Prop Creation Research: Cocaine

When writing out the drug aspect of my script there were many thoughts going through my head, was I going to have prop cocaine or just use camera angles and actions from the actor to portray drug sniffing? If that was the choice would my actor be willing to intake prop cocaine? Then again what do you use to portray cocaine? What is used professionally and is it actually safe? From these questions I decided to do the following research, before beginning my research I made the conscious decision to have “cocaine” shown in my drama but it is really up to the actor that has to intake the “cocaine” as he may not be comfortable with doing that or may have some allergies that I need to be aware of. All this is to take into consideration when I go to interview and my possible actors; hence forth I am going to start forming a list of question to ask my actors for the day.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, Tom is an emotionally broken teenager and spends most of his time in tacking cocaine and/or other drugs. By the audience viewing this, it will force them to have a negative opinion on this character as he appears to have no value of his life and seems to care for no one else. He takes it constantly and I believe would be more effective if the audience saw him constantly snorting “cocaine”.

At first I thought it would be quiet simple to imitate “cocaine” with any form of powder but from my research I realised that different types of powder are more authentic, also you must be aware of which powder you intended to be snorted as some may be harmful.

Precautions

Ever wonder what movie actors are really smoking and snorting when they do a line of coke or lift a joint to their lips?

Turns out that many cocaine look-alikes are ingredients you might use in a cake, like powdered sugar, powdered milk and baking soda, while herbal tobacco fills in for genuine cannabis.

Though the fakes are legal and don’t provide a high, sometimes they can make the actors feel a little buzzed. On Showtime's "Weeds," for instance, where potheads Doug and Andy are often lighting up, the herbal tobacco makes them feel a little lightheaded, says "Weeds" executive producer Roberto Benabib.

“According to them, it gets them higher than regular marijuana,” he says. “They end up smoking so much of it they get very lightheaded, and they don’t like it. Sometimes they do take after take, and you will see them getting woozy because it has a strange effect on them. But it’s totally legal, and it is what we are supposed to use.”

Ingredients

There are quite a few things that are used, depending on the action taking place. Laying around/bagged or actually snorting:

Mainly bagged/laying around
Talcum Powder
Baby Power
Flour

Snorted
Powdered Sugar
Vitamin B-12 Powder
Powdered Milk

Doing this may be difficult due to the fact it is a health and safety risk but as I previously  mentioned I think it is a critical aspect which the audiences needs to see. But before production I am going to purchase each of these ingredients and view them on camera, seeing which one looks the most realistic.

The research was provided from the following websites;

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071125005025AA7xOrt

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/smoking-scenes-call-pot-cocaine-hollywood-turns-stash-faux-drugs-article-1.427128

I also watched this video of creating a cocaine brick, my prop doesn’t consist of that size but I found it interesting how authentic it actually appears.

Meteor Research 2

The following information is basic information on meteors in general.

When a piece of rock from outer space enters Earth's atmosphere, it encounters a lot of friction as it bumps into high-altitude air molecules at very high speed. The friction slows the rock down some, and also heats it up. When the rock passes the temperature of incandescence it begins to glow brightly and can be seen from the ground.

One of four things happens next:

(A) If the meteor approaches from a shallow angle, it can actually "skip" back out of the Earth's atmosphere, similar to what happens to a rock you skip across a puddle. Once it leaves the upper atmosphere and is no longer being heated by friction, it cools below the point of incandescence (visible light by a hot object) and fades out.

(B) Most meteors burn up (meaning they vaporize completely) long before reaching the ground. Their atoms are ripped apart by the intense heat and scattered to the wind. The dust will eventually settle to Earth, but it will be microscopic particles.

(B-1) Rather than simply vaporize, some meteors explode. It's thought that a massive meteor explosion caused the famous Tunguska blast in 1908. This is a relatively rare event, however. Tunguska blast- The Tunguska event was an enormously powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia.

(C) If the meteor is large enough, it can survive its plunge to the ground. At this point it is called a meteorite. Very few meteors survive all the way to the ground, since most of them are so tiny. Incidentally, a meteor that makes it to the ground won't even be that hot upon landing. Once the Earth's atmosphere slows it to its terminal velocity, it will have plenty of time to cool before it reaches the ground.

(D) Any meteor large enough that it doesn't have time to cool before reaching the Earth is going to make a pretty big impact anyway. The meteorite will probably be destroyed in the impact event, and you'll be lucky to find more than a shard. But don't worry...impacts of this magnitude are exceedingly rare. 

When a Meteoroid Becomes a Meteor 

The relative speed of a meteoroid to the Earth at the moment of collision is typically in the range of 25,000 to 160,000 miles per hour (40,000 to 260,000 kilometers per hour), and friction with the air particles in the upper atmosphere immediately begins to burn off the outer layer of the object. Small particles are usually completely consumed, but moderately sized ones may survive to the point where they completely lose their cosmic velocity and begin to fall to the ground under the force of gravity. Scientists call this the retardation point, and it is typically several miles above the ground. 

Meteorite Temperatures

The process by which a meteor glows when moving through the upper atmosphere is called ablation and it stops at the retardation point. If the meteor hasn't been completely consumed, it falls to the ground as a dark rock. Scientists believe that meteorites are probably cool when they hit the ground, because the hot outer layers have all fallen away during ablation. Approximately 10 to 50 such rocks hit the Earth every day, with about two to 12 being potentially discoverable, according to the American Meteor Society. Large ones are named after the place at which they are found. Some notable ones are the Nantan meteorite that fell in China in 1516 and the Launton meteorite that fell in England in 1830.

Potential for Catastrophe 

Meteoroids weighing more than about 10 tons (9,000 kilograms) retain some of their cosmic velocity and hit the ground with more force than smaller ones. For example, a 10-ton meteoroid can retain about 6 percent of its cosmic velocity, so if it's originally moving at a speed of 90,000 miles per hour (40 kilometers a second), it can hit the ground at a speed of 5,400 miles per hour (2.4 kilometers per second), although a considerable portion of it would have burned away. Atmospheric drag would have a negligible effect on a meteoroid with a mass of more than 100,000 tons, or 90 million kilograms.

Sounds of meteors

Sound generated by a meteor in the upper atmosphere, such as a sonic boom, is typically delayed for many seconds after the meteor disappears. Occasionally, as with the Leonid meteor shower of 2001,"crackling", "swishing", or "hissing" sounds have been reported, occurring at the same instant as a meteor flare. Similar sounds have also been reported during intense displays of Earth's auroras.

Sound recordings made under controlled conditions in Mongolia in 1998 support the contention that the sounds are real.

How these sounds could be generated, assuming they are in fact real, remains something of a mystery. It has been hypothesized by some scientists at NASA that the turbulent ionized wake of a meteor interacts with the magnetic field of the Earth, generating pulses of radio waves. As the trail dissipates, megawatts of electromagnetic energy could be released, with a peak in the power spectrum at audio frequencies. Physical vibrations induced by the electromagnetic impulses would then be heard if they are powerful enough to make grasses, plants, eyeglass frames, and other conductive materials vibrate. This proposed mechanism, although proven to be plausible by laboratory work, remains unsupported by corresponding measurements in the field.

The research was provided from the following websites;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid

http://science.opposingviews.com/happens-meteoroid-enters-earths-atmosphere-3611.html

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071214194042AAccCgB