Fake Snow from Potato Starch

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."

Comments

Evil plot to off a superhero

[grammar nazi]

How will Iodine-man stay camouflaged if the snow is made of starch? Without Iodine-man's camouflage, the world is doomed!!!

Fake Potato

[Tin Weasil]

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

[exploder]

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

[bill_mcgonigle]

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?

Re:Fake Potato

[helix400]

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

Tidbit from the History of Snow in Movies

[Paul Burney]

The movie "It's a Wonderful Life" 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 last night:

A conversation with film historian Jeanine Basinger about the business behind the Frank Capra holiday classic. (14:40)

How about rice?

[jridley]

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?)