How to Make Fake Blood Squibs for Film, Television and Stage Productions

Need to get your gore on? This is a quick and simple special effects trick for making exploding packets of fake blood, commonly known as blood squibs. Use these steps to make gunshot wounds and choreographed violence more realistic in film, television and stage productions.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Plastic sandwich bags
• Light corn syrup
• Red food coloring
• Mixing bowl
• Ladle
• Scissors

1. Mix your bowl of blood. Pour clear corn syrup into a bowl and stir in drops of red food coloring until the color reaches a deep crimson.
2. Buy the cheapest sandwich bags of the poorest quality. You want the thinnest plastic sandwich bags you can find, something you can easily poke a finger through. Spoon a ladle full of the fake blood into the bottom corner of a sandwich bag. Don't spoon in too much. A squib should be about the size of a ping-pong ball.
3. Tightly tie off the corner of the sandwich bag where the blood has pooled. Tie it off so tightly, the blood bulges the plastic.
4. Cut off the unused portion of the sandwich bag, and your squib is ready for action.
5. The actor can either hold the squib and smash it against his body to spurt blood through his hand at the point of impact. The squib also can be taped to the actor's body underneath his clothes, and the actor can smash his hand against it for a less gruesome effect.

Tips & Warnings

• Make sure the baggy is tied off tightly. You don't want blood to ooze out too early. The squib should explode dramatically on cue.
• This blood stains. Have clothing doubles on hand for second takes.