It is great to be able to use wind for certain effects in your movie or music video; however, often times when people try, they fall short! The most popular way to FAIL with wind is to go and buy a cheap box fan and then see if it blows enough air fast enough to get the effect that you desire. Box fans… Don't put out very much wind.. There are of course larger fans that you can use and these fans do work for a lot things but, they don't always work. Fans have their limitations.
Recently I saw these blowers which are meant to be used with Makita tool batteries that I already own. I realized that because of the small nozzle on these blowers they could put the wind where you want it at the right speed. Think of it like a Leko light vs. a broad open face: the Leko will be brighter because it is taking all of its light and condensing it into one point while the broad open face light is shining its light all around. Dual Blowers gives more power and control over the wind.
Director Ryan Spencer contacted me to work on a music video that he was shooting in the night and he told me the concept for his video so that I could provide solutions to the needs of his videos story. One of the things that Ryan wanted, was an Angel dressed in a flowy gown that is always kind of blowing and fluttering in the breeze. Obviously it is not always breezy so we needed to take our own breeze. This video was a run and gun video on the streets. I got these Blowers and used them, they worked well.
Here is a short story about wind: one time I was shooting a movie where a little alien girl is on top of a mountain and her world's Mother Ship is coming to take her back. It was important for her clothes to blow around from the power of the ship coming in, the director brought a box fan! I have seen this box fan failure many times because they simply do not blow enough air; however, in our remote mountain location we also had to carry a generator over into position and run a stinger from it to the box fan. After all of that, it didn't work. These portable Blowers that I use can blow air at 179mph.
Now, these blowers are limited when you start shooting a very wide shot. With a flowy dress you can blow and have noticeable air when an actress is as far as about 12 or 15' away from the blower which does allow you to have a decent sized wide shot. For an even wider shot you would need a much larger blower possibly a Ritter Fan. Ritter Fan's are great but they bring with them, obviously, a whole new world of wind! (its hard to even mention a Ritter Fan in the same sentence with these blowers but these blowers DEFINITELY fill an important niche in production)
The day after we used these blowers for the Music Video in the night with the Angel, I used them on another Music Video for the artist RA Rugged Man in a Green Screen Studio. We used these blowers to simulate the wind that would hit somebody when they are riding on a roller coaster.
These Blowers are great to add on to my kit, at $25/day this is a great add on to have to your project.
These Blowers do of course create noise when they are in use just like other fans, but they work great for lots of types of things especially music videos or slow motion shots. Hit me up and hire AGrip for your next project and don't forget to ask me to bring these blowers.
