Bloody condom failure-Not what you're thinking...Meditation post #1

I truly am impressed with how far civilization has come in the past 100 years in terms on technology. The new Media's and convergence of such has given me a chance to share something I find really fascinating-kind of-either way it's amusing. Just thinking about attempting to share this experience with someone without a video I shot and was able to post online so millions of people could watch, or without getting to reference and link to such amazing-and now very intreguing-condoms...I simply become depressed. I can just see myself trying to explain to a friend what happened and getting to the end of the story only to have them give me a blank stare and walk away thinking I'm the most "un-funny" person ever.

But now....BO YA! I can let technology do the talking for me and avoid that awkward stare I no doubt would've received.

So without further a due, I shall begin.


So-when shooting a gun shot stunt...One should have:

A. Condoms (Trojan) Picture provided by Trojancondoms.com ...this will make sense later on. But I do need to take a moment out of the context of what I'm talking about here though -->
For real? Is anyone else as perplexed by this as I am? Anyway.

Moving on...
B. Fake blood (WikiHow)
C. Fishing line
D. Super Glue
E. A metal washer

So I had to shoot my hardest scene from my Senior thesis film last night as kind of a rehearsal type thing...And-not sure if you read the title- but it was an epic failure. I had to shoot a scene where the two main characters get into a brawl and one begins to punch the other on the ground only to be shot in the back by a third character behind him. Everything went well to begin with, I did some read through' with my actors and felt as though they both had a sense of each role and what was going on emotionally and physically in the scene. Going from inside practicing and outside shooting however was a different story. First of all, nighttime is by far the worst to try and shoot a a scene-especially when your the only one setting up the equipment, which isn't light and easy to move mind you.



So we struggled through the first part of the scene, the confrontation and tackle to the ground and were finally ready for the final part of the scene, aka the hardest. The gun shot.

(*Deep breathe*)

I have never attempted this and never have had any experience with a special effects stunt like this so naturally I was apprehensive...But then again I might have been feeling that way due to the "ghetto rigged" job I did for the stunt, technically speaking the stunt should have gone as follows:

1. take condom (yes a condom, trojan preferably because lets be honest, they're reliable)
2. Fill the (trojan) condom with fake blood, see WikiHow for recipe (obviously).
3. Tie off condom leaving as little air inside the now blood filled condom.
4. Take a washer and fishing line and super glue together and then to bloody condom (trojan).
5. Tape blood filled condom-carefully-onto your gun shot victim where the gunshot will occur.
6. Cut a slight hole in shirt of victim where the bloody condom is placed and thread the line through.
7. When you want your gun shot to occur, have someone off screen pull the line ripping the condom.
8. Ta-Da!...Not

What actually occurred:
1. Didn't get a a trojan, (first mistake)
2. Didn't realize my actor was essentially a gorilla when it comes to body hair. Needless to say I had a tough time tapping it to him.
3. Finally got it secured using a sling type approach with tape and cut the hole in the shirt. (getting the right positioning for it after the 3rd try).
4. Rehearsed outside and failed miserably when the condom prematurely exploded on my actor ruining the shot.




Anyway-I thought it was funny, and here's a clip of the attempt. Hope your get as much amusement out of it watching it as we did trying it.