ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

3 years, 5 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

The issue you're hitting is that you rather need a matching pair of knives, one real one safe. Normally you'd approach this by getting a real knife and making a safe foam version and painting it. https://featurecreaturesfx.blogspot.com/2010/03/making-actor-safe-prop-knife.html for instance. It's DIY-able for a small hand prop.

3 years, 5 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGZ2OeQinzw

3 years, 5 months ago - Simon Brooke

Hi Paddy, thanks so much! You're exactly right - we need a real knife and a replica. Thanks for the video. It looks like it would take real artistry to paint the replica without it looking terrible, a skill I definitely don't have.

I'm really hoping someone has done exactly this before and kept the props.... It's surprisingly tricky!

3 years, 4 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

On the upside you can establish the real knife in camera and half-arse the replica as it's only used in action shots/moving so the painting needn't be perfect. And you can make a dozen standbys if you want to ;-)

Yes, it's surprisingly tricky to buy a prop/real pair, which is why breakaway glass prop vendors have hundreds of models, but it's even worse for knives/less common props! We had to duplicate an axe, for instance, couldn't get one off the shelf.

3 years, 4 months ago - Simon Brooke

Thanks so much for all your help, Paddy. Don't suppose you'd know anyone I could hire to make a prop knife?

3 years, 4 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

I can't remember who we used, but a search for "propmakers" will get you going in the right direction!

3 years, 4 months ago - Yen Rickeard

Hi Simon.. Take a real knife, use it for the establishing shots (pre and post stabbing). Blunt it or its double with a grind stone esp at the point. Cover the blade with a cardboard sheath (or even better, heavy duty plastic casing if you can do that). Glue on tin foil so it can catch the light if you want, and use that. for the action shots. But possibly you need hardly see the knife as the arm jabs. Saves the audience having to withstand the noxious fake blood effects. Good luck!

3 years, 4 months ago - Richard Anthony Dunford

Bit of a funny mishap. I just ordered an 8 inch prop foam knife and then a matching 8 inch real knife with the same handles. Only when the prop knife arrived the blade alone was 8 inches not the entire knife meaning the real knife was the size of the blade.

Whoops...

3 years, 4 months ago - Vasco de Sousa

Another solution is not having the knife in shot. Unless you are going for a really gory stabbing, in which case you probably want a stunt coordinator and good fake blood, it is probably better to film a reaction shot of the faces, use cut-aways like in old western and gangster films. Or, more recently, when the Joker makes his pencil disappear.

There was also that recent accident with a supposedly prop gun killed a cinematographer. If you are low budget enough to ask about prop knives, (in other words, you don't have an experienced prop person who knows where to find this stuff), I would not risk the shot. Too many potential accidents, and too many chances that the shot won't even look that good.