Blanks vs Digital Effects
 

Why do so many TV shows and movies always have their cast holding real guns, yet the flash is digital the noise is green and there is no recoil? Isn't it easier and more realistic to fire blanks during a shoot out? Zero Dark thirty is the first movie or TV show that I've seen where the gun noises sounded REMOTELY real!

I think with real blank firing weapons on set, you'd need an armorers on set. With fake guns, you don't.

1) Usually when the cast is holding real guns they use blanks, either that or what is the point of having a real gun on set? If the gun is real, you still need a legal handler.

2) "The noise is green"??? What does that mean?

3)"...there is no recoil?" Well there is very little recoil when blanks are fired on live guns anyway. And absolutely no recoil at all when the actors are 'mime firing' airsoft replica guns. Usually actors trying to fake recoil with CGI gun flashed look bad.

4)re: Zero Dark thirty, the sound of a gun fight is NEVER recorded live and set to the film without massive audio mixing. Chances are you are listening to complex sound mixed recordings. Sound Editors always foley their gun battles. None of that sound is captured 'in camera'.

Hopes this helps.

Wasn't Heat recorded live, at least the famous shootout scene?

I heard digital gun noises called green noises somewhere. Can't remember where. Like when the suppressed guns shoot and sound like star wars laser guns? Real suppressed guns sound nothing like that.

Apparently, the old movie "Merrill's Marauders" recorded the actual blank gunfire.

Which is probably why the gunfire in that movie was really hard to hear and sound distant.

Suppressored firearms sound nothing like they are portrayed on film.

The best of use of a suppressor is so you don't blow out your own eardrums as you gun down the badguy.

I have not heard digital gun noises as 'green'.

However, I know all too well those 'bad sound effects library' all too well. For one, tons of British made or made in association with movies used the BBC sound libraries of guns and war sounds. But those sounds were done during WW2 and they just don't compare to modern recording technology.

Note in the 1970s film "A Bridge Too Far" and then compare the gun noises to the film "The Wild Geese". The uzis in one film sound the same as the Stens and MP40s in the other film.

And Japanese cinema for years had the WORSE gunshot sound effects ever, overlaying those horrible pinkish hue flashpaper guns for all those films.... LOL :)

So I heard just this week that the "ammo shortage" is having a serious impact on prop houses being able to get brass, and we can expect more digital muzzle flash over airsoft replicas in coming years.

Any truth to this?

There is a shortage of live ammo but I'm not so sure if that would mean blanks would go down.

I would claim that prop houses typically reload spent blanks anyway, but I don't know how long the cases last before failing.

I've never known anyone to reload crimped blank ammo. There might be some plastic blanks that could be reloaded, but I've never used them.

Live ammo is brass and powder. What I've heard is that black powder and brass casings are getting shorted.

I was just curious.

Well, some airsoft replicas have a nice blowback effect, add some CGI and bang, you have a cheap prop for low budget shows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1XCEiTBjr4

Or entire movies.

http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Raid:_Redemption,_The

Airsoft replicas with blowback and added digital effects do have a place even in shows that otherwise use blank firing. For example I noticed some instances in Banshee where blowback airsoft pistols are used where people are shot at close range (a time I remember this was in the final episode Siobhan uses a blank fire Glock apart from at one point where she shoots someone at close range who is in the same shot where it switches to an airsoft Beretta 92FS).

Realistic airsoft guns are a major boon on the industry. The most obvious advantage is for low or no-budget productions, where it's cheaper to just mime fire a gun or a gas blowback pistol than go through the process of purchasing a blank gun or converting a real gun, buying blank ammo, and (if you're smart) hiring an armorer. It also helps amateurs get started in film, as they're able to make good action shorts with realistic weapons.

For major feature films, there's other advantages. You've got everything I said before about how they're cheap and require no ammunition or armorer on set. They're also safe to use for close shots where blanks could injure or kill an actor, and they let you film in areas where you can't or didn't get a permit for the noise of blank firing.

You just need to be careful when filming with them. A lot of movies, even such high profile ones as The Hurt Locker, accidentally show airsoft logos that they forgot to paint over or only partially covered. Don't be sloppy with your work. Don't be slow, but also don't be sloppy. The devil's in the details.

Despite what you have claimed previously, this is still NOT the norm in big-budget films, and even most low-budget films. The preference is still, and will always be, to use real weapons firing blanks whenever possible. You cite "The Hurt Locker", for example. Even though that film uses Classic Army airsoft M4s for some non-firing scenes, the M4s that are actually fired are real weapons loaded with blanks.

Where have I ever claimed that airsoft weapons is the norm? I've made exactly one other post on this forum about airsoft guns, which was very similar in content to the post you quoted.

Speaking of digital noises, it was just awful how in the "Partners" episode of Nikita, the audio mixers added SHELL CASING noises when a REVOLVER was being used. That was just painful. p.a.i.n.f.u.l.

LOL! You're kidding

You mean like all the shows and films where they use a hammer cocking sound effect for a Glock being lifted?

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