The Hose So
instead of using PVC, I decided to try a flexible hose. Rain is a part
of nature so it should come from a naturally occurring shape like a
spiral. OK, I just made that part up. Anyways, spread your garden hose
in an even spiral across the surface area of the frame. Start from the
outside.
Once you have it evenly spread out, use the cable ties to secure the hose to the frame.
Right
now you have a giant dream catcher. So you need to drill some holes in
it to make it a rain machine. Using a very small drill bit, drill holes
in the top side of the hose every 4 to 6 inches. Make sure not to make
these holes too big. You'd be surprised how much water will spray out
of even a tiny hole. You can always drill them bigger later if you need
to, so start small.
Last,
screw on the plastic cap to the end of your hose (should be in the
center of our rain machine) and the valve adapter to the beginning.
The Set Up So
unless you have a crane, you'll need to hang this rig from a tree.
Using the four eye bolts and some rope, hang the rain machine like a
chandelier. I figure the higher you can get it, the better, but for our
test film we had it about 8 to 9 ft up and the rain looked fine. Now,
just connect a second hose to the adapter at the side of the rig and go.
When
you hang this thing, you want the holes in the hose to point up. This
will make the water spray up and then fall down with gravity. This
provides a much better spread and droplet size. The first time we set
it up we had the holes pointed down, and it just looked like a big
shower head coming out.
Conclusion This
rig provided at least 50 square feet of quality rain. Roughly a 5' by
5' space to shoot in. This is perfect for dramatic scenes between two
or three characters. You could always build a few and create a bigger
rain area.
