oh you got to use the real thing when it comes to guns. Sure you can edit it in post, but there's no substitute for the real thing, (when it comes to guns.) Find a place where no one is around and remember to tell your actors to be careful. Later on when its all said and done and if someone asks... you just tell them you edited it in post. heck, you may even get some real blood in your scene too if your lucky... just kidding. Obviously the best thing is to play it safe. Remember your actors must not be harmed in anyway. It IS frustrating though to use a fake gun or alternative method when professional industries can use the real thing.

"There's no point in living if you can't feel alive"

ultimatly it depends on the scale of production, is it worth it in terms of money.
also, what is the approach to realism. a film like 'we were soldiers' makes a specific point about making it as real as possible, hence they used real guns .

but with somthing like 'iron man', a lot of the gun shots were done in post.
(if you look in deleted scenes, youll see an extended version of the convoy ambush at the begining and they havnt bothered with adding muzzle flashes etc.)

there are 4 aspects to making gunshots look real in post.

-the recoil (not actualy done in post, but its important the actors gives the gun some recoil)

-the muzzle flash, should be very transparent / fadded + its important to show the flash on nearby walls and trees.

-the smoke, each shot sends a jet of smoke out the barrel (and a little from where the shell casing comes from)

-the empty shell casing, find a spare shell casing somwhere, get a blue screen, and film it being flicked/thrown about the place acordng the the required angle.

1 more thing, i buy broken BB guns (dirt cheap, no one wants them), spray them black (matt).
now get some silver paint and a soft cloth, spread some paint on the cloth with a small paintbrush, now lightly rush the cloth over the gun and all the raised edges will turn silver, as if the paint has worn away to reveal the siver matal of the gun.

if you google image soldiers, youll see that all the weapons they are holding have paint worn away to reveal the silvery metal undernieth.

im sure some of you have plastic BB guns lying around somwhere, try this silvery effect, it looks SOOOOOO real.

hope that helps
christophe lafosse

I'm big on using actual guns--that's what we did on the feature 16 Heads and Counting: ?url? http://www.16heads.com?/url?

We used four different guns--usually unloaded as props, but when they're fired, we loaded them with primer rounds. The lack of recoil was an issue, but at the very least we often got a bit of a muzzle flash and gave everyone a loud sound to react to.

Safety, of course, is key. Remember that people on movie sets have been killed by blanks. We had an armorer on-set at all times whenever there were guns present, and were very safety-conscious whenever even a plastic gun was on-set. If the choice is between doing it unsafely or doing it in post, do it in post. But the best option is to accomplish as much as you can in-camera.

-----------------
Andrew Gingerich
Exploding Goldfish Films
Check out my blog at http://www.exgfilms.com
and my reel at http://portfolio.exgfilms.com

what was the budget of this film.

because i think the question isnt, 'real guns or fake guns', but rather 'at what point in the scale of production, should one upgrade from fake guns to real guns'.

if we are talking about your average youtube war film, then the use of real guns would blow the budget out of proportion to the rest, why go to all the trouble of real guns if the rest of the production values are not very high.
it would be like using antique chine at macdonalds.

if the production values are 'high', then the use of real weapons would probably be good, because if you did not, the film could be spoiled by noticeably fake weapons.

so where is this point at which the scale of production is big enough that one should use real weapons.
this is where each film maker is to his own, but it would be nice to hear everyones personal opinions

Our production budget was roughly two thousand dollars for a 100-minute feature, but we didn't spend any money on our guns--our armorer (who also owned the firearms) was a relative of our production manager, and offered his guns and services to us for free.

These were mostly small-caliber handguns, and so obtaining them wasn't a problem. I can see how a war film, where you need very specific weapons or a bunch of guns that all match, could be a difficult proposition. In a situation where you just need a generic handgun, though, it can often be a lot simpler to secure the use of one than you might think.

Ultimately, I made a decision as director that the use of prop guns would be of major detriment to the quality of the finished film--I don't like plastic, no matter how expertly painted. It's not just a question of how it reads on camera and under different lighting conditions, but the performance it evokes. Actors behave a lot differently behind (or in front of) a real gun than they do a fake one.

I know a guy who shot a short film with a lot of live-firing of automatic weapons. Although I think that was a monumentally stupid decision for a production without a safety coordinator, I can absolutely see where he was coming from. We're all chasing the ultimate in realism.

Let's just make sure nobody gets killed.

You could also plan to shoot your firing gun in extreme close up, and just go to a local firing range to get the shot. A little creative matching of angle and lighting to the master shot, and viola! Just set the camera on a tripod, start rolling, step back behind the talent where it's safe, and have them fire a round or two past the camera... nothing could be simpler.

You could also go the creative route and find differant ways of creating the illusion of shooting someone using editing or creating a muzzly flash with a small light flash from a stroke light or whatever suites your shot best. I think way too many people try to add things like real firing guns and other expensive props just to make their films look more authentic and it really isn't necessary. A great example is when Ving Rhames shoots that woman in the leg in Pulp Fiction the only thing they use is good editing.

There is a book by Stu Maschwitz called the DV Rebels Guide. This is a great book that I read, it will show you a technique on using After Effects to add a muzzle flash to a gun, it even has templates on the DVD that will help make the process easier. The book also looks at practical ways of making special effects on the cheap and how you can do things. But Stu is a certified guru in After Effects but he does show you how to do these tricks in the application. I can't remember if he talks about recoil or about animating the gun. But if you want that flash and other techniques then this is a good option.

http://www.amazon.com/DV-Rebels-Guide-All-Digital-Approach/dp/0321413644/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247542593&sr=8-1

Michael Rogers
McRogson

I have that DV Rebel's Guide book. Some good points made in there. I've used real guns (shotguns, pistols), blank firing replicas from CollectorsArmoury and Airsoft guns. As someone said, it depends on the production. If you can afford it, be as authentic as possible. On no budget indie films (which this site is aimed at), who can afford an armourer, unless you know such a person? Pre-9/11 I found it was easy to go out into the desert and set off explosions and have gunfights. Nowadays, the blank pistols are realistic, but they are loud as hell.

If you are shooting in your neighborhood, blank gunfire isn't going to fly with the more sensitive neighbors! :>) I've found a pretty good combination of using Airsoft weapons and blending elements from programs like Vision Lab Studio, which has pre-animated pyro and gunfire, and combining that with FX footage from Detonation Films, NCCinema.ch or Action Movie Essentials 2 (in HD) from Videocopilot.net. Now, simulating small war and not waking up the neighbors is a reality!

In the USA, when you go to your city's Film Office and get that location permit (provided you have a million $ insurance bond and Worker's Comp insurance), it's not a big deal to get a location, until you mention "guns" or "pyro". Now, you'll be required to have the Fire and Police departments on hand. Getting cleared is not as easy.

BTW, Airsoft guns can look as real as you want them to:
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They range from cheap $20 dollar automatics to models costing over $1,000.

If you cannot afford a professional armorer/weapons guys, then do NOT go near blanks, live firing (!), etc.

As noted previously above, blanks CAN kill.

The aural cues can be fairly important- we are currently in pre with our second film, and are using realsitic toy guns, with those silly staticy inbuilt sounds. In post we will use these as cues and replace them with 'proper' sounds.

Simple, effective, and especially, Safe.

My 2 cents: A director allowing live fire (with Autos, ffs!) on a set is not a brave soul pushing the boundaries of film-making, attempting to get as real as possible- he's an idiot with zero concern for the safety of others.

Duel

I used real guns. No bullets, not blanks. That's all for post production. Just aim and recoil when you pull the trigger. While editing I can hear the hammer click and know when the shot would have gone off.

I took some friends, guns, and camera out to the desert to get some muzzle flashes and exploding fruit hoping I could use that for SFX. Set the camera up on a tripod near the targets, got the heck out of the way, and we had fun. Turns out most muzzle flashes are invisible at 24p anyway. At least with handguns.

RJSchwarz