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Science

Fake Snow from Potato Starch 47

Posted by Hemos from the can-you-deep-fry-it dept.
Makarand writes "According to this article on Nature.com German chemists have created a new biodegradable type of fake snow from potato starch for the film industry. Most artificial snow types are plastic and it is impossible to pick up all the snow flakes scattered on film sets. The new snow presents no such problems. A good soaking is all that is needed to dissolve these biodegradable snow flakes. The process involves using starch from corn, potatoes or seaweed and puffing it up to make a spongy foam resembling snow."
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Fake Snow from Potato Starch More

Fake Snow from Potato Starch

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  • Evil plot to off a superhero (Score:3, Funny)

    by grammar nazi ( 197303 ) on Monday December 23, 2002 @08:05AM (#4943752) Journal
    How will Iodine-man stay camouflaged if the snow is made of starch? Without Iodine-man's camouflage, the world is doomed!!!
  • Wow. So Hailstorm [com.com] wasn't about a brave new e-service. Rather just another plot of Microsoft to take over the movie industry. But it's sad they need German scientists to cover up their involvement, why can't they just admit they like both Hollywoon and potatoes?

    --
    The right to be heard does not include the right to be taken seriously
  • filmmakers have been using potato buds for decades to fake snow scenes...

    i know that in Home Alone for some of the winter scenes they used a combination of real ice-made snow and potato buds to create snow in 50F weather...

  • Fake Potato (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tin Weasil ( 246885 ) on Monday December 23, 2002 @09:47AM (#4944197) Homepage Journal
    Interesting.

    It sounds like it would take a LOT of potatos to blanket a complete scene in this kind of fake snow.

    I wonder if anyone has considered using all of these potatos for any other purposes... like maybe feeding hungry people?

    Seriously, I think that everyone would be better served if they would just develop a better method for collecting all of the old plastic fake snow after it had been used. That way it could be recycled as fake snow for the next motion picture.

    • Re:Fake Potato (Score:4, Informative)

      by exploder ( 196936 ) on Monday December 23, 2002 @10:38AM (#4944528) Homepage
      Riiight...because as we all know, the reason people are hungry is because there just isn't enough food to go around.

      Idiot.

    • Re:Fake Potato (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 )
      Seriously, I think that everyone would be better served if they would just develop a better method for collecting all of the old plastic fake snow after it had been used. That way it could be recycled as fake snow for the next motion picture.

      Fine, except then the snow will be dirty after it gets swept up off the ground. So, unless the directors will accept beige snow, you're going to have to wash the fake snow, which requires quite a bit of water.

      Did you consider using all that water for other purposes... like maybe irrigating crops to feed hungry people?
    • I wonder if anyone has considered using all of these potatos for any other purposes... like maybe feeding hungry people?

      How dare those evil Hollywood producers, using their own money to buy things for themselves! There should be a law against that!

      Oh wait, that's called Communism

    • Throughout human history, when the going to tough, we upped and moved. I have no sympathy for anyone who sticks around a famminous area, just like I have no sympathy for people who live on cliff edges, flood plains or coast lines. It's dumb, dumb, dumb. "Canidates for natural selection" is what I call them. If you're dumb enough not to move out of a barren area into a fertile one, then I 'd prefer that you didn't stay in the gene pool.

      Now if you are not permitted to leave a country or enter a neighboring one, it's slightly different. But I get pissed at Sally Struthers saying 'feed the children' don't FEED them, MOVE them! Problem solved!

      I kknow I sound like a hard-ass but it's for their own good.

      • I'm sure that most of the people in starving nations would gladly move to somewhere like the United States or Canada (insert other country here) or elsewhere, but its not like they can just go buy a plane ticket, fly there, buy a house, and start a new life..

        It's a question of cost.. What's cheaper and easiest, moving everyone, or just shipping them some food once in a while?

        Also, as for the fact that most people in impoverished have more children than those in other nations, that's because there's not much else to do.. I mean, what would you do if you and your girlfriend were sitting around the house, and there was no Nintendo, Slashdot, or Back to the Future DVDs?

        .. And you probably wouldn't have the money to afford the condoms or birth control either.

    • Re:Fake Potato (Score:2, Informative)

      by MaverickUW ( 177871 )
      Okay, you're missing a few things here. I happen to work for a farm that supplies potatos to Frito Lay (occassionally up to a million pounds a day). If you saw the number of potatos that normally get rejected or filtered out for some reason, you could understand how this could be a good thing. Like many foods, potatos for human consumption have to meet certain requirements, and those used for stuff like chips have to meet even tougher requirements. As a result, many many tons of potatos are generally thrown out in some fashion or another. Many times they're sent to be mashed up for non-human use, so it's actually doubtful that the people doing this would actually use the human-consumable quality, as that's worth more than double what the really crappy quality stuff is, and the crappy quality stuff still has all the starch in it.

      Perhaps paying farmers for the crops they have to throw away will make more of them more willing to grow more food for feeding hungry people?

    • Well, now that they aren't using the plastic snow anymore they can just feed that to the hungry people.

      -
    • I wonder if anyone has considered using all of these potatos for any other purposes... like maybe feeding hungry people?

      They might even do it with the potatoes.

      Seriously, I think that everyone would be better served if you just took the money you were going to waste on a ticket to the movie with fake snow and donate it to the hungry.

      Waste is in the eye of the beholder, pal. Think of the man hours or energy or time on the set. Would you rather the producers spend more money on those instead?

  • ...Can you ski on it?

  • Tidbit from the History of Snow in Movies (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Paul Burney ( 560340 ) on Monday December 23, 2002 @10:17AM (#4944369) Homepage

    The movie "It's a Wonderful Life" [imdb.com] won a special Academy Award (Oscar) for its invention of a new way to make realistic looking snow for the movies (a kind of plastic/foam used by fire departments).

    Before that, movie productions used cornflakes painted white. They were loud, leading to sound problems that required redubbing. Moreover, they caused rodent infestation problems.

    I wonder if these potato starch snowflakes are going to cause problems simialr to ones the corn flakes caused?

    BTW, I learned this from an interview on the Motley Fool radio show [npr.org] last night:

    • Moreover, they caused rodent infestation problems.

      I wonder if these potato starch snowflakes are going to cause problems simialr to ones the corn flakes caused?

      The very first thing I thought of when reading the story was, "Won't that promote rampant mold growth?"

    • I looked outside and the ants are doing a victory dance.

      I live in Studio City (a suburb of L.A.) and there are movie shoots on my street all of the time (I live down the street from Captain Kirk).
  • Another benefit to these potato flakes is that they wouldn't be as harmful as the plastic ones if accidentally inhaled or ingested.
    • Another benefit to these potato flakes is that they wouldn't be as harmful as the plastic ones if accidentally inhaled or ingested.

      Yeah, but they might go strait to your hips, which to a star is worse than death.
  • A little bit of rain, and the set will turn into potato soup.

    [pictures Tara Reid floundering around in potato paste]

  • Packing Pea ^H^H^HPotatos (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    When you're unpacking all your mail order toys be on the lookout for this stuff. Back in the early 90's we got some supplies delivered to our Bio class in High School and the Packing Peanuts were made out of starch (not sure if it was potato). They look like the Cheese-Doodle type not the S-shaped. They're not as white as the polystyrene kind. If you wet your finger (lick it) and touch one it will be sticky/slimey. We disposed of them by washing them down the sink with warm water. Some spit (amylase digests starch) would prolly speed it up.
  • *Whips out the sour cream and chives, and sticks out his tounge*
  • Cook: "I don't understand why nobody is ordering potatos this week. Are they tired of them?"

    On another note, it reminds me of a Hieniken (sp?) beverage TV commercial. You see a view of an office building with bunch of snow falling from the sky to the xmas tune of "Let it Snow". On the first floor is a group of people enjoying a drink in a cozy pub. The camera then pans up to near the top floor and you can eventually see that the snow is really a bunch of documents being shreaded by a roomful of worried accountants. Closing caption:

    "To all those who have not been naughty this year: a Hieniken"

    Why don't the studios simply buy some Worldcom and Enron confetti?

  • How about rice? (Score:3, Informative)

    by jridley ( 9305 ) on Monday December 23, 2002 @03:58PM (#4946872)
    According to the DVD extras on the extended edition of Fellowship of the Rings, they used a rice product, not plastic. So apparently degradable fake snow is not exactly new.

    (wow, how's that for geek karma?)
  • ...Now that's an innovation!
  • Oh man, allmost christmas.. Im looking out and its allmost -15C outside. Aah and the snow. That wonderfull spongy foam. .ffm! WHAT ! SPONGY FOAM!?!?!

    Man i gotta lay off from that crack pipe for a while..

    Seriously. I wouldnt describe snow as spongy.. Nor foam. Having lived thru quite a few snowy days down here in finland where polarbears poo icycles.

    • Nice sig. Fooled me.
    • Seriously. I wouldnt describe snow as spongy.. Nor foam. Having lived thru quite a few snowy days down here in finland where polarbears poo icycles.

      Hurrah for finland!

      I'm writing from Canada, and I too think that "tv snow" looks nothing like real snow (except for the colour). But hey, it never snows in hollywood : )

      PS I never cared to check what polar bears poo...

  • So whey they smack someone in the face with a fake snowball on the set.. no need to freak out :)

  • What will the USA Drug Enforcement Agency think about making cocaine, known on the street as "snow" [demon.nl], from potato starch?

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