If you’ve read the most recent revision of the script for Bright Black, you’ll notice that it still requires a gun as a prop. This may seem odd, as one of the main reasons for rewriting it with katanas instead of guns was because it’s illegal to possess a realistic looking prop gun in New York City, for obvious reasons: the NYPD is very sensitive about mistakenly believing someone has a firearm. Therefore, in order to get my hands on even a black-colored rubber gun, I’d have to contact a very expensive rental company who issues permits and on-set weapon supervisors.
So the most realistic prop gun I’m legally allowed to purchase or possess in this city is yellow. In theory, I could spray paint it black and hope that nobody reports me, but since we’re shooting under black light, there’s a much more fun and infinitely more legal solution.
It’s quite simple: spray paint it MORE YELLOW!
That awful, disgustingly blurry photo was taken by my cheap point-and-shoot camera that can’t cope with the pressure of shooting without a flash. But it gets the basic idea across: yellow prop gun + black light + yellow black light paint = really, really yellow. And that’s a very helpful thing for post-production. By strategically positioning the camera so nothing else is yellow in the shot, I can just chroma-key the gun to black:
Yes, I’m aware that there’s a white halo around the gun. That won’t happen when I shoot with a film camera, nor would it happen if I shot with a decent digital camera. For now, it’s a proof of concept. I should also note that the same technique can be used for shooting a movie in runner vision:
