I am presently on a feature film project called Cavegirls. It’s a gritty, women-led crime thriller directed by J.B. Torres Medina, written by David Axe and starring Caylin Sams. I play Bo. A loyal bouncer who works for the opposition, but has a soft spot for the heroine’s sister. The film is scheduled as a 14 day shoot in Columbia, SC and I am on set for 10 of those days. It’s the longest I will be on a single set.
On most of the small budget independent films I have been a part of, everyone helps out whenever and wherever they can. This project is no different. So, when they asked is I could help with some SFX, I jumped at the chance.
How I Got the Role
Back in 2023, during my first year acting, I did some stunt acting in a film called Stuntgirl. Along with the stunt work, they offered me a small role in the film playing a boxer. The writer/director/producer of that film was David Axe. Flash forward to the end of 2024. David reached out to me via Facebook Messenger and asked if I would be interested in a role in his next movie. I answered yes right away; not knowing what the role was or what the film was about. I got the script a couple weeks later and, after reading it, realized it was a large supporting role with about 15 scenes.
The SFX
My first day on set was scheduled for Saturday, March 15th, but I drove into Columbia the day before. Since most of the shoot days are night shoots, I decided to drop by set and say hi to everyone I knew and see how things were going. As per usual for any film project, they were running behind, so I stuck around to see if I could help. A couple hours in, David asked if I wanted to be the one who shot the potato gun full of fake blood and fake guts. Fuck yeah!
David walked me through the process on what to do with the blood/guts mix, how to load the potato gun, how to prime the gun and how to shoot it. Below are two videos. The first is with me in the shot in a behind the scenes version. And the second is the final shot that will be edited for the film.
How It Was Done
The potato gun we used was the Urban Warrior type cannon with the tennis ball attachment. The cannon was primed with hairspray and the cannon has a piezo button igniter switch. The guts and blood were just a mixture of paper towels and fake blood. I used a small coffee cup to mix the fake blood with ripped up paper towels. Just enough to soak the paper towel pieces and make them red, but not enough for it to be dripping. This is important since the gun is hollow and if too much liquid get into the barrel and drips down to the other side and will get the igniter wet which will not allow the mechanism to spark.
Once everything is ready, things have to be done right before you are read to fire. First, the paper towel mixture is loaded into the top of the gun. It should be a large enough load to seal the barrel hole opening and not fall into it. Since the barrel is narrower than the tennis ball attachment diameter, and the paper towel mixture becomes a lump, it should just sit in the attachment, even when fully vertical. Once the paper towels are in place, I then poured more fake blood into the attachment. Then, right before the shot, hairspray is added to the other end (about 5 seconds worth). the end cap is placed back on quickly, and the igniter button is pushed. Be prepared, it is loud as fuck, but the results are awesome!
Simon Shih 