Like any red-blooded, American, male indie filmmaker, I have fevered dreams of putting together a bad-ass action flick with a ton of martial arts and…most important…Guns.  However, like a lot of you, I have been completely baffled as to how to pull it off safely and on a budget.  Anyone who has done any sort of research in regards to obtaining prop guns for a film has come across the standard options.  Let’s take a quick look at those options:

Real guns loaded with Blank Rounds.  This is the choice for most big budget flicks.  What looks better than a real gun?  The problem for an indie or guerilla filmmaker is the added expense of hiring an armorer to manage the guns, as well as the high cost of both real guns and the blank ammo.  And let’s not forget the biggest problem with real guns firing blank load ammunition: safety!  With a semi-experienced crew, short shooting schedule and microscopic budget, safety can be a major issue when it comes to prop guns on an indie film shoot.  What does this mean?  Well, it means real guns with blank ammo isn’t an option for for most of us.

To tell the truth, I’m not sure I’d use real guns as props even if I had a budget to support it.  In this age of digital filmmaking, do we really need the safety hazzards and risk?  I’m way too paranoid.

Next up we’ve got Blank-firing guns (blank guns or starter guns).  These are a slightly safer alternative to using real guns with blank loads in that blank guns have plugged barrels and are not capable of firing a live round.  Real shells won’t fit in them and, even if you could get one in there the plugged barrel would stop it from firing.  Blank-firing guns are cool because you get the blowback action of a real gun as well as shell-ejection.  The downside to blank-firing guns is that their barrels are plugged and without some additional work you won’t get the spiffy little plume of fire out the front.  That’s right, the gas and flame erupts from a tiny hole in the top of the barrel instead. 

Now, if you live outside of the US and our rather strict laws pertaining to gun replicas, many of the blank-firing guns do not come with plugged barrel fronts, in which case you’re golden.  Unfortunately for me, I live in California where it is difficult to order even a US legal blank firing gun (technically, an individual isn’t allowed to order blank guns to a residential address here in California…so you have to do what I did and have them sent to friends in a neighboring state with less stringent laws).  If you’ve got a way to get a hold of Canadian or European blank guns then you’ll have an excellent option.

Finally, fake guns.  I’m going to go ahead and group everything else under this category – squirt guns, Airsoft replicas, spring-loaded guns.  In truth, for a low budget filmmaker, these prop guns all require additional work in post production to make them a viable option.  For pistols I wholeheartedly recomment gas blowback Airsoft guns, and the full metal ones in particular.  Airsoft guns tend to be highly accurate replicas with excellent weight for your actors to work with, realistic loading and the ever-important blowback action when fired. 

A lot of guerilla filmmakers will settle for light plastic toy guns (painted squirt or spring-loaded BB guns).  And, truth be told, squirt guns and spring-loaded guns work well for background guns, but nothing will be the look and feel of a full metal, gas blowback Airsoft Beretta replica.  The weight of the gun and blowback motion are what will sell 99% of your gun battles.  With the toy props, it is easy to tell when the actor is just pretending and faking a gun’s kick when fired.  We’ve all seen fake machine guns being fired in low budget Sci-Fi Channel films.  Sad.  It is worth the extra expense of the higher end Airsoft gas guns.

The downside to Airsoft guns is that they don’t eject shell casings or have the flaming gas emmission out of the barrel like real guns do.  Luckily these things are fairly easy to do in post production, even for a micro budget guerilla filmmaker.  There are tons of tutorials for these available online.

Hooooowwwwwever, during my rather frantic search for a solution to my gun problems, I came across a few additional solutions which might not be readily apparent to a new filmmaker.  The first thing I found was a couple of interesting little paintball guns.  I found these things called RAP4/5 or RAM (Real Action Markers) which are used by guns who are hardcore into running military simulations and by both the real military and law enforcement for training.  These are a series of nearly exact replicas of popular military/police/SWAT weapons such as the MP5.  The best part about these RAP4/5/RAM guns is that they eject a cool brass shell casing after each shot.  The casing surrounds the paintball ammo, but the clever filmmaker can easily remove the little paintball inside the casing and just have the gun spit out the brass in a realistic and, more important, safe manner.

The RAP4/5 markers (that’s what paintballers call their guns) are a bit more expensive than a good Airsoft gun.  The trade off, though, is you’re saving yourself hours and hours in post production adding in ejected shells to your gun battles. The only downside is that the RAP4/RAM guns are expensive.  I believe they start in the $350-$400 range and go up to $1000 or more!

That still doesn’t solve our problem with no muzzle flash, though.  What is a guerilla filmmaker to do if he wants an accurate replica or a gun, with realistic blowback, a front flash AND ejecting shell casings?  Where does it leave an indie filmmaker who wants it all and wants it on a decent budget?  Well, it leaves him looking to the shores of Japan: makers of Anime, panty vending machines and, drum roll please, wonderful little items called “Model Guns.”

The best way to describe a model gun is as a cap gun on steroids.  Model guns are accurate gun replics, generally made of heavy duty plastic, which have realistic blowback, and fire caps mounted in very real looking brass shells which eject and give off a very cool looking front spark and smoke.  These things kick a whole lot of ass and are totally safe to use on set.  I do want to say that the front emmissions don’t always look completely realistic, especially with some of the fully automatic shots.  Sometimes the effect comes across on screen as looking like a bunch of sparks, but this can be very easily tweaked in your favorite effects software such as After Effects.  The addition of real smoke gives gun battles using Model Guns a very authentic feel even if you’ve had to go in and adjust the front fire a bit.

As far as I’ve been able to find, no one in the US really sells Model Guns outside of a few popping up on eBay from time to time.  So what you’ll have to do is go to the sources in Japan or Hong Kong or to one of the resellers in the UK, and they will cost you as much as a good quality Airsoft gun — ranging from around $100 up to $1000 or more for the heavy duty, tripod mounted machine guns.  Look to spend a few hundred dollars for most models.  You’ll also have to pay for shipping.  My tip is to save up and purchase a few Model Guns at a time in order to cut your freight costs way down.

I’m going to admit something here and hope my wife isn’t reading.  In my quest to answer my “Riddle of the Gun” I spent nearly $2000 to try out the various options – Airsoft, cheap spring-loaded, Blank-firing and RAP4/Real Action Markers/RAM.  I even placed an order for a couple of Model Guns (which haven’t arrived yet).  The answer I found is…you can make whatever you’ve got work if you have the time in post to correct or add to the footage.  However, my preferences for guns on my next action flick are high quality, metal gas blowback Airsoft pistols, RAP4/RAM rifles and SMGs, and as many model guns as I can pick up.  Any combination of those three choices (individually or together) will give you some excellent gun fight footage to work from.

That’s it from this end.  Take care and Keep Shooting!

Mat N., the Film Sensei
http://www.filmsensei.com

Related posts:

1. My Canon HV20 Camera Rig – still in the works
2. Review: Fightscenes for Motion Pictures by the Kerby Brothers
3. Hardware Review: Azden SGM-1x Shotgun Microphone Review