Look Solutions USA Donates Fog Fluid to Fireline, Winner of HollyShorts Best VFX 2024

	The constraint of being unable to use any pyrotechnics to produce the effect of an intense wildfire made the smoke effect even more important. Photo: Talisha Elger

Indeed's Rising Voices Festival is a program that focuses on providing new opportunities to discover, invest in, and amplify stories created by global majority filmmakers. In 2024, the program ran its fourth season and ten film-makers were chosen from over 700 applications. The theme centered around "the future of work" and Fireline was one of the ten successful applicants. Written and directed by Robin Takao D'Oench, and set against the backdrop of a ferocious Californian wildfire, the film tells the story of Otto, an incarcerated firefighter who is refused parole and is desperately trying to connect with his daughter. Fireline premiered at Tribeca 2024 and won Best VFX at the HollyShorts Film Festival and has qualified for best live action short film at the Academy Awards. It is available to watch in the academy screening room.

Simon White was the film's special effects supervisor and explains more about the role Look Solutions USA played in making the film happen.

"The team behind Fireline are fantastic and do a lot of work to help amplify the voices of people who are under-represented in the US film industry. I knew I wanted to help them, so I got in touch with Roger George, Looks Solutions USA distributor in California, and I asked what they could do," White recalls. "They contacted Anna and Nathan in the New York office, who straightaway offered to supply all our fog solutions. The location was a summer camp that had already suffered extensive wildfire damage, so we couldn't use any pyrotechnics, or have any flame anywhere, not even a candle! The only way to get the job done was to do it with fog and haze machines. In just one night, we went through a few 20 liter bottles of fluid, you could barely see through it all!"

White owns Runs with Scissors, a special effects company that provides solutions for film, TV, music videos, and commercials.

"I'm from Australia originally, and my Grandad was a miner, so it's in my blood. Growing up I loved action movies, so I contacted a guy, learned from him and it grew from there. 'Runs with Scissors' has been really busy this year, we never stop!"

The constraint of being unable to use any pyrotechnics to produce the effect of an intense wildfire made the smoke effect even more important, as White continues. "We used tube-of-death and squirrel-cages to make sure the smoke went where we needed it to. We used six Vipers and four Power Tinys. We were able to place them directly where we wanted them, in burnt out trees, or right next to the light bars. They were exactly what we needed to do it right and the film has been really well received. It's a real example of the performance of the Look Solutions machines."

The Power Tiny is a portable, battery operated fog machine that is flexible and powerful. It is small and quiet enough to hide on set, offering targeted fogging with a choice of continuous or burst operation. The battery is long lasting, but also easy to change, meaning it is a good choice for long, overnight filming sessions.

"We would go for six to eight hours straight filming, and the machines were on the whole time. Their size means you can hide them really easily and even if they are a little bit visible, once everything gets going, they completely blend in." White expands. "Designers think of things and it's up to us to make it happen. The Tiny series is great for that. We've put the Tiny S into all sorts of places; kettles, lab equipment. We made a backpack-tube-of-death for a baddie in another film, it was basically a normal backpack with a fan and a Tiny S built in. The monster walks toward camera and we can have him literally creating trails of smoke behind him. That was a fun thing to do!"

Look solutions offers three types of fluid: Quick-Fog, Regular-Fog, and Slow Fog. The fluid is not only effective, it is safe to use, contains no harmful ingredients, is Actors Equity approved and exceeds industry standards. All three are water-based, odorless and do not contain oil or silicone. They're even vegan, the company says.

"I used to buy all the terrible fog fluid," White recalls. "But now I strictly just use the Look Solutions fluid, because it is just much better than other brands or something I could make myself," explains White. "Truly, this fluid has made our jobs a lot easier and it makes the look a lot better too. Filming something like Fireline requires fog that will break apart nicely, so we use the Vipers for atmosphere, then the Power Tiny to add detail."