Does such a thing exist? Characters on TV and in movies are constantly being tied up and gagged with duct tape. But scenes usually require a few takes. With real duct tape there’d be a lot of hair ripping, skin irritation, and makeup messing. Is there a “looks like duct tape but less sticky” out there?
How about other props or materials besides the obvious weapons, that one wouldn’t realize need to be specially made for the needs of the stage/set?
Why wouldn’t they just use real duct tape and tape something not so sticky to the sticky side (like plain paper).
It’s possible they use some sort of hack. The prop or material doesn’t have to be mass produced. I would still count your example. I’m more interested in actual practices than speculation though.
I work in theatre and would probably doctor up the real stuff. What I would use would depend on the actor, the application, the budget, and any number of other factors. Off the top of my head, there is a fairly weak double sided tape that would stick to the duct tape but only just hold on skin.
Film would be different because the same shot is done over and over so they would probably do something different. You can get away with a mild tape when it is done once a night, not so much on a film shoot.
As for other stuff, set dec can be fake. At my last job we had bookcases filled with vacuform books. There would be about two or three feet worth of book spines backed in styro. It is so much faster to pop that in rather than deal with that many books.
This one might seem obvious but a good scenic artist is worth their weight in gold. I worked with a company that had just built a new theatre. The contractor had just installed the back stage floor a few days before the scenic artist came to paint the floor treatment for the first show. She painted a beautiful fake oak wood grain floor, and when the contractor came in the next day he was pissed that after his crew put in the black floor they tore it up and put in hardwood. He was more than a bit embarrassed when he was told it was paint.
We used to use a tape that we referred to as photographer’s tape that had the stickiness of a strong Post-It note, the only problem being the face (visible side) of it was white. We would just cover it with gaff tape (like duct tape but it is cloth-backed) to make it black.
They might be using gaffers tape. Gaffers are the set electricians, and to keep people from tripping on the temporary power cords, use gaffers tape to hold the power cords flat to surfaces. A roll of gaffers tape is about the same size as a roll of duct tape, and, while it comes in several colors, the default is silver. Gaffers tape isn’t as sticky as duct tape, and it releases very cleanly. I just put a piece over my mouth and ripped it off, with no pain. There are probably miles of it on any movie set.
I know you don’t want pure speculation. This is an observation.
I’ve noticed on many of the scenes where the good guys come upon the restrained victim, the duct tape is thicker than regular duct tape and only stuck at the very ends. It appears that they cover the sticky side with more duct tape, with just enough left exposed to barely stick to the face.
Another option might be to take some real duct tape and douse the sticky side with talcum powder or something so it ends up only partly sticky. Though gafffers tape sounds easier.
This is what I was thinking. It’s designed to come up easily and leave no residue. I’ve never used it on a person, but it works perfectly as designed on all types of flooring and furniture. Often it comes off almost too easily (leading to people taping cords down with huge swaths of tape, 3-4 tape-widths across).
I’ve seen a costuming trick where duct tape is used to bind certain parts of the female anatomy (ahem). The trick is to stick pre-cut lengths of tape onto a towel then remove them a few times first. Either most of the adhesive is removed from the tape, or it gets covered with fuzzy bits from the towel. Either way, most of the stickiness is gone and the actress isn’t hurt when the tape is removed.