In this thread , the topic of discussion is photographs in movies and whether they are “real” (as in, the actor’s actual yearbook photo) or mock-up or photoshop jobs. This might sound unrelated - actually it is - but it got me wondering about one thing: what is the powder used for “cocaine” in movies?
I can imagine that “pot” is some kind of herbal blend, like the “legal weed” you sometimes see for sale in head shops or small record shops. I imagine that “heroin” is some kind of powder that’s “injected” by use of a “trick needle”, somewhat similar to the trick “swords” or “knives” used in movies that actually collapse when pushed against skin.
But the “cocaine” used in a lot of movies - like Johnny’ Depp’s Blow - looks very realistic. It’s rocky and needs to be chopped up before sniffing. In my mind, there aren’t a lot of substances to snort that would be pleasant. Sugar? Ewwwww. Ground up aspririn? Yuck - and probably dangerous. Cocaine itself isn’t very pleasant*, but at least you get a buzz off of it, so that’s why people do it?
But when people “do it” in movies, what are they “doing”??
** = not that I would know. That’s just what my friends tell me.*
Longish shots of people “doing lines” don’t actually show the powder being hoovered – we just register it that way because we expect it based on gesture and sound effects.
Inserts are often used to show lines being sucked up a straw – typically with a tiny “vaccuum” on the other end of the straw. The sound is fixed up in post.
Well, in a recent episode of the BBC’s Spooks one of the MI-5 agents had to snort some “fake cocaine” as part of an undercover operation (this is what made me think about this question). One of the shots showed the agent sniffing a line on a coffee table. The camera was underneath the glass coffee table and you could see the “fake coke” disappear, the “sniffer” (or whatever the implement you use is called" and the agent’s face. I don’t think it would be possible to do the shot they did and "not* inhale some powder. I mean, how could they run some kind of “vacuum tube” from the end of the “sniffer” to somewhere off camera if you can see both sides of her face?
I don’t doubt, however, that the “long-shot, actor bends over; close-up of vacuum sucking dust up a straw; back to long short of actor holding his nose” is just a camera trick. This just couldn’t be done in my example though.
When we were kids we used to snort sherbet with no ill effects. It frothed up, but not unpleasantly. I’d imagine something like glucose would be mildly unpleasant but wouldn’t cause major problems - though having known a lot of actors in my past, I wouldn’t be surprised if they occasionally used the real thing.
I seem to recall hearing in an inteview with Michael J. Fox that he snorted powdered milk for coke shots in some movie - maybe Bright Lights, Big City - and had milk snot dripping down his face for days afterward…
I read somewhere before that they used baking soda as a “cocaine substitute” in several movies, including that infamous scene in “Scarface”, where Al Pacino’s character has a huge pile of it on his table. Makes sense to me.
I know that sometimes cocaine is cut with Manitol (a baby laxative). I’d assume that you could chop some of that up for a convincing on-screen substitute.
‘Hoover’ is an appropriate term. My best fiend’s first feature-length film, Cut Up has an extreme close-up of one of the characters snorting a line with a metal tube. For the shot, he used granulated sugar that he ‘hoovered up’ with the metal end of a vacuum cleaner hose. The effect worked very well.
“Inhalation of talcum powder can lead to very serious respiratory complications, even death. Recovery and prognosis depend on the time to treatment and the extent of the exposure. Seek emergency medical care immediately for any ingestion or inhalation.”
This scares the shit out of me. Everytime I’ve ever gotten a haircut, afterwards the person doing it would cover a large brush with talcum and then brush all the hair off of my face. I’ve inhaled my fair share.
I don’t remember which movie he was talking about but actor Eric Stoltz once said that they were using powdered vitamin C (ascorbic acid). He said it was kind of gross in that it would cake up the inside of your nose and you had to scrap it all out.
I knwo that in Magnolia the game show host’s daughter is shown in a medium shot clearly, actually snorting a white powder several times.
I’m surprised I’m the first one to offer this, but in a semi-recent interview with Maxim, actress Kelly Carlson (who plays Kimber on FX’s “Nip/Tuck”) said her character was supposed to snort cocaine in a number of close-up shots.
Hey, if you have to play a person who goes around freaking out like a cokehead, why not do the real thing? That movie gives me serious cravings when I watch Claudia doing lines. So real, I can smell it.
True Story: In high school we’d take powdered drink mix (Kool-Aid, Gatorade, etc.) and shake the container rapidly, then open it, lean close in, and inhale the “smoke” through our noses. It would give a pleasant citrusy flavor to pretty much anything you ate or drank for the next couple of minutes. Yes, we were bored. Post-script: in the shower, you discovered that it turned your boogers green. Or blue. Or neon purple. Or bright candy-apple red. YMMV.
Anyhow, the sugar (sherbet?) didn’t appear to have any deleterious effects.
The effect worked very well.
