Home | Tips and Tricks | Special Effects | Fake Mannequin

forgot your password?

A fake body is incredibly useful for homemade fighting movies because there's a lot of funny effects you can do with one. Spin it around, drop if from heights … the possibilities are endless!

Unlike the other homemade special effects in this series, creating a fake body takes a little work. However, if you keep your scenes short and fast, you don’t need a very realistic body. This will save us a lot of work. The easiest way to make the fake body is to stuff pants and a shirt with crumpled newspaper and tape it all together with packing tape to keep it from falling apart. You don’t really need a head on your body. Here are some fun things you can do with a fake body.

• swing it around
• drop it from great heights
• run over it with your car
• put a stick inside, and break the body’s "backbone" over your knee

For example, you could film a scene (like the one below) where the attacker grabs the victim, spins him around, throws the body through the air, where it then hits a wall.

If you edit everything carefully, this looks very realistic (and funny). At the end, you can replace the body with the real kid, and have him stand up and brush himself off.

Next: The Mid-air collision!
Or: See all our homemade special effects!