using a fog machine in the woods.

[peter917]

For my new short that i am writing it involves scenes in a wooded area that is by my cousins, its basically a small forest. I want to achieve this sort of foggy forest look

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=fogg...w=201&start=0&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:69

what kind of light setup would i need, and would fog machines work? fogging the woods up a lot then letting it settle for 5minutes before shooting scenes?

 

[DeJager]

Some lights with blue gels and on a cold / dewy summer night would do the trick.

 

[2001 Productions]

You'll probably need a fog machine with some pretty good horsepower to achieve that scale, depending on the conditions.

But as long as you make sure to backlight the fog it should read.

 

[p38]

You can always set a small fire and make it smoking with green stuff... and a gas powered leaf blower would do the trick to spread it where you wanted... plus the gel on the lights would create the mood.

Anyone tried a smoke bomb... like an emergency smoke?
That would be OK and it works instantly, very thick smoke. Don't forge the gas-powered leaf blower!

 

[Lucky Hardwood]

Blocks of dry ice will produce a nice thick fog where you want, don't make any noise that you would have to work around, won't set a forest fire, and are easy to get from any ice house or specialty market. I use dry ice for my Halloween setup.

 

[GuerrillaAngel]

Slowly pour a quart of oil down the carb of a big-block v-8 engine while it's turning 2,000 RPM will do the trick.

 

[spinner]

You should get a smoke machine. I don't know when you intend to shoot your film, but a smoke machine around Halloween will only set you back about $30.


-- spinner

 

[Ernest Worthing]

But as long as you make sure to backlight the fog it should read.

Make sure you do this.

 

[Zensteve]

Those dinky $15 machines at Halloween aren't worth relying on. Aside from the very small fog output, they have a long heatup times between teeny output puffs and they burn out & stop working so fast it's unreal.

One of those sure as hell won't be able to fog up an open area as large as you pictured, if there's so much as a waft of wind.

You'd need something with a decent output. Rosco makes some great portable foggers, able to project a decent stream upwards as well. (You'll still need people with bounce-boards to help move & disperse the fog evenly).

Your task is also more complicated than that still image, too. Assuming you have no wind at all, you need to fill that entire area, get crew from out of the fov, allow for settling, have your actors on cue (if needed) and shoot the dang thing before everything wafts away or settles or disperses too much.

Oh, and that ain't a lone chinaball lightin' that set, either. You'll need access to a reasonable power source. Either your friend's house is just off-camera and you'll have outlets, or you'll need a generator. Those foggers jump up in amps as soon as they exit warm-up mode, and if you have lights sharing the same circuit they'll either dim really hard or blow the breaker.

It's a good challenge, for sure.