there are three ways that give the best results that i know of.

1. Squibs
2. CG
3. Spark Gun

If you dont have the time or ability to do squibs or CG then find a spark gun and shoot it at the wall.

How close are the actors to the wall? Most gun ranges sell little things you attach to the target that will spark when hit. If nobody is near you could put those on the wall, cover them up, then fire pellets from a pellet gun (NOT BULLETS) at the little things and probably get a decent effect at minimal cost.

Of course it requires one of your crew be a good shot, or that you have patience.

Or if you can pop holes in the wall you can rig them from behind and do away with the pellet gun.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

The actors are going to be within several inches(roughly 10) of each shot. In the scene, the character is dodging bullets while firing back. Each bullet hits the wall just barely missing him. I tried the CG route but it only gives me a flash or a spark at the impact site. If at all possible, I'd rather have a puff of smoke or dust. Any ideas on how to make some sort of squib for that?

"Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try." - Yoda

Make a greenscreen. Poke a small hole in the screen. Fill a straw with flour and slip it through the hole. Have someone blow the flour out in a small puff. Repeat until it looks right. Then repeat so it is different for each hit. Add a bit of wind if you want a direction to your smoke. Use kromakey to dump the green and plop the smoke footage over your bullet hits.

Either that or do it the reverse. Shoot the actor in front of the wall acting as if the wall is being shot, then remove the actor and abuse the wall. Then use a mask to put the actor in front of the bullet ridden wall. If you have your camera on a tripod and don't move it it should be easy enough.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

I wish I could use a greenscreen but my software doesn't have a chroma key nor can I mask images. I'm very limited on what I can do digitally. Other than the muzzle flash, CG effects are out.

"Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try." - Yoda

spark gun is your best bet then, or you could try this ghetto option, this is something i did a while back, if timed out and practiced properly it yeilds pretty decent results: Take several large pieces of cardboard and create a fake wall with them, paint them, add texture, do whatever is nessecary to make it look like a real wall. But before you add in all the paint and stuff go ahead and poke holes in the places where you want the bullets to hit, then just cover it up with a light coat of paint. Next, on the back side of the wall, insert some debrie, this can really be anything, chunks of dirt or whatever, the more you pack in there, the better it will look (think of the matrix when the bullets are shredding the fake marble in the entrance to the building when they go to rescue morpheous.) A real good way to do this is to pack some debree in the front of the wall before you paint over it. Next, insert some firecrackers into the small holes. Now here's the hard part. You want to line them up so that they are spread out and not all packed together so that means you have to untie them all and rewire them. If the character is being shot at by a machine gun then this is easier. If the character is being shot at by just a semi then you might want to really spread them out cause they will go off pretty quick. Basically what you'll want to do is just have someone stand behind the wall and light the firecrackers. Now to pull this off you will have to really rehearse the movements of the character and the timing of the firecrackers. To get the best result, let the camera shake a bit, dont let it be so steady or it will not look that great, (just think of the war scenes in saving private ryan, or the fight scene at the end of green street hoolagins.) I've found the best way to do this is (if your using a digital camera) zoom in about 1/3 of the way, and then just slowly move the camera around with the action. The crappy digital zoom will do all the work for you and will actually look pretty good. I would suggest testing this first if you go this route. Try it on a small piece of cardboard first, then slowly work your way up to a larger one. The second part will be the sound effects. Thats what is going to make or break the scene. With the right sfx at the right time, it should all come together nicely.