For our opening title sequence it was important to have good looking and effective props. For this reason it was decided to use some props that were in Cal's house because they looked good, or will do when we make the footage black and white.
Here's a list of some of the props we have used so far:
To create the ceiling fan at the beginning Cal took two pieces of cardboard and wrapped them in electrical tape. They didn't need to be neat because they'd move past the camera too quickly for the camera to focus on them. Cal had to stab a pen through the middle so that myself (the camera man) had something to hold onto and also to rotate it with.
We knew that we would need a gun prop, and Cal had one at home. Although its a half orange airsoft gun we thought it would look okay in black and white. It is authentic looking except for the bright orange slide but it will come out grey in black and white. An advantage of using this gun is that it fits in with the time set in a film noir film because it's been manufactured in real life since 1911 and therefore can't be an anachronism.
For the fake blood we tried covering Cal's hand in ketchup but it didn't look realistic at all. It was too light and thin to be blood. Then we tried covering his hand in beetroot hoping that it would stain my skin red, but all it did was make it look a pinkish purple colour. As a final resort Cal covered his hand in red food colouring and it looked surprisingly really good. Once it had dried it looked dark like clotted blood. In the picture it looks quite pink because of the lighting, but in the dark it looked very good and it also shows up well in black and white.
