this is a Llama. I assume this was done due to greater 9mm blank availability.
http://imageshack.us/a/img593/5950/8p1a.jpg

Blanks vs Digital Effects
 

An award winning cinematographer told me there is a real problem with filming firing guns, whether blanks are used or not. The problem lies in the timing of the camera's gate and viewfinder. A lengthy boring explanation follows.

Lengthy Explanation:
Film cameras alternately expose the film and then the view finder.

When the viewfinder is displaying the image the film is not being exposed.
When the viewfinder is not displaying the image the film is being exposed.

That means that when the cinematographer sees the flash, the film didn't.
That means that when the cinematographer doesn't see the flash, the film did.

Subsequently it cannot be assured that the muzzle flash made it onto the film without lengthy and tedious retakes of the shot. It's far easier to impose an after-affect of both sound and flash to sync the flash and get a blast that doesn't saturate the recording equipment.

If you watch black and white film, the flash is not always recorded even though the gun recoils. I've seen that occur in Combat (TV Series) many times.

True for colour or monochrome.

Well, I don't know what award winning person you spoke with, but blank firing weapons have been the industry standard in film since it's inception for a reason. It's the most cost effective, and visually effective way to recreate real gunfire. It does not require lengthy and tedious retakes, also, blanks don't always read as very loud during production sound. This "saturation" thing has never been a problem that I have seen. Some times blanks sound really odd in fact. They are always dubbed over.

The muzzle flash isn't that difficult to capture on film. Sure, sometimes it doesn't get captured because it's in between frames or some such. Sometimes there isn't much of a flash. Some times the flash is very transparent and weak looking.

Using a digital muzzle flash is not easier. It's a different set of challenges depending on the actor and the lighting, etc. Also, the post houses charge for that stuff. They don't let you have those digital flashes for free ya know. If they can get it in camera, they do.

Hell, I've done some basic digital muzzle flashes and found it to be incredibly time consuming.

And this was without adding fake shells or interactive lighting.

It can't be that expensive to do digital flashes. The Raid only cost an estimated $1.1 million. To put that in perspective, that's about how much as a Super Bowl commercial, not counting the cost of buying the ad time. Interactive lighting doesn't seem that hard. In The Raid they just used a flashing light.

To put things in perspective. Look at the following vids and how well done the muzzle flash and even CGI casings flying out look and these guys did it with little to no budget.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn_w...=ELYVOkuUEEvNQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV-g...EEvNQ&index=34
This one, they asked a bunch of Airsoft players to come out with their gear, so the props were provided.

Blanks vs Digital Effects
 

Denson Baker ...

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1095066/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1