For those who cannot spend £1000 for a beginner snow machine, here are a few cheaper suggestions for snowy effects to use in your productions.

The trick to making good artificial snow is to first make sure that the ingredients are safe for the environment and the film staff. A good recipe for falling snow is simply to take laundry soap flakes or instant potato flakes and sprinkle them across the scene. Or if the desired effect is blowing snow, whip up a vat of flakes and let it loose in front of a fan. Do be careful when using laundry soap flakes. It can get slippery.

When there are scenes that call for lying snow, there is a particularly simple and steadfast recipe that will have audiences fooled. For a unit of this snow, take 1 1/3 cups of liquid starch, 4 cups of laundry soap flakes and several drops of blue food colouring. Mix all the ingredients well and apply to the scene generously. Allow ample amount of time to let the concoction dry. It might be a good idea, when filming a romantic or idyllic snow scene to add a few pinches of glitter to the mixture, giving the snow a slight sheen that will sparkle quite nicely.

If it makes more sense to click online for already made materials, then surf the web to snowbusiness.com where you will find everything one would need to complement their wintry scene. From icicles to spray snow to snow carpets and bags of snowflakes, this website will not disappoint. Certain items can be a little costly, but Snow Business has been contracted with several major Hollywood films for the past 30 years, including James Bond films, Vertical Limit and The Madness of King George, so quality is to be expected.

So it goes to show that artificial snow can have easy alternatives to spending a fortune on professional snow machines and costly ingredients.

Thanks to Raindance.

© BRWC 2010.