Films have many amazing effects these days, but there are two (as of today) that are causing me concern.
The first one is people falling down the stairs. Now I’m lucky enough to have never actually fallen down the stairs myself, I don’t know anyone that has and I’ve never even been told first hand of someone that has. So my problem is: how dangerous is falling down the stairs???
The movie portrayal of it can vary wildly from being a bit of a cheap laugh to instant death. This bothers me, and has done for some time, but has never stuck me as being enough to warrent a post all of its own. Which of course brings me to…
The second, this is nose bleeds. Not the protrayal in this case, but the exection. How do they actually do it! There stands actor/actress (obviously they can be sitting or lying too), and then, a small trickle of ‘blood’ comes out of their nose. I can quite easily imagine that in some cases this effect is acheived by doing a close-up of a fake nose and then everything becomes easy. The thing that bothers me is when it’s not a close-up, I really can’t imagine that the actor/actress has tubing going up their nose. Do they just get some fake blood up their nose somehow and then quickly yell ‘action’ before it starts to dribble out again? Do the method actors go to the extreme of getting high blood pressure and taking up heroine to weaken the inner walls of their nose sufficiently so that they can have a nose blood ‘on cue’?
No, the problem is flummoxing me to the extreme and the more I think about it, the more I want to delve into the problem.
If you know how these are done, please sate my curiousity before I get angsty.
randomtask 
Bloodnoses, cmon Rob!
http://www.foxhome.com/trustno1/low/behind/b7main.html
Either is a teeny tiny prosthetic pipe, makeupped away, or it’s a small bloodbag which would be burst just prior to “action”, hell, you could even stuff a small dissolving capsule up there for that slow-release look…
As for the stairs, you’re quite right. Instant death and cheap laugh. It’s all a bit much. Suppose it depends very much on how you fall.
If you want to do some testing, try this:
http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/abandonware/pc/simulations/games_p_r/porrasturvat_a_k_a_stair_dismount_.html
Dissolving capsule you say….
Interesting!
And the 3D stair game… fantastic, I’ve wanted a copy of that for years!!
Mind you putting a ‘blood’ bag up your nose sounds pretty damn uncomfortable, but then I suppose that why these heroic actors get paid millions of dollars. It’s because they have to put up with these minor discomforts.
Refering to the link above to “free-game-downloads”…
You go there, read about the game looking all fun in a “if you’ve got nothing better to do” kinda way, click to download and you get…
“We’re sorry… …we had to introduce paid subscription to our service”
..come up on the next screen!
This must be the new kind of “free” I’m not so familiar with!
Oh, I’ve fallen down stairs a few times when I was a kid.
Common-sense SHOULD have stated that having contests with your sisters to see who can run up and down the stairs the fastest = a bad idea.
For the record, it hurt, but never broke any bones, just had painful bruises and grazes to contend with.
But as to how serious it could be would depend on how you fall. You know how WWE guys are responsible for controlling the landings of their opponent (or if the fight necessitates, themselves) to make sure it doesn’t do any serious damage? Just like stuntmen know how to fall / land to attain minimum injury.
But to the untrained, it’s down to how your insticts react to the situation, or just plain fate.
An untrained Joe Public falling down an escalator going up is likely to be in a whole world of more pain in comparison to a stuntman rolling down a softly-carpeted wide staircase.
Ooooh, just had an idea… how much fun would it be to go into someplace like Debenhams, grab a slinky from the toy section, and let it go down an “up” escalator? Wouldn’t it be perfect if the spacings and timings were spot on?!
Another google, not so much humour, but somehow inspirational?
“Random Task. Robs Randomness exposed … that perhaps someone else will make use or take inspiration from these thoughts.”