For sets and locations, pyrotechnic squibs are not always possible or practical to use, due to time & budget constraints or where real buildings and/or locations make it impractical or impossible to deploy pyrotechnics.
Our extremely popular alternative to Pyrotechnic squibs, are one of Hollywood's best kept SFX secrets. Commonly referred to as a "Sweeney Gun" after it's inventor Matt Sweeney (the actual Sweeney Gun provides variable shooting rates, enabling matching of fire rates of various automatic weapons). The Gun we supply, is a based around a Milsig Mag-fed semi or full auto (constant rate of fire) marker, firing our in-house capsules "hit-balls". When fired against a hard surface, these "hit-balls" break on impact releasing dust for example, producing a very convincing wall hit, with little to no setup or reset times.
Offering a budget-friendly solutions for set or location "squib style" hits (cost per hit, is much lower than pyrotechnics), for when ultra quick setups and re-sets are required on location when requiring hit effects on buildings, cars, tanks, planes, oil-drums, windscreens, windows etc..
Single or rapid fire hits/ricochets can be achieved on any hard surface. With our 19 round magazine, we can fire up to 19 shots before changing mag.... more than sufficient for simulating hits from multiple guns or hits from an automatic weapon for example. We can also load capsules "hit-balls" with different fillings to provide a specific sequence of hits in a single take.
The secret to the success of the effect are our custom loaded capsules "hit-balls" (also known in the industry as Hollywood balls, spark balls, zirc balls & Sweeney Balls)
which we fill with various mixes of materials that have prepared by our props technicians to simulate realistic hits on many different surface materials
- Mortar - using greys or black powder hits
- Plaster - using white or grey powder hits
- Brick - using red or brown powder hits
- Metal surface - using the best sparking & hot sparking hits available
- Glass windscreen/windows - using our unique shattering gel hits
Powder Hits -
Typically used as hits on walls. These are filled with our own mix of coloured powders (typically, white, grey, black, red, brown) that best match the sort of dust fragments that would be produced when a real bullet hits different types of wall construction materials.
Sparking Hits -
Our Sparking hits are insanely impressive, providing sparks on impact.
Typically used when hits are required on metal objects such as cars, oil drums, dumpsters, skips, shipping containers etc.. We supply two different type, sparking and hot sparking, where the hot sparking is just a larger spark effect, better for simulating larger calibre bullet hits.
Glass Gel Hits -
These hits provide a super cost effective solution to give the impression of bullet hits on glass, windscreens etc.. Upon impact, the capsule shatters and further fragments of safe simulated small glass fragments can be seen blowing out from the impact. After impact, the window is left with a "splat" of opaque gel and a black mark, which when viewed as part of a fast moving action sequence, is sufficient to sell the idea of the glass being punctured & cracked by a bullet...
Give the glass a quick wipe with a rag and it's ready for a re-take...
NB The impact and sparks can potentially dent metal and scorch paintwork. Non-toughened glass may crack or break
IMPORTANT - NEVER use on people or animals
CONSIDERATIONS FOR USE: Careful blocking and camera position planning must be carried out to enable our marksman to have unobstructed line of site to the impact area, keeping cast and crew out of the firing-line of the impact area. Although these balls are certainly not lethal, I definitely wouldn't want to be hit by one either!
ONLY available with our Hit-gun Marksman technicians
This video shows Dust, Sparking and Glass hits as well as the RDZw AirFXsquib in use.
Courtesy of RogerGeorge USA
