Where there's smoke, there's---
 

Where there's smoke, there's heath problems!

In the Vancouver Sun today, there was an interesting article about the hazards of theatrical smokes and fogs (used in the entertainment industry). A $150,000 study was done by the University Of British Columbia. The results of the study showed that staffers suffer from reduced lung capacity and increased long term respiratory irritation. "Other findings include:

1) Fogs produced by gycol fluids resulted in increased incidents of dry cough, dry throat and increased headache, dizziness and tiredness on the testing day.

2) Fogs produced by mineral oil resulted more often in a measurable drop in lung capacity."

My advice? Use dry ice or those Chinese heat sticks---which smoke like crazy!

Dry ice doesn't really work except in instances where you want the fog/smoke to concentrate on the ground. It won't really hang. I'm interested in the Chinese "heat sticks"...not sure I know what this is.

I'm shooting this weekend and plan to use Chinese incense (same thing as "heat sticks"?). This is the type of incense the Buddhist monks burn in the temples here. The sticks are extra long, cheap, and the perfume is very subtle and natural. Get a handful of those going and they produce a lot of smoke that lingers for quite awhile.

They are thick sticks used to put close to your body to heat areas which need healing. But they smolder like a smoke bomb instead, and the heat they produce (for healing) is therefore over-clouded. I had a box of these, given to me by a Chinese friend. A box of 50 costs about $3.00. They'd work great for creating smoke, and they smolder for about 45 minutes.

Maybe that's why I've got scar tissue on my lungs like a smoker...I've always used professional fog machines with Mole Richardson "bug juice," which smells like insecticide.
I understand that some people have also used bee foggers for outside.

Where can I get those?

I like using sparklers for sparks shooting down in industrial scenes. except buying parklers is expensive in bulk via the internet.

In Chinese herbal medicine shops.